“The great thing about this book, and the excellent insights of the writer Michael Dodd, is that it covers a lot more than just ‘dealing with' difficult questions. The practical tips, tools and advice help to turn difficult questions into great opportunities!”

Phil Jesson, Managing Partner at KAMguru – The UK's leading Key Account Management consultancy

“This book is the ultimate handbook for the modern leader for whom inspiring communication, conversation and story-telling skills are must-haves. Inside are two Golden Formulae that you can use to plan, prepare and practice and be ready to not just answer any tough questions well, but to be a standout communicator in all situations.”

Ian Berry, Mentor for Business Leaders and International Speaker on Leadership and Change

“Should I recommend Great Answers to Tough Questions at Work? That is an easy question – Yes. Why? As a CEO (also, husband, father, son) I have been asked tough questions that have stopped me in my tracks. Now, give me tough questions, I'm ready. Thanks Michael.”

Tony Meyer, CEO at Now Managed Learning Services

“Entertaining, insightful and packed full of practical tips, this book is a ‘must-have' for anyone in the public eye.”

Susan Cousin, Headteacher and Multi-Academy Trust Director

“If you are a leader in a high profile position, you must expect to be interviewed and challenged on a regular basis. Michael Dodd's book will be a great help to anyone finding themselves in such a position. This book emphasises the importance of carefully planning the messages you want to get across with well-prepared responses to the questions, thereby enabling you to remain in control of the situation.”

Sir Mike Hodgkinson, Chairman of Keolis (UK) Ltd, Deputy Chairman TUI AG

“If you want to out-communicate your competitors, out-smart everyone in your strategic communications and build competitive advantage this is a must read. It also comes with the additional benefit of enabling you to hugely improve your internal communications, resulting in higher levels of engagement and inspiring greater innovation and creativity amongst your team.”

Sir Eric Peacock, Chairman of Just Loans PLC; Non-Executive Director at United Kingdom Export Finance

“Michael Dodd has quizzed the best on six continents and all his experience, knowledge and stories are distilled in this brilliant book. He gives you his formulae for planning, preparation and practice so you're always ready for the toughest questions with answers that satisfy the questioner and place you in the driving seat.”

Barry Graham, Founder and CEO Speakers' Corner

“Employing well-crafted messages and powerful, amusing stories throughout his book, Michael Dodd practises what he preaches. Covering a wide spectrum of business situations from client relations to media crisis, Great Answers to Tough Questions at Work is immensely readable, highly practical and might just save your career and reputation.”

Jem Thomas, Director of Training and Innovation at Albany Associates

At some stage it happens to nearly all of us.

We're asked a question by the boss, a job selection board or a potential client – and we say something really stupid.

Or wrong.

Or self-defeating.

Maybe, on a bad day, it can even be a combination of all three.

And then you realize a short time afterwards what you should have said.

This human experience is so common, the French have an expression for it.

They talk about the annoying phenomenon of thinking up the perfect thing that should have come out of your lips all too late – while you're on the stairs leaving after that bruising verbal encounter: “L'espirit d'escalier”, otherwise known as “the spirit of the stairs” or “staircase wit”.

This book contains solutions to this and related problems.

It guides you on what you should say and how best to say it in challenging situations throughout your working life.

Whether you're asked “Why should you be promoted?”, “Why aren't there any pens in the stationery cabinet when I asked you to get some last month?” or “Why should I invest in your billion-dollar project?”, this book helps you formulate answers that are set to be more impressive, more reassuring and more inspiring than the ones you're giving now.

It gives you the techniques and the amazingly effective golden formulae for dealing with hard questions, nasty questions and stupid questions.

Drawing on my background as a broadcast interviewer, with training by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in the art of putting business leaders, politicians, officials and others under pressure, this book will show you how to stand up to what have been described as “blowtorch-on-the-belly” questions.

This is a technical term from the world of Australian politics – reputedly the place where dialogue is the most vicious in the democratic world.

It applies to situations where interrogators subject you to sustained, rugged, painful questioning – the kind you could expect in the most ferocious of media interviews for instance.

“Blowtorch-on-the-belly” questioning can also be deployed against you in the boardroom, in a career appraisal and anytime something's gone wrong and the finger of blame is pointing at you.

Doing badly when subjected to this kind of questioning can damage your career and even lose you your job.

Doing well through decisive, positive and uplifting answers can help propel you towards outcomes you want in the workplace and beyond.

As a media interviewer, I've watched some business leaders, officials and politicians set fire to their careers and public image by losing their tempers, their nerve and their dignity when put under pressure by myself and others.

I've also seen some of them do what the front cover of this book suggests and successfully put the fire out – sometimes seemingly with very little effort – and then inject powerful, positive ideas and visions into the conversation to move things in the direction they want.

One particularly memorable incident was when Britain's highly controversial Margaret Thatcher came to Sydney in the earlier years of her prime ministership. At the time she was administering harsh and unpopular cost-cutting medicine to the struggling economy of the UK. Our star tough-guy interviewer at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation couldn't land a glove on her as she gave him and our audience a stern lecture about the importance of the principle she called “sound money”.

