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What Good Interview Questions Are Actually Trying to Discover

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When you interview someone for a job, what are you trying to find out?

I've seen and used models that assess how someone likely will fit the Culture, and whether they are Organized, Competent, and Motivated?

Seth Godin often has an interesting perspective on business.  Here is what he shared about this topic.

What good interview questions are actually trying to discover.

• How long are you willing to keep pushing on a good project until you give up?
• How hard is it to get you to change your mind when you're wrong?
• How much do you learn from failing?
• How long does it take you to learn something new?
• How hard is it for you to let someone else take the lead?
• How much do you care?

The rest is merely commentary, either that or they're interviewing someone for a job that's not as good as they deserve. For those jobs, the only question they're really focusing on is, "will they fit in around here?"

If you like that, you might like this too.

What Matters Now - eBook from Seth Godin

The book highlights more than seventy big thinkers, each sharing an idea for you to think about. From bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly, from publisher Tim O'Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas here.

Download it here.

Sign of the Times: Toddler Confused That a Magazine Doesn't Work Like an iPad

Do 1-year-olds think a magazine is a broken iPad?

Here is a 1-year-old who apparantly believes all media are touch-screen-enabled. She does not seem to understand that a magazine was not designed to respond to pinching or prodding.

It is entertaining to watch; here is the video.

 

 

 

My kids can't understand how I did school-work without a computer or the Internet. Their kids may not believe that people used to do their reading on paper.

 

Navigating NPR's Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

NPR solicited the input of its listeners to rank the top science fiction and fantasy books of all time. Over 60,000 people voted for the top picks which were then compiled into a list by their panel of experts.

The result? A list of 100 books with a wide range of styles, little context, and not much help for you to actually choose something to read from it.

The folks at SF Signal have, once again, come to the rescue. This flowchart is designed to help you follow your tastes, provide context, and guide you to the right book for you.

Related articles

• Revealed: The 100 Greatest Science Fiction & Fantasy Books (io9.com)
• The Best and Worst of the Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books (westernthm)

The Magic of Creating Potter

I went to see the newest Harry Potter movie this weekend.  Apparently a bunch of other people went too, because it conjured up box office records.

 

 

The movie was great.  But what left me in wonder was thinking about how it came to be.  The scope and scale of the series is literally amazing.

Even just for this movie, the number of people listed on the credits was astounding. 

Yet, think about how many people were involved in producing the movies, books, and merchandising.  And that's not including the theme parks, promotion, and the eco-system that forms to support a project of this magnitude.

When did it become real ?

• Was it when the first book came out?
• Perhaps it was when J.K. Rowling got a contract to have the book published?
• Even earlier ... how about when she finished writing the book ... or
• Did it happen when she started writing it?

It is arguable that it became real when she started thinking about it.

On some level, Rowling probably agrees.  Here is a quote she wrote from Dumbledore, in response to Harry asking whether something was real or happening in his head.

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry; but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

The real magic of creation happens in the mind.

In a very real sense, there is "infinite possibility" ... because in every moment there are an infinite number of possibilities.  To a great extent, though, our automatic habits preclude seeing them.  This may seem to make it is easier to focus on the path taken; but it unconsciously limits the future.

What would have happened if, back in the early 1990s, J.K. Rowling had the idea for Harry Potter ... but thought she couldn't write a book (or even if she did, who would read it?).  Her "new world" didn't exist yet, while her "old world" didn't have a path from there-to-here.

Einstein spoke to this. He said:

“You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.”

There's magic in choosing a path that energizes you.  Reality is what you bring to it, and what you hold in awareness.

If you are interested in this, pick up a copy of "Do You QuantumThink? New Thinking That Will Rock Your World" by Dianne Collins. I've been reading it and have found a bunch of interesting concepts and useful tools.

Related articles

• Life After "Deathly Hollows" (underaglassmoon.org)
• Here's Your Full Harry Potter Recap To Prepare For The Deathly Hallows Part 2 (kroq.radio.com)
• JK Rowling 'writing hard' on new work (guardian.co.uk)

Here Are Some Links Worth Reading This Week

These are a few of the links and items that caught my eye recently.

 

Since this is Memorial Day, here is something to think about.

 

Business Posts Moving the Markets that I Found Interesting This Week:

• Has George Soros Signaled the End of Gold and Silver's Bull Market?  (SafeHaven)
• Sony Posts a $3.2 Billion Loss - Its Third Straight Annual Net Loss.  (Reuters)
• Silicon Valley's New Tech Bubble: Has Irrational Exuberance Returned?  (Economist)
• U.S. Falls Behind Overseas Markets as Stock Listings Down 43% Since 1997. (WSJ)
• Is the U.S. Postal Service Near Collapse?  (BusinessWeek)

Lighter Ideas and Fun Links that I Found Interesting This Week

• Frontline Leadership: How Cadets Learn to Be "Clutch" & Succeed Under Pressure. (HBR)
• Stephen Fry on "What I Wish I'd Known When I Was 18". (Vimeo)
• Why Emotional Pain Can Feel Like a Punch in the Stomach. (BodyOdd)
• E-books Overtake Print Book Sales - Is This the Tipping Point? (CNet &CSM)
• Do You Know the States? Semi-Mindless, But Fun, Puzzles. (V1 & V2)

A Business Book Based On The Story of Passover

Passover is this week, so Jewish people are once again getting ready to teach the story of Exodus to their children.  This happens during the meal featured in DaVinci's Last Supper.

