How to Respond When Your Numbers Are Questioned

Abstract

This article is about how to respond when your numbers are questioned by an auditor, a CFO or a board, and why the question can feel like a verdict on you. Four findings from research bear on it. A review of 208 laboratory studies found the largest stress-hormone changes and the longest recovery in tasks that were both uncontrollable and open to social judgment. In an experiment, people who had to answer for a position they were committed to spent most of their effort justifying it. A review of emotion regulation found that reframing a situation reduced emotion without harming memory, while hiding it did not. In a sleep study, 35 hours awake went with much stronger emotional reactions. The three steps at the end do not make anyone calm on demand, and they are not advice on audit or legal matters.

The question that arrives at 5:40 p.m.

The email from the audit senior lands at 5:40 p.m. on a Wednesday. "Could you walk us through the basis for the intercompany provision? The partner would like to understand it before Friday." This is what it looks like when your numbers are questioned: politely, in two sentences.

You know the basis. You wrote it in November. Still, your chest tightens, and you start a reply three times longer than it needs to be, with a sentence that begins "As we already explained". You send it at 11 p.m.

The next morning the controller asks a similar question in the corridor, and you hear an accusation. Nothing in either message accused you of anything. Year-End Close Stress in Finance: What Wears You Down describes the weeks around fieldwork. This article is about one moment inside them, the moment the question arrives.

Why a question about a number can feel like a question about you

Dickerson and Kemeny (2004) reviewed 208 laboratory studies of acute psychological stressors. They looked at cortisol and a second stress hormone. Tasks that were both uncontrollable and open to social judgment were linked to the largest changes in these hormones and the longest times to recover.

Look at the Wednesday email through that finding. Someone with the power to judge is examining your work, and you cannot control what they will ask next or what they will conclude. Both features are present. The studies used laboratory tasks, not audits, and they measured hormones, not feelings. So the link to your Wednesday is an inference. It may explain why a small question can produce a large reaction.

Defend or explore: what happens to your thinking

Tetlock, Skitka and Boettger (1989) tested a model of how people cope when they must answer to someone. It predicted three responses. People who know the audience's views and have not committed to a position tend to shift toward those views. People who do not know the audience's views and have not committed tend to think in more flexible, many-sided ways, which the authors called preemptive self-criticism. People who must answer for a position they are committed to spend most of their mental effort justifying it, which the authors called defensive bolstering. The experiment supported all three predictions.

Read the Wednesday email again with this in mind. After sign-off you are committed. The provision is booked, the pack is out, and your name is on it. In the model, that is the condition in which effort goes into defending. Before sign-off, the same question would have invited you to check the basis again.

This reading is an inference, and the study was an experiment, not a study of audit conversations. But it suggests that the trouble may not be the question itself. It may be answering a question about a position you have not rechecked.

What a short night adds

Yoo, Gujar, Hu, Jolesz and Walker (2007) studied 26 healthy adults aged 18 to 30. Half stayed awake for 35 hours and half slept normally. In the scanner, the sleep-deprived group responded more strongly to upsetting images, and in a press summary Walker, the last author, described the emotional centres as over 60 percent more reactive. The paper's title points to a weaker link between the amygdala, a region involved in threat responses, and the prefrontal cortex, which supports reasoning.

Thirty-five hours awake is far more than a short night in fieldwork week, and the task was looking at images, not reading an email. So the finding does not say how much your five hours matter. It does support a modest rule. If you can choose when to reply to the hardest question, choose a time after sleep, not 11 p.m.

Why a straight face does not help

A common strategy under questioning is to keep a straight face. Gross (2002) reviewed research on two ways of turning emotion down. Reappraisal means changing how a situation is construed so as to decrease its emotional impact. Suppression means inhibiting the outward signs of inner feelings.

In the review, reappraisal decreased emotion experience and behavioural expression, and it had no impact on memory. Suppression decreased behavioural expression but did not decrease the feeling. It also impaired memory and increased physiological responding, both for the person suppressing and for their social partners.

