Topic - Interviewing...

Subtopic - What candidates do when you hit them with a hard question...

Finding - Most candidates flounder, but the sharp ones spin some BS based on their prep work and communication skills, and look really good doing it...

Recommendation - If you interview for a living (or part of your living), you're only as good as your ability to listen to the answer to your question and dig in and DEMAND (politely, of course) an answer to your question...

Been watching the presidential debates?  It's like a massive panel interview, but only one person on the panel gets to ask questions and follow up.  Imagine if every one one of your candidates had a million dollars in prepping for your interview, and opted to prep with 10 behavioral answers of their choosing.  By the time they were ready for your interview, they'd be pretty slick with those answers, wouldn't they?

Here's what else would happen.  Regardless of your question, they'd answer with one of the 10 pre-packaged behavioral answers.  And unless you're on top of your game, you'd take it and LIKE IT...

More on the art of the interview dodge, presidential style, from the Washington Post:

"A review of the debate transcripts shows Obama, McCain and Biden all repeatedly dodging questions, adroitly transitioning from questions they were asked to questions they wanted to answer.

In a series of particularly relevant experiments, psychologists Todd Rogers and Michael I. Norton recently showed that most people are extremely poor at spotting even dramatic discrepancies between questions and answers. They found the failure was especially acute when answers were semantically linked to questions -- for example, when a question about the war on drugs is parried by an answer about health care. Audiences seemed to notice dodges only when answers were completely unrelated to the question -- such as responding to a question about illegal drugs by discussing terrorism.

The psychologists found that irrelevant answers delivered fluently and with poise scored higher with audiences than answers that were accurate, on-topic, but halting. And when they had actors deliver the same answers to audiences -- once fluently and once with "ums" and "ahs" -- audiences judged the hesitant responses as intellectually inferior to the fluent ones."

What about you, oh interviewing sage?  Do you accept the BS, or do you get in the pit and try to love someone by grinding for a real answer?

Of course you grind.  I'd expect nothing less...

Heard on the street last week in Capitalist land:

Employee - Hey KD, I saw an article that says the new trend in corporate America is for companies to give their employees around 2K every three years, then the employee goes out and buys whatever laptop they want.

KD - I saw the same article.  You expect the IT group to support 50 different laptops?

Employee - I think the positives outweigh the negatives.  Think of the employee engagement that would result!

KD - You're a Mac user at home, aren't you?

Employee - That's not really the issue, the issue is if giving lots of employees flexibility and...

KD - Mac or PC?  Answer the question.

Employee - Mac.

KD - I'm a PC, and reporting to me is IT.

Employee - Very funny..(remember, we're a software company that supports primary Windows biz environments).

KD - I'll tell you what, if you can get Charlie (my IT Manager, name changed so I don't get sued) to approve your system, it's in...

Employee  - Maybe I'll go talk to him.

Of course, the employee is thinking maybe there's a way.  But the ugly truth is that as democratic as everyone picking their own laptop sounds, it just doesn't work once you have a company with over 100 employees.  IT needs standards, or they'll give you an alternative - they need 30% more FTE's to handle the diversity of issues.  Put it all on one platform from one vendor, and the chaos in the IT department almost seems manageable.  The only way around that is if vitalization environments make the software install obsolete in the future, which might happen.  But I'll save that topic for those with tech chops much stronger than mine.

I say all this with the realization that somewhere, someday, somehow, I'm going to get a non-iPod Apple product, love it, then try to erase all the PC love I've had on this blog for the last 18 months.  Except you can't hit delete on the Internet data that floats around out there.

As for the employee going to talk to Charlie, my IT guy?  I'm thinking it went a little something like this (email subscribers click through for video):

You spend 30% of payroll on benefits for your employees.  You'd probably like them to understand the benefits you're spending all the cash on, right?

So, do they actually understand what you're providing?  They can't value what they can't understand, and of course, there's the whole thing about ensuring the spouse understands the benefits as well.

