Tag Archives: manager

How to Hire for Attitude

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“To heck with the technical skills,” Jena proclaimed. “I am just going to hire for attitude.”

“The skills required are easy enough to teach, and you have a good training program,” I agreed. “But how will you interview for attitude? Specifically, what attitude will you interview for?”

“Oh, that’s easy. I want someone with a sense of urgency. I am tired of hiring people who feel like they can take all day to produce a single unit when I need 15 units produced. I am tired of people who feel like we push them too hard. We work hard here. I want someone who likes to work hard.”

“I think I understand,” I nodded. “Just exactly what questions will you ask to find that out?”

Jena looked stumped and then smiled. “I have no idea.”

“Well, that’s a start. If you did have an idea, what question would you ask?”

Jena shook her head and chuckled. “I guess, I could ask them if they like to work hard?”

“And how do you think the candidate would respond?”

“Unless they are an idiot, I guess they would answer – yes. And if they were truly an idiot, they would not have made it to the interview. That means every candidate will answer – yes.”

“Then, is that a helpful question?” I probed. “Can you think of a better question? A more specific question? A question about something real? A question about a behavior that you can observe?”

“But, I am trying to hire for attitude. You can’t see attitude,” Jena protested.

“I know you cannot see attitude, but ask yourself this question. How does someone, who likes to work hard, behave? How does someone, with a sense of urgency, behave? Then interview for that behavior.”

“Someone who likes to work hard, shows up early,” Jena started. “And they work at a pace that gets the work done. They are aware of pace. They don’t stop every half hour for a smoke break. They keep working until the job is done. They don’t quit, they don’t leave a project half finished thinking someone will come along behind and complete their work.”

“Now we are getting somewhere. You cannot see attitude, but if you can connect attitude to specific behaviors, you can certainly ask questions about those specific behaviors. So, let’s hear some questions. First establish the project.”

Jena gathered her thoughts. “Tell me about a time when you worked on a project where the deadline was very important. What was the project? What was the purpose of the project? What was your role on the project team? What made the deadline so important? How did your team respond to make sure you met the deadline? Step me through the pace of the project? How did you know you were ahead of schedule or behind schedule? When you were behind schedule, what did you do? When you were ahead of schedule, what did you do? As you got to the end of the project, what planning did you do to button up the last stages of the project? Step me through that plan? How did you know you had completed all the final details on the project? How was the project reviewed, by your manager, or the client? Step me through the review process?”

Jena stopped. “Okay, I like those questions,” she said.
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How to Build Trust

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“What do you mean – No surprises?” Rachel quizzed. “My team member must know that this conversation is coming. Everyone is constantly correcting his mistakes, making him do re-work.”

“So, you want to keep him guessing? You see, surprise works both ways. As his manager, you are surprised when he under-performs, fails to meet a deadline or turns in work with mistakes. What happens to your trust, when you, as a manager, are Surprised?”

“The trust level goes down,” Rachel replied. “It’s at the point now, where there is almost no trust at all.”

“So, as the manager, you are surprised when your team member fails to meet a deadline, and your team member is going to be surprised when you have an accountability conversation with him?”

Rachel nodded, silently, her eyes darting back in her brain. Finally, she spoke. “And we don’t trust each other. So, how do I prevent surprises when I go into this accountability conversation?”

“Pretty simple, really. No surprises, no ambushes. When you schedule the conversation, tell him the subject of the conversation will be about his current performance on the Phoenix project and the improvements we need going forward.”

The blood was draining from Rachel’s face. The truth does that, sometimes.

You Are Not a Manager So People Can Report To You

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“Yes, but shouldn’t these people be reporting to me?” Ted asked.

“That depends. Functionally, their roles produce results you are interested in, but are you prepared to be their Manager?” I replied.

“I think so. I think they can report to me. I think I can hold them accountable for producing those results. I think I can check up on them to make sure they are working,” Ted proposed.

I smiled. “I know, you think being a manager is all about people reporting to you, and you, telling people what to do. But are you prepared to be their Manager?”

Ted gave a glance sideways.

“Your most important role,” I continued, “as a manager, is to bring value to the problem solving and decision making of your team. Are you bringing value by telling them that their reports are due on Friday and then reminding them Monday morning that their reports are late?”

Ted was still staring, but putting the pieces together. “Well, no, not when you put it that way.”

