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Handling a GD when you don’t understand the topic
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There are times when a GD topic rings absolutely no bell in your head. What do you do in such a situation?
- By Ashima Sekhri
What do you do in a situation when you’re among 8-10 people in a Group Discussion with a 2-3 member panel judging and you don’t even understand the topic? Kaustav Mehta, a student at one of the IIMs was stumped, “I got quite a few interview calls. During one of my GDs, the topic I got was ‘Pink Pyjamas flying high on the Red Fort’. Needless to say I was stumped; I didn’t know what to make of the topic. And what made me further nervous was that everyone around me seemed to totally get it and were talking comfortably on the topic. That made me really nervous.”
There are times when a GD topic rings absolutely no bell in your head. What do you do in such a situation?
- By Ashima Sekhri
What do you do in a situation when you’re among 8-10 people in a Group Discussion with a 2-3 member panel judging and you don’t even understand the topic? Kaustav Mehta, a student at one of the IIMs was stumped, “I got quite a few interview calls. During one of my GDs, the topic I got was ‘Pink Pyjamas flying high on the Red Fort’. Needless to say I was stumped; I didn’t know what to make of the topic. And what made me further nervous was that everyone around me seemed to totally get it and were talking comfortably on the topic. That made me really nervous.”
Don’t panic
The key to survival in this situation is to
not panic. More importantly don’t let the panic show on your face;
after all, a good manager never lets stress get to him and must stay
calm and cool under all circumstances.
Don’t start
There is often a misconception among students that
if one starts the GD and is the first one to speak s/he is sure to get
in. The strategy of speaking first is a ‘high risk high return’
strategy. So if you are speaking first, remember that you are bringing
a lot of focus upon yourself, thus making it critical that what you say
makes complete sense and is relevant to the topic at hand.
Listen carefully
“I was once a part of a GD where the topic was ‘The negative impact of India joining the WTO’.
There was one guy in the GD who was so eager and enthusiastic to be the
first one to speak that he started speaking almost as soon as the topic
was announced. The only problem was, that in his hurry to be the first
to speak, he didn’t hear the topic carefully and started talking
aggressively about how India has benefited from joining the WTO. Within
30 seconds, he was torn down by the others who mocked him for talking
contrary to the topic. He ended up looking foolish and I’m sure he
didn’t get through eventually,” says Kunal Bidani, alumnus of the
London School of Business.
In a factual topic
If you happen to have a difficulty understanding a
GD topic which is factual by nature, then there’s little you can do
about it once you are inside the GD. The best thing to do at this point
is to listen carefully. Let other people get into the discussion and
don’t spend this time wondering what you should do or how others are
performing. Use this time to understand and absorb the meaning of the
topic.
If you have been able to grasp the meaning by doing
this and it turns out that you do know something about the topic being
discussed, then jump at an appropriate juncture and display your
knowledge. Always remember that when a panel gives a factual topic,
they are looking to judge you on your general knowledge.
“If after hearing the discussion for a while, you
still don’t know much then unfortunately you have to recycle what you
have heard. It may be a hard thing to do and in fact you might think
it’s pointless, but you have a choice between doing something pointless
and not even having a chance at being selected for the next round by
the panel,” adds Kunal. You have to speak in a confident manner in good
language for you to even have a chance at making it through in the GDs.
In an abstract topic
When the topic is abstract and you don’t know what
to make of it, then remember that everyone is in the same boat. The
beauty of an abstract topic is that it is totally open to
interpretation and there is no real right or wrong argument. There are
two ways of dealing with a topic like this.
One way is to turn it into a question by adding
words like ‘who is’ ‘what is’ ‘why is’ ‘when is’ etc. before the topic.
This is applicable to abstract topics such as Red. When the abstract
topic is elaborate like ‘Red Pyjamas Flying on top of the Red Fort’,
then try breaking it up. So look at it as Pink Pyjamas + Flying on top
+ Red Fort. Then try to associate each of the parts to real life. For
e.g. ‘Pink Payjamas’ is likely to denote ‘women’, ‘flying on top’ means
‘making a mark’ and ‘Red Fort’ probably means ‘something of
significance’. So one interpretation of this topic would be ‘women
making a mark in significant aspects in life’.
Go on, don’t panic and listen carefully, and you can discuss almost any GD topic in the world. Happy discussing!
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