Don't bet on the fact that employees have any clue about the total value of the benefits package you're provdiding.  From CBS Marketwatch:

"Colonial Life surveyed more than 650 human resource managers and benefits administrators at the recent national conference of the Society for Human Resource Management. Employers were asked about the benefits they provide and how much their employees understand those benefits.

More than 90 percent of employers who responded said it was important to their business that employees understand and appreciate the value of their benefits. Only 21 percent of employers think their employees have a good understanding of their benefits. Nearly 5 percent think their employees know nothing at all about their benefits.

In a research study conducted by Watson Wyatt Worldwide(1), a global consulting firm that specializes in employee benefits, employees gave higher marks to employers who provided fewer benefits but explained them well, rather than a richer array of benefits they didn't understand."

If we're rating the understanding of benefits that low in a self-reported fashion, how bad must the reality be?  Additonally, what's the understanding of benefits mean?  With the right investment, can you get the number past 50%? 

If not, should your strategy be to "lead" the market when it comes to benefits?  Is it better, as the Wyatt study concludes, to do fewer things and drive the value proposition harder through a real communications plan?

What leads to increased retention or engagement?

Heavy questions to ponder.  Apparently, it takes more than the "Dude, we're getting an HMO campaign"... 

Workforce Management recently highlighted the highest-paid HR Execs at publically traded companies in the US. Couple of key observations from the desk of the Capitalist:

You - Working hard for the money.
Them - Working hard for significantly more money.

You - No employment contract, living the "at-will" lifestyle.
Them - Able to generate large amounts in severance payouts if it doesn't work out.

You - Hoping the team finds a way to hit the crazy "stretch" numbers so you can get part of that annual bonus check.
Them - One bonus plan isn't enough.  Needed to break it up among "Bonus" and "Non-Equity Incentive Plan Compensation" to keep it all straight.

Them - Must have a pretty good agent.
Me - In need of agent.  Looking for the number of Drew Rosenhaus (uber-agent for Terrell Owens among others) in my Outlook Contacts.

See the PDF of the list here.   I need one of two things to resolve this inequity.  Either Ann Bares needs to sell a salary survey to my company, or I need the profane skills of Ari Gold of Entourage to market my capabilities more effectively...

Book review time at the Capitalist!  Just finished reading "X Saves the World - How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking" by Jeff Gordinier, based off the recommendation from Gretchen A.   

Nice book, here's the story arc based on Gordiniers observations:

-There are two loud generations in the world today.  The Boomers, who run around claiming that we need to save the world and take credit for having done so, and the Millennials, who run around claiming to love everyone, and lay claim as the generation of collaboration, technology and whatever other space they've squatted on this week.

-In between those two generations sits the Generation X nation.  The cynical, smaller, niche generation that has a hard time carrying the flag for anyone or any cause.

I'd recommend it to any X'er who wants a better understanding of why they feel so jaded.  It's a funny romp through why the boomer commercials featuring Viagra ads and Dennis Hopper telling us a bank is going to change the world is surreal, and why X is well-positioned based on their cynical and jaded perspective to lead the world through the current tough times.

I'll stop there and let Gordinier tell you what he was going for below (email subscribers click through for video)...

Think about the workgroups you support as a HR Pro or Manager.  Do you talk about innovation and creativity a lot?  Of course you don't, usually because of the following two reasons:

1.  Our culture is all about execution, and we just kind of let the "soft stuff" happen, if it happens at all; and

2.  We'd love to provide more time to let employees innovate, but let's face it - only 5 or 10% of our employee base has the ability and willingness to think about things in that context.  As a result, we're not going to sponsor the innovation/creativity side, because we don't want to treat those people in a noticeably different way.

