Lessons · Teaching · wait time and cold call
Wait time, cold call, and the hand that is always up
Ask the question, name nobody, wait several seconds, then choose who answers; hands up hands the lesson to the people who already knew.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
You asked the room a question, three hands went up inside a second, you took one, and the lesson moved on. Those three were fine before you asked. The twenty-seven you did not hear from are the lesson, and the fastest hand told you nothing about any of them.
How to think about it
Question, pause, name. Count the pause instead of feeling it: three to five seconds is unbearable from the front and roughly doubles the length and the quality of what comes back. Then choose the name yourself, warmly and predictably, so that being asked is ordinary rather than a punishment.
Worked example
Ask the question to the whole roomNo name yet. A name at the start lets everybody else stop thinking.
Wait 4 s, countedCounted, not felt. Four seconds of silence feels like twenty when you are the one standing up.
Name one personChosen by you. The choosing is what makes it everybody's question.
'Take that answer and add one thing to it'A second name on the same question. Two answers cost ten seconds and double what you learn.
Your turn
Three hands go up out of thirty. Write the line that gives the share of the room those hands represent, as a percentage.
3 / 30 × 100 = %
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Using cold call as a trap for somebody who was not listening. It works because it is predictable and safe, and the moment it becomes a punishment the room goes quiet and the tool is gone.