I really appreciated when a professor, when asked with a question he doesn't know, stops trying to answer and says something in the lines of "I actually don't know the exact answer, I'll try to find and answer and tell you next lesson"
I still remember my first discussion with a CEO in my first job as a programmer (not even out of uni yet). My project was delayed because of a buggy installer and I had problems reproducing the issue.
I was am repeatedly asked "how long until the fix" and I kept saying "I don't know, it's a bug, can take 2 hours can take a week".
We both left this conversation frustrated. Though of course for her it was business as usual, and for me it's still awkward and stressful when I think back to it.
Anyway this taught me to confidently state something like "this will take three days" instead of trying to convey uncertainty to the higher management.
The one good thing that came out of this maladapted behaviour is that I learned to take my hunch, piece together the information, and then use that to go looking for what I didn't know. In a way it got me addicted to constantly learning, something I never managed in school.
The hard part is articulating to someone to slow down because we run the risk of them being offended. But that’s a different thread altogether.
I think there are intelligent extroverts that just aren’t really that worried about if their opinions are correct or not except in rare cases where the consequences of being wrong would be severe.
- use big words
- speak with utmost confidence
- if you can't convince, confuse