The problem with creativity is that it doesn't fit neatly into the normal model.  Creativity, or the ability to create something novel and appropriate, is essential to the entrepreneurship that gets new businesses started and that sustains the best companies after they have reached global scale. But because creativity seems too elusive and intangible to pin down—or because concentrating on it produced a less immediate payoff than improving execution, it hasn’t been the focus of most managers’ attention.

So, if you want innovation and creativity, you have to work at it.  From Harvard Business Review:

"Intuit cofounder Scott Cook, for example, wondered whether management was “a net positive or a net negative” for creativity. “If there is a bottleneck in organizational creativity,” he asked, “might it be at the top of the bottle?”

The first priority of leadership is to engage the right people, at the right times, to the right degree in creative work. That engagement starts when the leader recasts the role of employees. Rather than simply roll up their sleeves and execute top-down strategy, employees must contribute imagination. As Cook put it, “Traditional management prioritizes projects and assigns people to them. But increasingly, managers are not the source of the idea.”

More keys to create an environment that generates creativity and innovation from HBR.

...remember that you are not the sole fount of ideas. Be the appreciative audience.
...enable collaboration. Combat the lone inventor myth.  Define “superstar” as someone who helps others succeed.
...enhance diversity.  Get people with different backgrounds and expertise to work together. Open up the organization to outside creative contributors.
...map the stages of creativity and tend to their different needs. Avoid process management in the fuzzy front end. Provide sufficient time and resources for exploration
....accept the inevitability and utility of failure. Create psychological safety to maximize learning from failure.
...motivate with intellectual challenge. Protect the front end from commercial pressure. Show the higher purpose of projects whenever possible.

Here's my Jack Handy "Deep Thought" for the post.  If you set up an environment to encourage innovation and creativity and allow all to have access to time and tools, make them put some skin in the game via this handy Employee Engagement test.  The test I pitched a while back basically asks the employee to be more productive to free up time for them to chase creative and innovative work, and you score an employee's willingness like this:   

-Associates who have taken advantage of your offer and are aggressively moving forward with a project - ENGAGED

-Associates who have developed some thoughts about what they might do, but have not taken action yet - NOT ENGAGED, BUT POSSIBLY COULD BECOME ENGAGED WITH THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENTAL TWEAKS FROM YOU

-Associates who have done nothing, or have excuses for why they didn't take advantage of the offer - NOT ENGAGED AND NOT PROBABLE TO BECOME ENGAGED, regardless of your efforts.

Set it up so your employees get creative time by being more productive, and also by taking advantage of an offer.  That way you'll never worry about treating the engaged employee who wants to chase a project differently - because they were more than willing to put skin in the game.

Let's face it.  Most of our job descriptions are weak.  No, check that, they suck.  It's taken me 18 months of blogging to get past my HR properness and place the word "suck" in a job title, and I can't think of a better target for this coming out party than the normal corporate job description.

I'm a rebel.

Born of parents who abandoned it on the mountainside, the job description is generally created with a corporate template in mind, then passed around from HR to the operators and folks who actually manage the position for adds and edits, then passed back to HR.  If you really live on the death star, maybe your legal department and workers comp people (shudder) get a crack at it too.  You know, you can never be too careful...

Guess who doesn't get a crack at the job description, but should?  The marketing department.  The folks who get paid to generate leads and sell should be in the process, if only to challenge the chronic staleness that is the job description.

Every once in a while I see a job description that inspires me to overhaul what we do.  The latest comes from Wireless.com's Dennis Smith, who's shopping for a big hitter in the wireless industry via the following job description:

"Does this look like your Performance Appraisal for the first half of 2008?

Performance Appraisal: Allison "Sales Guru" Smith - 2008

* Obliterate Sales Quota and Set New Sales Record: Exceeded Expectations

* Achieve 100% Account Penetration in Tier 1 and Tier 2 GSM Mobile Operators : Exceeded Expectations

* Blow Away Competition Due to Expertise in Wireless Network Optimization Software: Exceed Expectations

* Become Most Recognized Sales Leader in the Known World: Failed to Achieve Expectations
(but only because you weren't working for us).