“Then, how, as their Manager, do you bring that value? And are you committed to bring that value? Are you willing to commit the time to bring that value? The answers to these questions will determine whether you should be the manager of this team.”

This Encourages the Candidate to Lie

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“So, how did you miss this critical piece of information during the interview?” I asked. Ted was beside himself for a recent hire.

“That’s the thing. I gave him some theoretical examples to find out what he would do in a couple of specific situations. He answered the questions pretty well,” Ted replied.

“Then, what’s the problem?”

“He answered the questions pretty well, theoretically speaking, but he had never actually performed the work himself. It is almost like he read a bunch of articles in a trade journal. He knew the buzz words and conceptually how things worked, just no real experience.”

“So, what do theoretical questions do for you, as a manager conducting an interview?”

“Quite frankly,” continued Ted, “it just encourages the candidate to make stuff up and lie to me.”

“Indeed.”

Not Part of My Job

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“It happened again,” Ted explained. “I told myself that the next time we needed to hire someone, I would be prepared for the interview.”

“And?” I asked.

“Scott came down the hallway. He said the candidate had talked to four other people and everyone liked him. I didn’t even know we had interviews scheduled. He asked if I had fifteen minutes to talk to the candidate, just to see if I liked him, too. Funny, I liked him, too.”

“So, what’s the problem?” I pursued.

“Everyone liked him, but here we are, two months down the road and I find out he doesn’t have any experience in one of the most critical parts of the job. He just told me point blank that he has never done this before. Worst part, he tells me he doesn’t even see that as part of his job. If we need that done, he suggests we hire an expert or a consultant to help out.

“Just what we need, another consultant, because we failed to conduct a proper interview.”

The One Most Important Thing

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I had been hammering Kristen about creating a role description for an open position on her team. I don’t think she is lazy, but like most managers, she treats recruiting like a part-time job. In a year’s time, she may only have four openings on her team of 19, and she rarely sits on a hiring panel for other teams.

“What’s the one most important thing you do?” I asked. “In a year’s time, looking back, what one thing have you done that has had the most impact on your company?”

Kristen was thinking. She had some stuff up on her walls, some recognition plaques, a framed letter from a customer. “I don’t know,” she started. “My highest contribution? I guess it’s just making sure my people are always busy and not wasting time. That’s what managers do.”

“No, on your team of 19, you have two supervisors, that’s what they do, keep people busy. What is the most important thing you do?”

“I guess I never really thought about it. No one ever asked me, or told me. In fact, when I got promoted last year, the only difference is that I go to management meetings once a week. I spend the rest of my time dealing with problems and issues. Who wants time off? Who is arguing with whom? Why someone is constantly running behind? Why things don’t come out right? Motivating my team? I stay pretty busy doing all that.”

“What would you have to do differently, so that you did none of those things?” I challenged.

“Well, there’s no way. The people I have on my team just wouldn’t be able to get along and stay productive without me in there.”

“So, what would you have to do differently?”

Candidates Talk the Talk

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
I’ve conducted interviews where we’ve asked behavioral questions, like “Please share a specific example in your last position where you led a team in accomplishing a specific task. Share what steps you took and any processes you put in place to be successful. What were any of your challenges?” These questions did help us see how the candidate thinks and leads and whether s/he’s innovative. But in the end, we have had some candidates who are really great at interviewing and talking the talk but when they get in the position they are not effective. So, are there any other questions or exercises we should use in interviews to further test the veracity of the candidate and their experience?

Response:
It’s all about the work. I see three possible problems.

Failure to Identify the Level of Work
The biggest mistake most companies make is underestimating the level of work. I see this over and over, so much so, that I finally wrote a book about it, Hiring Talent, Decoding Levels of Work in the Behavioral Interview. There is a level of problem solving and a level of decision making in every role. Here is my fast list of problem solving levels –

  • Level I – Trial and error
  • Level II – Experience, best practices
  • Level III – Root cause or comparative analysis
  • Level IV – Systems analysis, reinforcing and balancing systems
  • Level V – Internal systems and external systems analysis

Your candidate may have solved a problem in a former role, but what was the level of work required to solve the problem?