There was much to throw at her about the initial negative side-effects of the medicine – and the tough-guy interviewer didn't hold back from this. Yet the aptly named Iron Lady steamed through the interview as if a battle ship were being harried by the smallest of mosquitos.

I noticed the same phenomenon – of some politicians, business leaders and officials doing remarkably well in challenging interviews and some doing remarkably badly – when I became a foreign correspondent.

Shortly before the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe, I got to subject the Polish Vice-Minister for Nuclear Energy in Warsaw to blowtorch-style questions about the dangers of communist-designed Chernobyl-era nuclear power stations in his country and the risk of another nuclear catastrophe in what was then the Soviet-dominated “Eastern Bloc”. These questions resulted in a string of nervous, bumbling answers that were put to air on the BBC World Service, making him and his reactors appear dangerously inept.

In contrast, amidst the anti-communist “Velvet Revolution” in 1989 in Prague, I and other foreign correspondents got to ask the leading revolutionary Václav Havel about whether he would seek the presidency of what was then Czechoslovakia. We were swept away by the smoothness and power of his impressively thoughtful and eloquent – though sometimes artfully non-committal – answers, which raised his standing and made it all the more likely that he would become president. He swiftly did.

When planning this book I have looked back analytically over all the interviews that I've been privileged to do around the world. It became clear that there was a massive difference between the way various people reacted to “blowtorch-on-the-belly” questioning.

Some would metaphorically collapse in a quivering heap under blowtorch-style questioning.

Others would sail through the interrogation as they might steer a yacht in a gentle breeze.

Eventually I discovered what made the difference.

It was largely down to planning, preparation and practice.

With the benefit of hindsight it was clear that some politicians, business leaders and officials had been successfully trained to deal with tough interview questions and had worked at perfecting their replies and their delivery style in advance.

Those who shone out in rigorous interviews had typically done some training or had effectively trained themselves.

It eventually became public knowledge that Margaret Thatcher had had intense coaching – on the recommendation of the Hamlet-playing acting maestro Lord Laurence Olivier no less. This was most evident in the way Mrs Thatcher lowered her voice to sound more authoritative as her career progressed. In fact, one coaching session was – embarrassingly – recorded, leaked and publicly broadcast in Australia, Britain and elsewhere. But it showed what a dedicated communications student she became.

As a playwright and one-time stage hand, Václav Havel was surrounded by actors and clearly appreciated the value of rehearsing for those big moments in the spotlight. No wonder he was so impressive when I and my fellow foreign correspondents sought to test him out while he was holding a press conference on the stage at one of the Czechoslovakian theatres that became a focal point during his theatrically choreographed revolution.

The more I looked at it, the more I discovered that the art and science behind giving great answers is a learnable skill – and that those who shone out worked in advance on their content, their structure and their delivery style.

There are ways of combatting the hottest of blowtorch-on-the-belly questions and turning them to your advantage. The methods for successfully dealing with challenging questions from media interviewers can also be adapted to the tough questions you can get in the workplace from all kinds of sources – prospects, clients, colleagues, shareholders and financiers.

And if world leaders can train to improve their answers, then so can everyone else in the workforce.

When I started working as a lecturer in broadcast journalism in British colleges and universities on my pathway to being an international professional speaker, I was invited into the fascinating world of media and communications training.

Public Relations (PR) firms and training companies would ask me to come in and rough up their clients in mock blowtorch-on-the-belly media interviews and other challenging professional conversations to see how they coped – and then work with me to help their clients perform more confidently at a higher level.

I got to witness how the PR experts equipped their clients to answer emotionally-charged questions, horrible questions and tricky questions. And I could utilise my own particular area of expertise coming from Down Under – really ignorant questions . . . the kind that can cause some people to explode with rage.

I began teaching and developing the methods and golden formulae myself in one-to-one coaching sessions, master classes and conference speeches – sometimes even to audiences of PR people themselves.

The techniques work with apprentices seeking to change jobs, sports professionals being interviewed ahead of their next match, and sales teams and business leaders wanting to grow their empires across a vast range of industries.

And I found the techniques highly useful when facing questioning myself, as I increasingly did in my role as an international broadcasting commentator and newspaper critic.

Having been interviewed hundreds of times as a newspaper reviewer and commentator on Sky TV, the BBC and Al Jazeera, I have found the techniques to be especially useful when I have been asked questions on subjects where the information I had was limited or non-existent. They were particularly helpful, for example, when the newspapers for reviewing arrived late in the studio and I would be asked to comment on an article that I hadn't had the chance to look at. At this point I would need to utilize the golden formulae in order to (hopefully) gracefully manoeuvre the conversation onto an article that I had actually had the chance to read.

These methods proved particularly useful during the years I appeared weekly on BBC Radio 5 Live's Nicky Campbell Show with fellow London-based foreign correspondents from Russia and America. Our role was to answer questions about what we were reporting on and to explain what was happening in our own countries to the British audience. The golden formulae helped with responding to the unpredictable queries we would sometimes field from callers to the programme – and also with questions from Nicky himself, who is a master at blowtorch-wielding and putting interviewees on the spot.

