Welcome back to the look and sound of leadership, an ongoing series of executive coaching tips

designed to help you be perceived in the workplace the way you want to be perceived.

I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach, and today we're talking about how to answer questions powerfully.

Devon was completely non-defensive about the feedback.

His boss, Bianca, had been plain with her admiration.

She found him level-headed, far-sighted, and good with people.

She was equally clear about a specific area of development.

Devin needed to get better when he answered questions.

When Devin got asked a question, he started spewing words, and people tuned him out.

Bianca didn't want people tuning him out.

In our first conversation, he told me,

I don't always know I'm doing it while I'm actually doing it, but afterwards,

he gave a smile.

My wife has a sister, Kathy.

Whenever she calls, my wife just puts the phone on speaker and keeps on doing whatever she was doing because Kathy is a talker.

When I give one of those answers, my wife tells me, you're doing a Kathy.

And usually I can see that I did.

I said, but you don't know while you're doing it.

I do sometimes, he said, when I nervous. "'Like in front of the board.

"'I feel myself throwing out this wall of words

"'like some sort of shield.

"'I know I'm doing it then, but I can't stop.'

...