Draw No Boxes

Dr. Kurt Lewin is the author of seminal works in organizational behavior circles.  Lewin offered a simplistic model to explain the change process.  The process consists of three phases – “unfreeze – change – freeze.”   The “unfreeze” phase announces the intention to change by making the norm for the behavior specifically targeted and helping people deal with letting go of the old norm.  The unfreezing of the norm is immediately followed with the movement to the new norm referred to as “change.”  Finally, the organization or culture will establish this change or new destination as the new norm and “freeze” it.  Voilà – CHANGE!

You may say to me at this point, “Well DUH, Dr. Dave! You can’t change something until you prep the people, make the change, and if you want to sustain the change – re-freeze it.”  Well, if the change process were so “duh” easy, everyone would do it successfully.  In fact, Dr. Lewin keenly realized organizations, people, and cultures will revert back to the previous norm or potentially degenerate into a version of chaos if the new norm is not frozen.  I refer to this “sustaining the newly frozen norm” as the “Lewin Riddle.”  I have found making a change easy; sustaining the change difficult. If you can solve the Lewin Riddle, your organization will find success in responding to the winds of change.

So, the obvious question . . .  What can I do to get the change to stick; what’s the answer to the Lewin Riddle?

Stay tuned and we will discuss it further.  The answer is elusive as you may have guessed, however I have come across several tools and techniques that may help.  I also want to invite your thoughts on sustaining change and solving the Lewin Riddle in your organization.

Until next time!

So you walk into an interview and you meet a highly energetic/engaged hiring manager or human resources representative.  The interviewer goes through the pleasantries, sets you, “the interviewee,” at ease, and begins the questioning.  The interviewer looks down at your resume/application and asks the first real question, “So tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult person you were working with?”  This energetic / engaged interviewer is utilizing “behavioral interviewing.”  The interviewer wants you to recount a specific experience that demonstrates the behaviors you used to “deal with a difficult person.”  How you answer this question will be as important as the content.  Here is what I suggest:

1) Context: Tell the interviewer where you were working, what was your relationship to the individual, and why the person was difficult.
2) SPECIFIC situation: what was the project, work/task, etc.  and what did you do (behaviors) in working through the difficulty
3) Results: how did your behaviors benefited the entire team, the difficult individual and you

So what should you do to prepare:

1) Have the behaviors ready to explain the results on your resume: Take all of the results from your resume and put some behavioral stories around them.
2) Be prepared with portfolios, letter of recommendation, or any other artifact that shows your behaviors in action
3) Google Behavioral Interviewing and look at the questions you see – there are many resources out there
4) Practice your stories, practice your stories, practice your stories – most of the situations you encountered in your career show several different behaviors

Whew! You read this post before you encountered a behavioral interviewer. Nothing lost. So the most common comments and question I get, “This is great! What I do for the 80% I encounter that are not behavioral interviewers?”  Set the foundation and give them behavioral answers!  The strength of preparing for a behavioral interview is the answers you would give better represent you.  For example: “So tell me what you did at EXTRA BIG Company, says you were a DBA?” 

1) Foundation: Yes, I was a DBA at EXTRA BIG in which I helped to create and maintain databases at highly availability.  I liked EXTRA BIG because I got to be proactive.  In one example . . .
2) Context: I was monitoring the data bases and noticed a higher than normal latency during certain hours.  So I decided to explore it with some of colleagues.”
3) Specific results: As we looked at the environment, we noticed a program running taking 25% more resources than normal.  After talking to Michael in the application group, we determined we had a perfect storm problem.  Right now, the volume was low but during our peak season, the system would choke because transaction would be 250% higher.  We raised it to management and got a re-write.
4) Results: We moved through peak season without incident and the company saw record transactions.  Felt good to know we avoided problems by being curious and proactive.

The “other side” of behavioral interviewing is “behavioral answering.”  Use behavioral answering when you don’t have a behavioral interviewer and you will be better represented.  Prepare one way that fits both.

Hope this helps!

Until next time.

Over my career, I have found spending extra time on interviewing is SO important.  Really good people are out there but you need to find out how they actually work.  A tool I use is called “behavioral interviewing.”  Not that I am a revolutionary here, but I am surprised how frequently the interviewer (HR and non-HR) and the interviewees lack familiarity with behavioral interviewing and its value.

Behavioral Interviewing is a technique where the interviewer asks the interviewee to recount previous experiences in response to questions.  When the interviewer uses behavioral interviewing, he/she must control the interview.  First, the interviewer must ask the questions properly to obtain the behavioral information from the interviewee.  Second, the interviewer must make sure the interviewee responds appropriately to the questions.  Finally, the interviewer can be maximize the learnings by asking follow-up questions to get further behavioral information.

So how does it work?

