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To Pee or Not To Pee?

November 14, 2011 in Communication, Interviewing, Strategy with 0 Comments

outhouse-wide

Is That a Powerful Interview Question?

A little humor around Behavioral Interviewing…

Last week I was teaching a class to hiring managers on how to ask Behavioral Based Interview Questions:  questions that give hiring managers the highest probability of getting useable information from the job candidate.  As I was going over the part about – all your questions need to be directly related to the job – not only to stay within legal guidelines, but also to give you directly relatable information (not to mention keeping a professional image of your company), one of my participants raised her hand.

She wanted to share one of her favorite questions, that didn’t fit within this guideline, but strongly felt that it was very effective.

Okay, please share.

I like to ask at the end of the interview, what animal is most like you?

zoo animals

Keeping my composure, I asked, “And what important information do you gain, by asking that question?”

Well, most of the answers feel so canned and contrived, so I want to shake things up and see how they think ‘out of the box’.

Ok, well…  if ‘thinking out of the box’ is a key requirement of the job, I can see how this might be of value.  BUT… how are you going to evaluate a good response from a poor response?  One person might say they are most like a eagle because they like see the big picture before they begin on the details.  Another might say I’m like a turtle, because I need to stick my neck out to make things happen.  Or I’m like a pig, because I love the color pink and I don’t mind rooting around and getting ‘dirty’ to get things done.  What criteria are you going to use to say an answer is good or poor?  Hmmm….

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Be Wacky – Helping Your People Un-Stick Their Thinking

February 4, 2011 in BrainPower, Problem Solving, Strategy with 0 Comments

wacky |ˈwakē| (also whacky)

funny or amusing in a slightly odd or peculiar way

eccentric, unconventional, uncommon, abnormal, irregular, aberrant, anomalous, odd, queer, strange, peculiar, weird, bizarre, outlandish, freakish, extraordinary; idiosyncratic, quirky, nonconformist, outré; way out, offbeat, freaky, oddball, kooky.

 Brain Ruts

Why do we get stuck in our ways of thinking, such that new possibilities keep eluding us?   Brain RUTs!  It’s as if the wagon wheels on our thinking trails, just keep carving deeper and deeper ruts.

Wagon Wheel Ruts

Try this to see how deep our “thinking ruts” are.

Ask people to give you a color, a type of furniture and a flower.  Did you hear a lot of red or blue, chair or table and rose or daisy?

Established patterns in our brains can be a good thing.  It helps us tie our shoes without thinking. It helps us attend to the whole and not have to painstakingly think about the parts.  It is why we can see the forest, and not just the trees. These patterns help us.  But sometimes these thinking patterns can get us stuck.  They can hinder us from finding that break-through idea.

Get out of the Rut:  Be Wacky!

Being WACKY can help us break out of our repetitive ways of thinking. Teams begin to see what was hiding behind their mental blinders when they take diverse, creative, and even silly perspectives. These out-of-the-ordinary perspectives can then be used to generate new paths of action.

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Reading about Leadership: If you really want to learn something, you need to do more than read about Leadership

February 2, 2011 in Philosophy, Reading, Strategy with 0 Comments

There is A LOT written about Leadership.  It’s overwhelming!  (And here I am adding to the pile with my blog)  Hopefully, my recommended reading will help focus your reading list.  I’m only going to recommend my favorites – those books and articles that have been helpful to me and those I teach on our journey to becoming better leaders.

And the added benefit of my reading list is it comes with Know How Notes.  Know How Notes are ideas about how you could apply what you are reading to your practice of Leadership.

Because let’s face it – just reading about Leadership won’t make you a better Leader – you actually have to practice the ideas that are suggested in what somanybooksyou read and incorporate them into how you lead.

Sometimes that can be pretty overwhelming, because there are a LOT of leadership ideas to try out.  Remember, becoming a great leader is a life long journey – you’ve got time.  As I tell participants in my leadership classes – it’s just one step forward (towards greatness) at a time.

So each of my book or article recommendations comes with an idea of how you could try out something in the book.  But you can create your own as well.  Here’s how…

1)  Read each article with an ‘eye’ for one idea that would strengthen your Leadership skills
2)  Think of how you would practice that idea – how you will practice, where you will practice it, when you will practice AND THEN TRY IT OUT
3)  After each practice – REFLECT:  What work well (what should I repeat), What will I do differently next time
4)  Practice again – 21 times until it becomes a habit – and the CELEBRATE your learning success
And finally – repeat these steps with your next Leadership Practice