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Yep, in other words it's called true confidence, having genuine experience in the task at hand. It's something that can't be faked.
People fake it all the time though.
True confidence produces results.
Don't speak. People fill voids and awkward situations by saying stuff, even if that stuff is wrong. It's OK to be quiet. It's also OK to say 'Let me think about that'. Lose some arguments. And unless the situation you are in that requires a quick decision is life or death, it probably doesn't need one.
> Don't speak. Great advice. Nothing shows confidence more than asking a question and then waiting for answer. Let the awkward silence sit. And when you do speak, keep answers short and to the point. It also conveys confidence. Anytime I see/hear someone rambling in email/on meeting, I know they are not confident in what they are saying.
I'd argue its far better to say something like, "Good question. I need to think about that for a minute" rather than just sit there saying nothing at all after being asked something. I know a few engineers who do that and while their answer is normally fine, the awkward silence makes me and others question their social skills. Not their intelligence.
I know other engineers who do the same thing but say, "Let me think about that for a minute" and I've never heard of anyone questioning their ability to think quickly or social skills.
What you are suggesting is not wrong, its just a bit.. rude? awkward? Why impose that feeling on others when a clarifying sentence can prevent it?
Don't speak. People fill voids and awkward situations by saying stuff, even if that stuff is wrong. It's OK to be quiet. It's also OK to say 'Let me think about that'. Lose some arguments. And unless the situation you are in that requires a quick decision is life or death, it probably doesn't need one.
> Don't speak. Great advice. Nothing shows confidence more than asking a question and then waiting for answer. Let the awkward silence sit. And when you do speak, keep answers short and to the point. It also conveys confidence. Anytime I see/hear someone rambling in email/on meeting, I know they are not confident in what they are saying.
The best impromptu speakers, who can carry debates and thrive on off the cuff arguments, in my experience were full of shit. When I critically look at what they said, it usually boiled down to: (a) if you're not with us, then you are against us (b) you just need to believe, work harder, and stop complaining.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Don't speak. Great advice. Nothing shows confidence more than asking a question and then waiting for answer. Let the awkward silence sit. And when you do speak, keep answers short and to the point. It also conveys confidence. Anytime I see/hear someone rambling in email/on meeting, I know they are not confident in what they are saying.
> Let the awkward silence sit. I'd argue its far better to say something like, "Good question. I need to think about that for a minute" rather than just sit there saying nothing at all after being asked something. I know a few engineers who do that and while their answer is normally fine, the awkward silence makes me and others question their social skills. Not their intelligence. I know other engineers who do the sa…
Nobody paid attention to that interviewer, but they're probably not the only one in the panel to have that (wrong, in my opinion) reaction -- just the one to voice it.
This is something that's easy to have an opinion on so you're going to get buried. I'll do my best to make a high-signal comment here, but it will be drowned by all the other replies, which also likely touch on these points. First, "slow-thinking" is really just a different way of expressing your thinking and you should begin by leaning into it rather than leaning away. Take time, allow yourself to pause to collect y…
> Finally, do your best to avoid situations where a "quick decision" is needed; this is good advice even for "quick thinkers". Fast decisions are often poor ones - the counterpoint to that is dragging something out over many weeks or across many meetings - but putting yourself in a situation where the unknowns become knowns or the scope of the landscape and weight of the decision can be properly assessed is important…
There are a lot of other good answers here. My 2c: People will use all kinds of tactics to get their way. Putting you under time pressure, bombarding you with a stream of precise facts and figures, making you feel slow and stupid and out of sync; these are all just ploys used by a hostile counterparty to influence your decision making. You need to learn to recognize these tactics for what they are and develop counter…
As other commenters have mentioned, I’ve noticed that people generally tend to fall into one of two groups: those who think out loud and those who process internally. (And I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or not, but almost all of the managers I have had in my career have been the former.) I tend to think internally, and while I usually have a clear vision in my head of how a system works, if I try to translate tha…
In software engineering, I've found that this is very common. And if I look at what successful senior engineers have in common, it's that they've mastered a way to present complex technical information in a way that's easily understood. It's a super power.
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100%. Preparation is key. I never walk into a situation that matters without going over a ton of different paths the conversation could go. Even if the conversation goes down a path I didn't prepare for, the preparation was still helpful. Preparation looks like quick thinking, but it's not. It also very valuable at keeping your emotions in check, avoiding one of the common reasons conversations go off the rails.
My favorite line lately is: "Fail to prepare? Prepare to fail." Nothing against failing as both outcomes are good learning scenario, though I think, def favor preparing for the most interesting failure is probably the best outcome.