The interviewer asks questions in the following manner:

” Tell me about a time when you . . .”

“Give me an example of a project [task] where you . . .”

“Tell about an experience in your past where you had to . . .”

From these questions, the interviewer will learn of times when the interviewee demonstrated (or did not demonstrate) the specified behaviors. The questions should be crafted to get the information on the desired behaviors.  

As mentioned eariler, the interviewer must be careful in accepting responses from the interviewee.  Frequently, the answers from the candidate will not be the recounting of experiences but rather answers such as “I would” or “I believe.”  You as the interviewer must stop such answers and ask for a “specific time when . . .” and drill into the answer for more detail.  Remember, you are attempting to determine how the individual will handle (or has handled) specific situations or people.

When you receive an answer from the interviewee, you have a great opportunity to use the words of the interviewee in your next question to either dive deeper or position your next question.  I refer to this technique as “conversational interviewing” because you are carrying on a “conversation” by using “their words” in your questions.  Several things happen here – 1) your credibility increases as the interviewer knows you are listening, 2) you put the interviewer at ease using their words, 3) the interviewer will engage because they feel heard.  Think about it – you like when people use your descriptions, your terminology, or “words” in regular convesations; imagine an interviewer doing it – - powerful!

Behavioral interviewing – power tool for the interviewer! 

Next time, I will discuss how behavioral interviewing is a power tool for the interviewee!

Until next time.

Sometimes I wonder what is happening!

Strategically Encumbered

Sitting in a meeting, discussing the “how”
Debating the process but not starting now.
Powerpoints, agendas, and Gantt chart layouts,
Just give me permission and a band of Boy Scouts!

We’ll get it done, we’ll conquer the Moors,
Make big rock little rocks, bust down some doors,
We’ll “think I can, think I can” over the hill.
Trust me! Trust me, I promise we will.

But alas, I’m not in charge, the process reigns.
Document the documents for minimal gains.
Wait, ever wait for the “yesses” or “guesses,”
Strategically encumbered by our own processes.

Until next time!

Have you ever been in a meeting where you can’t get a straight answer?  Everything presented is a problem; every problem is devastating; and the world as we know it is coming to an end.   Turns into the proverbial “blame-storming” session.  Well, you are not alone.  I have been in many of these meeting myself.  Frustrating!

So after the meeting, you take your frustration, vent a little, then put together a plan of action.  You say to yourself, “I think I will talk to Jack directly.”  So you set up a meeting and Jack accepts! You are stoked; he actually accetpted! Interestingly, when the conversations are one-on-one, the hyperbole goes away.  Frustrating!

Let me submit, you have the meetings in the wrong order.  You know the “hyperbole – ians.”  Meet with Jack before your open forum and you can build a message without the hyperbole. Increase your interactions on the small and medium “issues” and be honest.  If the problem is big, call it big. If the problem is small, call it small.  Get an understanding of the issues and build consensus.  Before you know it, the hyperbole will go elsewhere.

Until next time.

- Dr. Dave

I have a colleague that used the term “manic congruency” to refer to the dogged pursuit of having all of elements in a business in alignment.  Later, when we were involved in a discussion regarding the best development methodology for building applications “waterfall,” “agile,” “RAD,” etc., I mentioned that it depended on the maturation and characteristics of the organization.  My colleague stated, “that is what I meant when I said ‘manic congruency’.” 

The term is cool;  the concept is real.  When you are chosing a process methodology, you should be sure to select the one that matches your organizational perspective.  If your leadership can not handle the realities of time and scope, you may want to consider a waterfall methodology.  However, if your management is realistic, collaborating, and team oriented, perhaps you can go to agile.  Be careful, if you chose the wrong methodology, you are doomed to fail.  This failure is not due to the process or the people.  It is due to a lack of manic congruency.

Until next time!

Seems a little counter-intuitive.  Here is what I mean.  When you make sure that when you complete a job, it is done, complete, fine’ and does not REQUIRE you to be around, people will always WANT you around.  When you build something that requires you and only you to maintain it or interpret it, those individuals using it will grow resentful of the dependency.  Not at first, but eventually.

Leaders need to teach this principle to their people.  Often leaders get involved in empire building and developing dependence.  STOP!  Go the other direction, build independence not dependence. 

Leaders – don’t be the single point of failure, allow your people to make decisions.  This precept can be difficult but if all decisions have to go through you, you are building dependence.

Leader – don’t be scared of your people’s failure.  When you enable your people, they will occassionally fail.  You did when you started.  Now is your opportunity to foster a safe environment.  Innovation requires being on the edge.  Failure should be expected.

We must foster this concept of doing things once and done.  Sometimes doing things in this manner will make you feel your value is lessened and you are suddenly expendible in your eyes.  But in everyone else’s eyes, you are invaluable.

Until next time!