Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?

It might help you to think about levels of abstraction rather than speed of thought.

Learn to walk up and down an abstraction tree of your thoughts.

Quick for me in this context looks like high level conversation without details, so learn to keep things high level, and think in three branches maximum of the first level of that tree.

Also find common context, usually this is where I find conversations get lost, sometimes listening and gathering the other person context is way more important that stress yourself to be quick.

And just be honest, people appreciate that too.

So my "quick" thinking reply to you, are these three branches of a tree that could go wider and deeper but I would start the conversation like this.

- Think about abstraction levels rather than speed, one level deep and three branches wide.

- Listen to gather common context and fill your gaps.

- Be honest

This question speaks to the biggest communications battle I have had for the past 20+ years in my career.

I have a coworker that uses his quick talking ability to manipulate, accuse and scam his way through meetings and his daily work. He is management level (so am I) and it's impossible to have reasonable discussions for many reasons.

My solution:

I graciously communicate in a professional manner, work properly with this person as a normal work flow. I listen and give my feedback and this works really well to make the day go smoothly for both of us and anyone else in the area.

After any encounters with this person, I think about what happened, I make some notes about the events (date stamp it as well) and then let it sit in my mind until the next day at a minimum.

I have found that after doing this, I realized what really happened, (if I was tricked or manipulated or not) and then I do all of my responses in email.

I do not even try to do it verbally. In fact I have told this person and upper management, that I am not comfortable talking about events _because_ I am do not have quick responses to ward off the manipulations (I don't call it this to upper management though).

I state plainly that I do not want confrontation, and I just want to do my job, and I get too emotional and can sometimes communicate poorly verbally.

This is a reasonable statement, and I no longer have to replay my conversations when things go wrong, because I do it all in writing.

This has had the side benefit of causing this bully to back down, because he has relied on hiding behind clever wording and phrasing that I could not counter. And because I am being very open about my responses, he knows he would have to do the same if we wants to respond and his true motivations and intent would be revealed.

So I am now simply happier at work. I hope this helps some.

This is all great advice. One thing I would add to this is to deliberately steer your team to avoid making big decisions on calls or in meetings. Instead, make it so that your team prioritises asynchronous communication methods to discuss the lay of the land, and only make decisions after everyone has had time to contribute to the discussion.

I've found that creating a shared document or flowchart can work wonders if key team members engage and build upon it. And once everyone has said their share you can then have a meeting to discuss how to progress. I've found this method to work well as you can take your time to reply to suggestions and comments and research them better. It also removes and element of emotionality from the decision making: everyone can see the suggestions and counter points, but the conversation is often less defensive and more considered as people have time to second guess themselves. So by the time you hold the meeting the benefits and drawbacks of the contending options in meeting your goals are clearer.

I loathe talking to people who rehearse the conversation ahead of time. They invariably don’t respond to what I actually said but rather change what I said to line up with what they practiced in the mirror. Or they say some version of “I expected you to say foo, to which I would have responded bar”. Cool story, but totally irrelevant.

If you don’t have an answer at the time just say so and follow up later. Waiting for your turn to talk is disrespectful and painful to watch.