The person caught unprepared deserves a chance to recover before being judged completely.

Everyone has been caught without the answer, out of their depth, on a day that went wrong before it started. What that moment shows is the state someone is in, not the whole of who they are. Judgment made in the first thirty seconds tends to stick, and it is usually made about a person’s worst available minute.

Give someone who fumbles in front of you the next attempt before you decide anything. Ask a question that lets them get their footing rather than one that confirms the stumble. If it turns out to be a pattern, you will see the pattern soon enough.