We can help you change that last one. But not until you decide that you're ready for the fame and fortune that goes with being the Sales Director whose solutions revolutionize the customers ROI (that's what happens when the wireless networks are optimized efficiently), and they save billions (okay, maybe millions) of dollars. All because of you. Well, us too. But we'll give you all the credit.

We're ready to talk. Put us on your calendar. Start by sending an email to: [email protected].

Tell me, in one paragraph, your most significant accomplishment of 2008.

If it's cool enough, I just might call you the Queen (or King) of the Known Sales World.

I'm waiting. But not for long."

Dennis, that's money.  Thanks for inspiring me.  I gotta get off my can and start getting more brand differentiation from the job description.  Everyone else should too.

Hey Cubs Fans - How's it going?

By the time you read this, the Cubs are on the ropes - either down 0-2 or tied 1-1 in their series with the Dodgers, headed to LA in a "best of 5" game series.

And Cubs fans across the nation just threw up in their mouth a little bit. 

Take a look at the pictures to the right, and you'll find some of the icons who represent the culture of the Cubs, otherwise known as the CURSE.  Bartman.  The cat at Shea Stadium.  I've taken the liberty of adding one to the mix - Manny Ramirez.  How unfair is it to Cubs fans everywhere that the promise of a championship will, in all likelihood, be ended by a malcontent from Boston that the Red Sox actually paid the Dodgers to take off their hands?

Manny goes yard, Cubs lose.  That's just wrong. 

Seriously, where else in business do you find a franchise that prints money off a culture of being the lovable loser?  Nowhere - because sports is the only place that losing, if sustained long enough, actually becomes a positive part of the brand.  It's been a 100 years (1908, right?) since the Cubs won a championship, and at this time the franchise is currently valued as the 5th most valuable team in baseball, with a sticker price of $642 million.

Only in sports.  Can you imagine the following?

-Southwest Airlines fails to turn around planes on time, has the most expensive tickets in the business, and experiences the most canceled flights due to fleet issues.  Still, because the flight attendants sing (not take me out to the ballgame) and crack jokes, they're still the most profitable airline.

-Traces of acid in Bud Light cans routinely burn the throats of beer drinkers, but since Bud's got great commercials (brand image), they're  successful anyway (note - if your throat is sore Bobby Joe, relax - this is a hypothetical).

Can you imagine either of those scenarios happening?  No, because the market wouldn't allow it. Business is Darwinian, while sports has "history" that builds identity - even if you're losing.   

If you want a workplace that builds culture based on losing, look to the Cubs.  Unfortunately, it looks like the guy who helped rid Boston of the curse will be the same guy to put the dagger in the backs of Cubs fans.

His name's Manny Ramirez, and like a few of your employees, he doesn't care what you think.  Because of that, he also doesn't feel a lot of pressure, which makes him pretty dangerous - whether he's in the lunchroom or batting 3rd in a short series. 

Before I get started on this one, I'm not the bogeyman coming to take all your personal rights away.  I know that we've got a LOT of variety in workplaces in America, and not every company needs a random drug testing policy.

Let's go through the list real quick...

-Library - no testing necessary
-Record Shop Dudes - If you're peddling vinyl, we may need you on that wall... no testing necessary
-Wal-Mart Greeter - What makes you happy?  No testing necessary.
-Guys Who Race Cars 200 mph (2 feet apart) - no testing necessary... hold up... maybe we need it there...

In a shocking display of "what were they thinking?", NASCAR (professional stock car racing) finally got around LAST WEEK to putting in a random drug testing policy.  That's right, the guys who race stock cars 200 mph haven't had the possibility of random testing until 2008. 

Notes from the "hey, you think we oughta test the guys for smack since they can kill each other in an instant?" camp courtesy of The Sports Network:

"NASCAR unveiled its upgraded substance- abuse policy over the weekend, to include random testing beginning in 2009. All drivers, crew members and even race officials will be tested prior to the start of next season, and will be subject to random tests throughout the year.

