A slower answer can contain more years of comparison than the questioner expected.

Speed is often mistaken for competence, but a pause can be the sound of someone running a question against thirty years of cases. The quick answer usually comes from one example. The slow one comes from several that conflict, and the delay is the work of deciding which of them this situation actually resembles. Impatience with that pause tends to select for confidence rather than accuracy.

When someone takes a moment before replying, wait without filling the gap. And when you are the one asked, allow yourself the pause instead of producing something fast enough to be reassuring and wrong.