Comments on: Leading Teams: Not for Bossy People

By: kwiefling

kwiefling — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 06:35:41 +0000

Yes, great idea, Josh! Asking people theoretical questions just gets theoretical answers. The best questions to ask references are “Would you hire them again?” and “Would you recommend hiring them to a friend?”, which parallels the net promoter score used by many companies these days to track customer satisfaction. Check out the book “The Ultimate Question” for more on net promoter score.

By: Josh Nankivel

Josh Nankivel — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:55:02 +0000

I’m glad you brought up references…how about using behavioral interviewing techniques on the references? Do most companies require that some of the references be people who worked for the candidate?

With a combination of good interviewing of references, “Tell me about a time when a major issue occurred on the team? What did [candidate name] do?” and good behavioral interviewing of the candidate themselves I would bet companies could end up hiring less “bossy people” who rely on formal authority.

Josh Nankivel
pmStudent.com

By: kwiefling

kwiefling — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:40:02 +0000

Thanks for your enthusiastic support, Josh! The state of the art in choosing qualified candidates for a job who will deliver outstanding results is “behavioral interviewing”. Behavioral interviewing involves listing the behaviors and abilities that you want in the person you are hiring and then asking them in the interview to describe situations where they demonstrated those behaviors and abilities. For example, you might say “Please describe a time when you were dealing with a team in conflict. What was happening? What did you do? How was the conflict resolved?” Notice that you DO NOT ask “How WOULD you handle such a situation?” Unlike stock performance, past work performance IS a good indicator of future work performance. A promising team leader candidate should be able to share stories about real situations where they effectively led a team. Of course you need to confirm with independent references (those NOT given to you directly by the candidate, but discovered by your own sleuthing) that this person actually did lead this way in the past. More info on behavioral interviewing can be found on the web, for example http://www.uwec.edu/Career/Online_Library/behavioral_int.htm

- Scrappy Kimberly Wiefling

By: Josh Nankivel

Josh Nankivel — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:51:46 +0000

Great post Kimberly! Makes you think about the criteria used when hiring managers in the first place! What is the best way to evaluate these qualities in a candidate?

If you are reading this comment, please post another comment with your thoughts on the question above!

Josh Nankivel
pmStudent.com