NASCAR's current drug policy has been in place for over 20 years, but has been scrutinized by competitors such as Kevin Harvick in the past months, after former Craftsman Truck Series driver Aaron Fike admitted to using heroin on race days. In July 2007, Fike was arrested and charged with heroin possession in the parking lot of an amusement park in Ohio."

That's right - heroin.  Before you stop shaking your head, NASCAR also believes its new policy is the model for all other sports, mainly because they don't succumb to the administration associated with keeping an actual list of which drugs are illegal:

"NASCAR covered all of its principles in the new substance-abuse policy, with the exception of outlining what is illegal. The sanctioning body provided no list of which drugs are banned.

"We think we have the broadest policy in all of sports," Steve O'Donnell, NASCAR's vice president of racing operations, said during a press conference Saturday at the Dover International Speedway. "The reason we don't have a list is we believe that a list is restrictive. If you've seen a lot of other leagues, the policy is constantly changing. We know that there's new drugs out there every day. By having a broad policy that doesn't list anything, we feel like we can test for any substance that may be abused, no different than our policy is today."

With all this on the record, I can't wait for the drug-free public service announcements that are sure to follow from NASCAR.  I just hope they have a "Talladega Nights" feel to them (email subscribers click through for video):

President Bush signed the ADA Amendments Act into law last week without a whole lot of fanfare.  Did you miss it?

In recent years, the ADA -- the world's first human rights law for people with disabilities -- has been dramatically narrowed in the courts, leaving citizens with epilepsy, diabetes, mental illness, HIV-AIDS and other disabilities unprotected from discrimination. The ADA Amendments Act clarifies the intent of Congress and reverses the "judicial activism" that has resulted in more than 95% of employment-related ADA cases being dismissed on summary judgment.

More on the changes to the ADA from the Los Angeles Times:

Millions of Americans with diseases or impairments such as diabetes, epilepsy, heart disease, cancer and carpal tunnel syndrome will be protected from job discrimination under a new disability rights measure set to become law this week.

The measure overturns a series of Supreme Court rulings that sharply limited who was covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act. When it was first passed in 1990, Congress said the anti-discrimination law protected anyone with a "physical or mental impairment" that "substantially limits" them.

But the high court interpreted the law to apply only to people who were truly disabled, not to those with common impairments such as a hearing loss or a medical condition that can be treated.

In another widely cited case, the court ruled in 2002 that an auto worker with carpal tunnel syndrome did not have a disability, even though she could no longer perform the repetitive tasks on the assembly line.

Here's the crazy thing.  The U.S Chamber of Commerce, the arm of big and small business alike, backed the bill, which in turn led to quick passage of the bill:

"Michael J. Eastman, a lawyer for the Chamber of Commerce, agreed that the courts had excluded too many people. "This means many more people will be deemed to have a disability, and some employers are nervous about that."

Nancy M. Zirkin, a longtime civil rights advocate, said it was remarkable that Republicans and Democrats came together to expand the reach of the disability rights law and that the resulting bill won unanimous approval in both houses. "It's a stunning achievement in this partisan atmosphere," she said.

I'm proud of the business community for getting behind this bill.  After all, the measure will not mean people who can show they have a disability will always win a discrimination claim. They still must show they are qualified to do the job. If an employee is deemed to have a disability, an employer must seek a "reasonable accommodation" that would permit him to work.  Nothing's changed in that regard.  It's all stuff most of us would do for any employee, covered by the ADA or not.

Of course, broadening the act does open up your HR shop to a broader set of ADA-related claims, most of them occuring/filed after you've taken an employment action, most of the time for good reasons unrelated to a disabilty.

That's OK - just keep doing the right thing for the employees and the business alike, and everything else takes care of itself.