It depends...

If you ask someone: "Do you think you can complete all required tasks by this evening?" and the answer you get is "Well, it depends...", do you feel irritated? I would say most of us will answer "Yes", as it is not much different compared to not getting any answer at all!

This was one of the most valuable lesson I learned from Mark Saunders, the speaker of Presentation 4: "Actuaries and communication skills -- an oxymoron? Some thoughts and tips", during Jointly Regional Seminar 2011 recently held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (19-20 July 2011). I totally agree with Mark that "it depends" is a really bad answer that does not give any meaningful / value-added feedback to the person who is looking for answer - especially if we would like to make the CEO upset.

I posted Mark's "it depends..." in my Facebook and my friends shared with me other irritating ways of answering a questions, such as:

• "I will get back to you ..." which most of the time no feedback after the meeting ends.
• "See how things go..." which also have the same meaning as "I don't feel like giving you an answer now..."

OK... I admit I used to answer in these ways before and I already promise to myself I will avoid these words in the future. Oops... Is this how you upset your bosses as well?