Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Have you ever come across people, who do not like to listen to what you have to say just because they have this notion that they know it all.

Anytime you try explaining to them any concept or an idea, before you finish, they will respond saying “I know that”.

I wonder how much truth is in that statement, because their results speak otherwise.

My mentor says, such people use that phrase for one of the following reasons – 

• To protect themselves from being sold to any idea.
• To avoid making any kind of decision
• To not to commit.

There could be several reasons for it.

One of them being their experience of saying Yes in the past.

We all know that the past is not equal to future.

So how do we deal with people with that kind of attitude.

One of the ways I learnt from this author, Phil.M.Jones was

Question the knowledge on which other person’s opinion was founded

And the author further suggests using the “What do you know” way of questioning to make the other person more receptive to what is being told to him.

Some of the examples being –

What do you know of this industry and the trends that are impacting its growth?

What do you know about the product that I am here to share information about?

And questioning along such lines.

Notice it is the way you phrase your questions that will make the other person pay attention to you

as a result you will have better control of the conversation and hence the influence.

Will we have control over the outcome of such a conversation?

That is a debatable point.

The outcome of conversation may not be in your favour though with such people.

And it actually does not matter.

At least you will know that, what is the basis upon which they are holding on to such an opinion.

Have you faced such people in your work life?

How did you tackle them?

Please share in the comments box.