In my varied reading I keep seeing articles and blogs talking about the importance of assessing cultural fit, understanding management styles and approaches, etc., and they go on to recommend asking direct questions to obtain the information.
However, no matter which side of the desk you are on, direct questions will rarely achieve your goal.
Here’s why.
Direct questions contain the correct answer. In legal terms it’s referred to as “leading the witness.”
The following are examples from real interviews.
“We at XYZ believe that teamwork is a major factor in our success and are looking to hire more; are you a team player, Ms. Candidate?” The candidate responded that she believed that being a good team player was of paramount importance for a company’s success.
“I’m looking for an opportunity that will challenge me and a manager who will coach me so I can move to the next level; will I find that in the job you have open?” The manager responded that there were many opportunities for promotion and that he relished helping his people grow.
Both interviews continued along these lines, each person assuring the other that they fit the profile indicated by the questions.
In both cases the interviews resulted in offers and hires.
Neither one lasted six months.
What happened?
Did the candidate or manager intentionally lie or did they unconsciously say what the other person wanted to hear?
In most of the cases I’ve seen it’s the latter.
Candidates are encouraged to do what it takes to “get the offer,” while managers want to fill the position as quickly as possible and move forward.
People are smart and both go into the interview wanting it to work. The result is that they give the “right” answer, with little thought to the long term outcome.
The take away for you is to make this axiom part of your MAP, so it will guide your responses automatically, whether you are a manager hiring or a candidate interviewing:
Don’t lead the witness and don’t follow where the witness leads.
Ken Olsen, who, in 1986, Fortune magazine called “America’s most successful entrepreneur” has died.
That won’t mean much to many of you. In fact, many won’t recognize the name of his company, Digital Equipment Corporation, better known as DEC, or the minicomputer it built.
54 years ago Olsen used $70,000 seed money and built a company second only to IBM, with 120,000 employees working in 95 countries.
Ken Olsen may have been an autocratic manager, but his approach to people differed greatly from the norm of the time.
In Digital’s often confusing management structure, Mr. Olsen was the dominant figure who hired smart people, gave them responsibility and expected them “to perform as adults,” said Edgar Schein, who taught organizational behavior at M.I.T. and consulted with Mr. Olsen for 25 years. “Lo and behold,” he said, “they performed magnificently.”
What happened?
Olsen and DEC were brought down by the same attitude that almost killed IBM and is best summed up in Olsen’s own words.
“The personal computer will fall flat on its face in business.”
It is a lesson that entrepreneurs should learn: no matter how successful your company holding on to the present and ignoring or minimizing the changes in your markets can be a death sentence.
Olsen was ousted by his board because of that refusal to change after 35 years of success; six years later DEC was sold to Compaq (long before Compaq was acquired by HP).
There are many lessons to be learned from Olsen’s story, but one of the most important is found in his attitude towards people. Olsen always hired the smartest people possible, told them what he wanted and then got out of their way. He unequivocally believed that
In a speech to company managers, reprinted in The HP Way, Dave Packard perfectly summed up what makes Jane or Johnny run.
“People work to make a contribution and they do this best when they have a real objective, when they know what they are trying to achieve and are able to use their own capabilities to the greatest extent.”
I would add that “their own capabilities” means
being given full information and authority to get the job done, as opposed to
being forced to return again and again for clarification or having to constantly run to the boss to get something authorized.
The first approach is the one chosen by managers so confident and powerful that they work to hire people smarter than themselves, empower them and spend their energy developing them—knowing that they will either be promoted or leave.
The second approach is the choice of mangers who are weak and insecure.
In an NYT interview Michael Lebowitz, founder and C.E.O. of design firm Big Spaceship, passes on some excellent information on hiring, building a team and culture.
Here are two of the points with the greatest impact,
One of my longest-standing clients, a very smart guy, says: “There’s two ways to manage. You can hire to be the smartest person in the room or you can hire to be the dumbest person in the room.”
He says he works at being the dumbest.
And
“Don’t hire jerks, no matter how talented.”
Lebowitz says that there is no place for rock stars and I agree totally, unless you are naïve enough to believe they can function alone, without the cooperation, support and backing of the team.
I’ve seen many team members leave because their manager’s focus was so completely on taking care of his few stars that he had nothing left over for the rest.
One of the finest managers I know has had a team packed with stars everywhere he’s worked. Partly because his reputation is well known and talent flocks to work for him, but mainly because he passionately believes that most people have the ability to become stars, some brighter than others, and he manages them accordingly.
