I definitely think so. I started my career in the financial industry and stumbled into a position that required me to attend mutual fund board meetings at 25. As the youngest person in the room by at least 20 years and the only woman it was hugely intimidating to me. It was also immensely frustrating. They would ask a difficult question of me (as good board members do) and if it wasn't a question I had anticipated I would freeze, blubber out some sort of halfwitted response, and hope they'd quickly turn their attention elsewhere. Later I'd get angry at myself because if I hadn't panicked I knew I could have given a much better and more valuable response. Complaining about my frustration one day a colleague suggested improv classes to me and they were HUGELY valuable for this exact reason. It taught me that I can take a moment to gather my thoughts and nothing bad would happen. It also taught me that I could decide where a conversation was going instead of being dragged along for the ride while my brain tried to work out the details. I often tell people it taught me how to "think faster" but perhaps it's more accurate to say it taught me how to react slower and think more deliberately.
>It taught me that I can take a moment to gather my thoughts and nothing bad would happen.
One high-level exec at IBM had a habit during the Q&A at analyst meetings of writing down questions on index cards before answering. He partly did this as a process of making sure he understood the question. I'm sure it was also his way of taking a bit of time to collect his thoughts.
Preparation is hugely important of course. And sometimes the correct answer to a question is "We'll get back to you on that." But it's also incredibly useful to be able to deal with curveballs whether it's an unexpected question, an A/V meltdown, or a demo failure.
That's really interesting. I'm always nervous that taking too long to respond will make me look incompetent but if I was in the room and someone calmly took the time to write a question down I think my impression would be "wow, they're so in control" because they aren't bothered by silence.
