Q = A + M

(Less than 3 minutes read) 

When I was with The Men’s Table we did some media training that stuck in my head. It was a simple, brilliant solution of what to do when you are in a difficult situation with the media.  The person doing the training gave us a situation where something really bad had happened and The Daily Telegraph were knocking at the door wanting blood for their readers to lap up. What do you do? It is tricky as you have to make sure you do not make the situation worse. 

He gave us a simple equation Q = A+M, Question = Answer + Message. It is something that politicians use all the time. Somebody asks you a tricky question, you answer and then tack on your message to the back of the answer. What the person answering is doing is listening to the question, answering and then making sure they get their message across. After the answer they could use a phrase such as “Let me remind you that (insert message here)” This makes sure that it is not just the bad stuff being talked about.  

The first bit that needs to happen here is listening, what has the journalist asked you? What do you need to respond to directly? Make sure you are listening as the question could be a zinger especially designed to throw you off course. You better be listening and a wrong answer could inflame everything.

I recently watched a clip of the new American Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt answering a question from a journalist that she obviously did not like. The journalist asked the question and Leavitt completely skipped over the answer and moved straight to the message, again and again. The journalist vainly tried to bring her back to the question,  however, she persisted in talking over him, almost shouting. There was no listening from her, none, she had a message and forced it down everybody's throats. She then moved on to a more friendly journalist. Just to be clear I’m not being political here, politicians of most colours are guilty of this. Leavitt had no intention of listening, no intention of answering and every intention of repeating the message. The equation I saw there was Q=M-A, (Question equals message minus answer) not Q=A+M (Question equals answer plus message) 

This can happen in life when people ask hard questions, people don’t listen or try to avoid the difficult topic. 

Q=A+M is such a simple thing to remember and can be used in so many places. However, the first thing that needs to happen before you shoehorn your message in, is listening. Listen to the question and, listen to answer the question then you can add in “I’d just like to add….”

Try Q=A+M, not Q=M-A it tends to go nowhere.