True, he works harder at managing than many and has been kidded by his peers about the lengths to which he goes, but he tells me he wouldn’t have it any other way.
I once asked him how he got to be that way and he said that he’d never done anything that he didn’t want from his own manager, so it wasn’t a big deal.
I couldn’t resist asking if he was managed the way he did manage.
His response was a smile and laugh and that just because he didn’t get it didn’t mean that he didn’t want it.
Charles Kettering was an inventor and if he had lived in the current era he would be one of those people loved by the media for great sound bites.
Education is important, but it should be kept in perspective, otherwise it can limit creativity, or, as Kettering says, “An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn’t take his education too seriously.”
“The opportunities of man are limited only by his imagination. But so few have imagination that there are ten thousand fiddlers to one composer.” I think these days, with education’s focus on standardized tests; it’s more like one in a hundred thousand.
Kettering knows people and their propensity to cling to the known and the comfortable, so he reminds us, “If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.”
As an inventor, Kettering is also very aware of the quickest way to stifle innovation, “If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it.”
In a philosophic mood, Kettering reminds us of one of the great perks of living here, “In America we can say what we think, and even if we can’t think, we can say it anyhow.” True as that is, I sure wish people would do more thinking!
Finally, something that touches us all and that there is no getting away from, “We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.”
Today is a bit different from the typical Expand Your Mind because all three articles are about Google.
Assuming you live on Earth and don’t exist in an alternate reality you’ve been inundated by the news that Larry Page is assuming the CEO mantle at Google. More as a corollary, an article at HBR offers up a look at the need for and different approaches to “adult supervision” at Apple, Google and Facebook.
Next is an in depth look at six of the top people responsible for executing Page’s visions and pronouncements.
Google does many things superbly and the rest very well, but even Google is subject to its own variety of “not invented here” syndrome.
“We hope someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world’s problems.”
Seven years later it hasn’t accomplished much, although the initiative isn’t dead.
Part of the problem is that Page, who championed the effort, moved on to focus on other things, but that isn’t the main reason.
Call it Google myopia, but it’s difficult for Googlers to accept that not all problems can be solved with an algorithm, especially when the problems involve nature and/or wetware (AKA, people).
I get a lot of stuff by email from people I know, as do you, and every so often I get something worth sharing here.
I hope you give it some thought before consigning it to the seniors in your life, because the underlying philosophy is valid for you at any age.
I can’t find who wrote it, so we’ll give credit to our old friend Anon, a very prolific fellow—or gal as the case may be.
I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, and my loving family for less grey hair or a flatter belly. As I’ve aged, I’ve become kinder to myself, and less critical of myself. I’ve become my own friend. I don’t chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn’t need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.
I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.
Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon? I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60 & 70’s, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love……I will.
I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set. They, too, will get old.
I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things.
Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody’s beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.
I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning grey, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face.
So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.
As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don’t question myself anymore. I’ve even earned the right to be wrong.
So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day (if I feel like it).
May you have the courage and strength to live your life on your terms, because in doing so you will truly set yourself free.
However, when it comes to the actual interview many managers and candidates view it as an adversarial function, which is, in fact, ridiculous.
Managers and candidates have the same goal—or they should have.
Interviews are occasions to find out if a candidate is right for the hiring manager, the team and the company; just as important is for the candidate to find out if she will be challenged and thrive in that environment.
In other words
Managers want a person who shares the company’s values, will strengthen the team and can make real contributions to its success.
Candidates want a place to contribute meaningfully, where the culture is synergistic with their own values and where they will continue to grow.
Same goal, different perspectives.
One part of the problem is that candidates are nervous and today’s economic turmoil increases normal interview jitters.
The other part is that the people doing the interviewing may not be very good at it or, worse, actively dislike doing it.
Here is one thing you do to help your candidates be comfortable enough to openly discuss who they are, what they can do and contribute and why they want to do it in your company.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
In my varied reading I keep seeing articles and blogs talking about the importance of assessing cultural fit, understanding management styles and approaches, etc., and they go on to recommend asking direct questions to obtain the information.
In a speech to company managers, reprinted in The HP Way, Dave Packard perfectly summed up what makes Jane or Johnny run.
In an 
Today is a bit different from the typical Expand Your Mind because all three articles are about Google.
Last week we talked about the 
