From the Ask Tom Mailbag:
Question:
This new hire has me perplexed. In the interview, we described the exact problems this candidate would face and the response was quite good. The candidate’s prescription for solving those problems was right on point. Five weeks later, none of those problems are getting solved and we are way behind schedule. The customer just called. You get the picture.
Response:
And the candidate got your picture. Look, candidates do their homework. They visit your website. They read your trade magazines. You asked hypothetical questions and got textbook answers.
Don’t ask, “What would you do if?”
Ask, “What DID you do when?” Then go for details.
Candidates, when they come to work for you, are most likely to repeat their behaviors from the past. Even when, in the past, those behaviors were not successful.
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Tom the last line you wrote about repeating past behaviors really struck me this morning…
When working with managers who are part of the hiring process they also fall into that same loop. Unless they learn and apply some new skills and practices. In workshop I often start with the line “When the going gets tough…The tough default to their highest level of training or is it learning?” Reminding people as Jacques wrote – “If you dislike theory, and seek only “Practical action”; That is unfortunate. Anything you do is founded upon a theory of some sort, and eschewing theory merely means that your decisions are being misdirected by some bad theory which you do not know about.”
I am mixing lines here although this applies to the interviewer also and clearing the path is what you are doing. Thanks.