When you give a presentation, you’re in charge; when it comes to the Q&A session, the audience is in charge. Here’s what to do when you expect difficult, possibly hostile, questions:
1. Prepare in advance appropriate responses to every possible unpleasant, hostile question you can think of.
2. Later, when actually answering audience questions, always pause before giving every answer even when you can give an immediate response. The audience gets used to your pausing pattern. If you get a zinger, a pause won’t telegraph the fact that you are grappling with a difficult question for which you aren’t prepared and this time really do need extra moments to think.
Source: Karen Berg & Andrew Gilman with Edward P. Stevenson, Get to the Point: How to Say What You Mean and Get What You Want (Bantam: New York)