Hi all. Every now and then, we all find ourselves on the back foot, caught out by a surprise comment or remark, or otherwise put in a difficult position. When you find yourself stumped for words at the exact moment in time, it's helpful to have a stockpile of generic phrases that you can use to bail you out of a situation. Please share your thoughts and suggestions and any other ideas for this kind of thing.

Whenever I am completely lost and out of my depth I usuaully say "Well, we at Mckinsey believe..." and no matter what I say seems to be taken as insightful genius.

I have always found "that would be an ecumenical matter" very useful. (google it)

In what context?What do you think?I'm not sure I follow. Would you mind expanding on that?And could you also give me an example?What answer would make you happy / give you what you need?---------------------------------If you want to practice this, do it inside your head when you're sitting in on a meeting or conference in an observer role: imagine that each question asked is being directed at you, and practice batting these away as boundary shots. If you do this Watching Question time or Paxman at home, hit the mute button after the question and you can practice this out loud. Makes it realistic since you probably won't know the answer to most of those questions.

I agree, but conversely...

I don't have that information to hand but i would suggest...I'm probably not best placed to answer this but i think...

It depends

PA Consulting are the only truly independent consultancy with the scale and the track record to assist you in this transformation(Best delivered to some idiot public servant, who is more interested in flexitime and holiday allowance than the topic in hand)