For the Wednesday, the practical reading is that a straight face may hide the reaction while the feeling stays, and memory of what was actually asked may suffer. The review drew on experimental and individual-difference studies, so it is a pointer, not a guarantee. Reappraisal is also hard to do in the middle of a meeting, which is why the first step below happens before you answer.

How to respond when your numbers are questioned: three steps

None of these removes the pressure. They aim at what the research points to: whether you are defending a position, and whether you can think and remember in the room.

1. Write the question as a request before you answer. Take two minutes. Write the question in one line, in plain words. For instance: "They want the basis for the provision and the document that supports it." If you cannot write it as a request for information or evidence, you may be reading it as a verdict. Changing the reading is the reappraisal described in the review. If you notice a tight chest or a hot face, How to Identify Your Emotional Triggers (And What to Do About Them) is a place to start.

2. Say what you know, what you will check and by when. Answer in three parts. For instance: "The basis is the November agreement. I want to check one calculation against the signed copy, and I will send both by 4 p.m. tomorrow." This keeps you from defending a position you have not rechecked, and it gives you the night. It is an inference from the experiment above, and it is not a way to avoid questions. If your company has rules about who speaks to the auditors, follow them.

3. Review the exchange the next morning, in ten minutes. After sleep, write four lines: what was asked, what was true, what was missing, and what you will do differently next time. If the number was wrong, correct it and say so. If the question was wrong, the document you checked in step 2 is a stronger answer than a defence from memory. This step is also an inference: none of the studies above tested it.

Questions People Ask

Why do I get defensive when an auditor questions my work?

Two things may be at work. Being examined by someone who can judge you is the kind of situation linked to the largest stress responses in laboratory studies. Answering for a position you have signed is the condition in which, in the experiment, effort went into justifying it. Neither explains every person, and some people react less.

How do I stay calm when my numbers are challenged in a meeting?

Steady is a better aim than calm. In the review, hiding a reaction left the feeling unchanged and was linked to worse memory, while reframing the situation reduced the emotion. Write the question as a request, say what you will check and by when, and let the rest wait. No technique guarantees calm.

Is it all right to say "I don't know yet" to an auditor?

"I don't know yet, and I will confirm by 4 p.m. tomorrow" is a different statement from "I don't know". It names the gap and the time. No study cited here tested the phrase. It follows from the finding that the costly move may be defending a position you have not rechecked.

What if the person questioning me is wrong?

Then evidence will say so better than a quick reply will. Step 2 gives you time to find the document and check the calculation, and to answer with what you found. Being right from memory at 11 p.m. is a weaker position than being right the next day with the file.

When it is more than a hard week

Nerves before a hard question are common. If every question feels like an attack for months, if you rehearse replies at night, or if you dread opening your email, this is a pattern, not a fieldwork problem. Burnout in Finance: Why High Performers Hit the Wall describes what that can look like when it builds. If sleep, mood or health are suffering, talk to your doctor. Coaching is educational support for work patterns. It is not treatment and not a substitute for it.

Sources

• Dickerson, S. S., & Kemeny, M. E. (2004). Acute stressors and cortisol responses: A theoretical integration and synthesis of laboratory research. Psychological Bulletin, 130(3), 355–391. DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.130.3.355

• Gross, J. J. (2002). Emotion regulation: Affective, cognitive, and social consequences. Psychophysiology, 39(3), 281–291. DOI: 10.1017/S0048577201393198

• Tetlock, P. E., Skitka, L., & Boettger, R. (1989). Social and cognitive strategies for coping with accountability: Conformity, complexity, and bolstering. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(4), 632–640. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.57.4.632

• Yoo, S.-S., Gujar, N., Hu, P., Jolesz, F. A., & Walker, M. P. (2007). The human emotional brain without sleep: A prefrontal amygdala disconnect. Current Biology, 17(20), R877–R878. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2007.08.007