Get your facts right!

This is the response of the Governor of the Bank of England recently when a journalist dared to suggest his thinking on forward guidance was muddled:

“Muddled? You’re muddled I’m afraid. We’ve had two phases of forward guidance that we’ve given. The first phase is exactly as you described – 7 percent threshold at a point where we thought there was considerable excess supply in the economy. In February we put in place the next phase of forward guidance and that next phase, as we said in our last minutes, as we said in our previous minutes, as we said in the April minutes, as we said in the March minutes, as we said in the February inflation report and the February minutes, that guidance is entirely consistent.”

I suspect that journalist may think again before challenging Mark Carney to explain his “muddled” thinking!

What interests me about this exchange is not how the Governor responded but how he got into the position to be able to fire off a memorable response like that in the first place. All the evidence points to the fact that the Governor had his facts very much at his fingertips. He was completely relaxed, in command, and as a result, was able to fashion a stinging reply with detail, repetition and a crescendo effect. He would certainly not have been able to do that had he been scratching around for relevant facts to fire back at the unfortunate hack.

Of course, we can’t all be as articulate as the Governor of the Bank of England. Luckily, by the same token, we don’t all have to soak up the kind of pressure he is subjected to. However, I would suggest we can all apply some of the principles at play here and use them to good effect in any business.

In today’s business world it sometimes seems we value speed and appearance of response over accuracy and quality of content. It might feel terribly out of date now but who can deny the continuing validity of that old expression – failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

Subject matter expertise (SME) is not something anyone in business can afford to ignore but a little practice and a few hours homework can make it a lot easier to grasp than you might have thought.

There are few things more impressive or memorable in the world of business than someone who really knows their stuff and can manipulate content to achieve their goals. It’s motivating of course in itself and there is a great deal of satisfaction to be had from mastering a brief and operating seemingly on automatic pilot. With the confidence that comes from knowledge, it’s possible to relax, get into a controlling position and drive your business to where you want it to go.

As in the words of the well-known advert – don’t you just love being in control!