Handling non-committal answers and statements of opinion as fact

Factual Questions
1

In both business and politics, non-committal and irrelevant answers are very common. If an office worker asks their manager if they’re allowed to do online banking with company computers on a break, they might be reminded of the company IT policy and told that last year the company lost $400,000 in revenue due to inappropriate use of IT resources. This is a non-committal answer, since it doesn’t answer the worker’s question. (In this case, the real answer is yes, but the manager can’t say that.) Or, if a politician is asked how he plans to create jobs, he might say that he plans to reduce classroom sizes, and that the best way to create jobs is to educate our children.

Not answering the question one was asked is just one form of non-committal answer. Something like “we’ll have a report in two weeks” or “the marketing department is working really hard to increase our sales” in response to why sales are down would also be in this category.

The other annoying answer I want to address is the statement of opinion as fact. If an answer starts with “The reality of the situation is…” or “The truth of the matter is…” or something like that, you can be quite sure it’s going to be opinion, and the idea is to mislead the audience into thinking it’s fact.

Now, what I want to know is how these sorts of answers should be addressed. Clearly, business managers and politicians learn how not to answer questions on the record. They might also learn what to do if an employee or opponent doesn’t answer their question. So, what are some ways of doing this that won’t offend or anger someone?

2

I had a supervisor who would avoid answers, and so would one of his pets. I would just ask the question (perfectly legitimate ones) again in the same normal relaxed tone of voice, and again…

It did annoy them. But sometimes your job requires you to get the answer.

I tried (on my father), “That’s a non-responsive answer”. He said, indignantly, “That was not a non-responsive answer!” I had to pursue that one elsewhere.

When they get vague you could then say, “OK, I take it I can do XXX then”. And see if they get crisp about it. It may be more likely to work for you if you don’t say that out loud, you just do the XXX, and if they call you on it, you say, “Well, I asked the manager about it, and he didn’t say I couldn’t”.

I think the experienced employee just does it without asking, and if he gets stopped, well he gets stopped.

Someone with more illuminating responses will be by shortly.