But blowtorch-style questions aren't the only ones that put interviewees under pressure. People can also fall apart when asked softer questions too, and this book will help with that as well.

When I was recruiting potential students for university places in London, some highly intelligent candidates would self-destruct on the most simple and obvious question: “Why do you want to do this course?”

And as when the law-bending US President Richard Nixon was famously being interviewed by Britain's charming David Frost – often more a gentle tickler than a blowtorcher – it was sometimes the less forceful questions that brought the most damaging, self-incriminating responses. For example, it was a relatively understated question that prompted Nixon to give his infamous answer: “When the president does it, that means it's not illegal.”

Tough questions are tough if they're tough for you. They can come to you in all sorts of forms.

Whether they lead you to drop the ball – or whether you hit them out of the park like a great cricketer or baseball player – is ultimately up to you.

What I hope you will find gratifying about using the techniques set out in this book is that they are based entirely on telling exact truths and nothing but truths.

Yes really!

It is true that some (not all) politicians abuse the formulae and misuse them in order to seek to avoid answering questions. But this is easily spotted by observant and discerning members of the viewing public (that probably includes you!).

Of course no one wants to resemble a question-evading politician when taking part in important conversations in the workplace, so this book will show you how to come across in a far more positive and helpful way.

When you know how to apply the techniques properly, you will be in a position to use truth as a highly effective weapon.

It will enhance your effectiveness, your confidence and your image.

The techniques will help you come up with the best possible answers to the worst possible questions.

If you know your stuff, you have a credible case and you can develop your ability to convey it, then the golden formulae will help you face up to challenging questions in all kinds of workplace situations – in meetings, job interviews, career appraisals, presentations, pitches to potential clients, price negotiations, as well as any form of public grilling.

This book will also help you know what to say when you don't know the answers, or when there is very little you can realistically say in particular circumstances – something I'm constantly asked about when helping those working in the world's growing number of call centres.

Part One contains easy-to-understand techniques and the golden formulae to help you with tactics, strategy and developing a winning approach to the tough questions you face now and will face in the future at work.

Part Two then shows how the learning can be applied to deal with the range of challenges and situations that commonly arise in various aspects of your working life, and where you need to be properly prepared and focused.

There are anecdotes and examples throughout, so you can picture in your mind how the techniques have succeeded and how you can make them work for you.

I've been blessed to have the opportunity to teach communications skills on six continents (Antarctica is still to come!). While minor adjustments to the approach may be needed in some parts of the world, I've developed and tested the techniques covered here across political and cultural boundaries – and for people at all levels in the workplace.

Giving great answers to tough questions at work is a learnable skill – for everybody everywhere.

The success of the methods explains why business leaders invite me to work with their people across hierarchies – from top teams, to sales and marketing teams, to technical operators and groups of emerging young stars.

The techniques enable those with an excellent case to get off the back foot onto the front foot. And they help those who have a less-than-excellent case to make the best of it – and to take action to enhance their case as well.

When you put the guidance from this book into practice, you will find yourself thinking less about the clever answers you should have given as you descend the stairs after losing verbal encounters, and starting to work out in advance the great winning answers to the tough questions you can often readily predict.

By boosting your answers, this book will make your life in the workplace more enjoyable, more effective and more successful. It will help enhance and protect your reputation.

It will be useful for anyone with ambition, who wants to be better equipped to make a difference at work and through their work.

And it will help you move closer to becoming what today's world of work needs more of – a game-changing inspirational communicator!

Here you'll find the tools you need in general terms in order to formulate and deliver great answers to those tough questions that can be fired at you at various times during your working life.

Part One introduces you to the play-to-win approach, which underpins the thinking throughout this book. Play-to-win here means, wherever possible, winning for you AND for the person asking you the tough questions – as well as for any additional audience in or outside the room.

This approach enables you to achieve a win/win or a win/win/win outcome, where you give answers that help you achieve your aims. At the same time, you'll provide your conversation partners and wider audience with the most useful, reassuring and inspiring things they need to know.

This part will equip you with, among other things, the two golden formulae for giving great answers to tough questions. These and other revelations can transform the way you view and take part in professional conversations now and in the future.

This is what routinely happens to participants who learn about the golden formulae in my communications-boosting master classes. When you understand the formulae, you tend to view verbal interactions involving you and those around you – and exchanges between others – in a different way.

You can see how those who are practiced in using the formulae – and those who have an instinct to act in line with them – come out better than others do time after time when they are verbally under scrutiny or under fire.

Knowing the formulae will help you become a better analyser of the conversational ecosystem around you. Putting the formulae into action in the workplace will propel you towards being a more successful player within it.

By the end of Part One you'll be set for what follows, where you'll be able to put these tools into action in a wide range of specific workplace situations both tomorrow and throughout your career.

So let's kick off now – and enjoy the first half of this two-part game that will empower you to operate more effectively, more wisely and more profitably in the vital world of workplace conversations by helping you and others achieve the outcomes you desire.