Failure to Get Specific
The manager-once-removed and the hiring manager have to spend time to truly think through the work. If the critical role requirement is to be the leader of a group of 13 software engineers, the interviewer has to listen for details, like how many people on the team? Full-time managerial role or limited project length? Match the details in the candidate’s experience with the details in the critical role requirements.

Failure to Practice
Most managers don’t get enough practice. They don’t interview candidates often enough to get good at it, and are seldom trained to conduct effective interviews. The candidates they face have been coached by headhunters, trained through role play, and are intent on beating the manager in a game of cat and mouse. Practice, practice, practice.

The Likelihood of Success

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
So, how do you interview for someone with the capability to think into the future?

Response:
Capability is like attitude. I cannot interview for attitude and I cannot interview for capability. I can only interview for behaviors connected to attitude and capability.

First, is the capability to think into the future, a requirement for the role? Most supervisory and managerial roles require this capability, so this is a fair area for exploration.

My bias is to ask ONLY questions about the past. I do not want the candidate to speculate or make stuff up. No hypotheticals or theories. I have enough trouble deciphering real facts from the past.

  • Tell me about a time when (my favorite opening question), you worked on a project that took some time to complete, one that required several steps with a number of moving parts?
  • How long did the project take?
  • What was the purpose of the project? The goal for the project?
  • How many people were involved?
  • Step me through the planning process?
  • Was the plan written or just in your head?
  • How was the plan shared with the project team?
  • What was your role in preparing the plan?
  • As the plan was executed, what factors pushed the plan off course?
  • Tell me how the plan accounted for factors that pushed the plan off course?
  • How did the project team respond to changes in the plan?
  • How were decisions made in response to changes in the plan?
  • How did those changes impact the budget for the plan?
  • How did those changes impact the schedule for the plan?
  • How did those changes impact the overall results of the plan?

The responses to these questions will give the interviewer insight into behaviors connected with capability to think into the future, not just think, but make decisions, solve problems, execute into the future? These responses are fact-based and do not require interpretation, yet provide evidence, which can be verified in a cooperative reference check.

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. All I have to do, as an interviewer, is to find out how the candidate behaved in the past. There is great likelihood the candidate will behave the same way when they come to work for you.

But, the Candidate Assured Us

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“Your new supervisor?” I asked.

“Yes,” Stella explained. “Everyone on the interview team agreed this was the best candidate, but she’s been in the role for two months now, plenty of time for adjustment and it’s just not working out.”

“And this candidate had worked at this level before?”

“Well, not really, but she said she was ready for it. That’s why she was leaving her old job, not enough challenge in it.”

“This is a supervisor position, what’s the time-span of the longest task in the role?”

“Nine months,” Stella replied.

“Tell me about it?” I pulled out a piece of paper to make some notes.

“It’s scheduling,” she continued. “Some of our equipment is very expensive, difficult to get and difficult to move from one job to the next. It can cost us $15,000 just for the riggers to relocate some of the pieces. So we schedule our logistics out six to nine months. And when we schedule it, we stick to plan. Too expensive to do otherwise.”

“And your candidate provided evidence of nine month time span work in the past?”

“Evidence? No, but she assured us she was up to the task.”

Who Creates the Talent Pool?

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“In the midst of everything I have to do, with all of my management issues and motivation issues, you expect me to read resumes,” Byron was putting his foot down. “I am a Vice-President in this company. I have other people that read resumes for me.”

I did not respond, just raised an eyebrow. I could see the exasperation on Byron’s face.

“So, just exactly what do I do?” asked Byron. “I mean, I know what to do when I need to hire a manager on my team, but to hire a supervisor on one of my manager’s teams?”

“You won’t make the final selection, but I do hold you accountable for driving this process. Logistically, here is what it looks like. Your division has an opening two strata below you. As the manager-once-removed, it is your accountability to create the talent pool from which the hiring manager will select. Creating the talent pool means that you drive this process. Every morning, when you are fresh, I expect you to come in and spend a half hour to forty five minutes reviewing resumes. That’s every day, whether you have an opening in your division, or not. I expect that each day, you will find two or three resumes that you will find interesting. I expect you to make two or three screening phone calls every day. Once or twice a week, I expect you will actually run across a candidate. If you find only one per week, that is fifty people per year that you might bring in to interview for a supervisor level position.”

“But we have never had fifty people that qualified,” Byron continued to push back.

“Is that the truth, or is that something you believe to be true?”
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