Part of the tradition is to present the information in way tailored to the audience.  For example, the wise child, the wicked child, the simple child and the child unable to ask ... each perceive the story and how it relates to them differently.

Coincidently, I just read an interesting book, written by a friend of mine, that weaves the archetypical learners in the Passover Seder into a business fable about communication and persuasion.

The book talks about how you tailor your message to those four personality types.  For example, a business might look at creating different messages for wise, cynical,  simple and disinterested buyers.

The book's title, "ROAR!", is an acronym for the persuasion model:

• Recognize the type;
• Observe from their perspective;
• Acknowledge who they are;
• Resolve their need.

The book also provides a strong approach to bringing empathy and differentiation into your value proposition.  This is equally important in an elevator pitch or tough conversation with a stakeholder.

It’s pretty good stuff and something worth thinking about.  You can check out a video and a couple free chapters here.

Related articles

• A Guide to the Passover Seder (tjantunen.com)
• Diner's Journal: A Passover Playlist From JoeDoe (dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Passover 101 (npr.org)

Humor: Generate Your Own Malcolm Gladwell Best-Seller Title

Looking for a new book to read?

Gladwell is usually a good choice.  He wrote Blink, The Tipping Point, Outliers, and What the Dog Saw. 

Somehow his books (and their titles) capture the imagination and a spot on bookshelves.

I showed this to some friends and they thought it sounded interesting. What do you think?

Now, you can generate your own New Gladwell Best Seller.  Try it out.  Yes, the 25 alternatives are fake ... but they're funny.

 

The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Bill Gates recently predicted that the Internet would be a better source of education than any single university. 

The video in this post is an example of how good Internet content is getting.  Watch the "Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" from Dan Pink. It is very well done.

Don't let the cartoons fool you; you can learn a lot in a little over 10 minutes. I really like the visualization technique (of drawing what is spoken); it is surprisingly effective.

 

 

This video comes from RSA.  You can find other videos like this one at their website.

Is Money the Best Way to Motivate Performance?

In today's business environment, is it optimal to entice people with a sweeter carrot, or threaten them with a sharper stick?

In his book, Drive, Pink calls for a different approach ... one that is built much more around intrinsic motivation. Around the desire to do things because they matter, because we like it, because they're interesting, because they are part of something important.  The new operating system for our businesses should revolve around three elements: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

In other words, the main point is that when someone is already intrinsically motivated, applying extrinsic motivation (in the form of reward for good behavior or punishment for bad behavior) is self-defeating because it detracts from the intrinsic motivation, which is a much more powerful force.

If you like this, then click here to see his TedTalk video too.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The wrapper matters (sethgodin.typepad.com)
• Deciphering the Cause of Human Motivation (simoleonsense.com)
• The Content Economy by Oscar Berg: We don't lack for information. We lack for incentives (thecontenteconomy.com)

Great Summer Reading: Nelson DeMille's "The Charm School".

It is 106° here in Texas.  That is sit-in-the-shade (or better yet, air-condtitioning)  and read a book weather.

One of the recent news stories reminded me of a good book, worth recommending.

Spies Among Us.

The allegations were shocking: four couples living in the U.S. under assumed false identities while secretly working as covert Russian spies on long-term, "deep-cover" assignments to obtain information on nuclear weapons.

Behind the scenes, they were known as "illegals" — short for illegal Russian agents — and were believed to have fake back stories known as "legends."

U.S. authorities say they sometimes worked in pairs and pretended to be married so they could blend into American society as the couple next door. Aside from fake identities, authorities say, they used Cold War spycraft — invisible ink, coded radio transmissions, encrypted data — to avoid detection.

It sounds like a story right out of a Nelson DeMille novel.

Wait, it is the plot-line of one of his best books, The Charm School, written in 1988.

The plot is simple and compelling. Two U.S. diplomats in the Soviet Union discover that many of the U.S. pilots shot down over Vietnam (and classified as Missing-In-Action) ended-up at the KGB-run "Mrs. Ivanova's Charm School". There, the Soviets forced the pilots to teach aspiring Russian spies how to act, speak, and pass as Americans. Once discovered, the embassy and US government have to decide how to react. With Glasnost on the table and the two countries trying to work together, this revelation can destroy everything.

If you are looking for a fun book to read, this is a great story. I recommend it.

Other Links About this Topic:

• Nelson DeMille's Website.
• The Spy Next Door News Coverage.
• AP: Ten Russians Accused Of ‘Snooping’.
• The Philadelphia version of a Soviet 'American village'.

Interesting TedTalk with Nicholas Christakis About Our Modern, Connected Lives

We're all embedded in vast social networks of friends, family, co-workers and more. Nicholas Christakis tracks how a wide variety of traits -- from happiness to obesity -- can spread from person to person, showing how your location in the network might impact your life in ways you don't even know.

His work shows how phenomena as diverse as obesity, smoking, emotions, ideas, germs, and altruism can spread through our social ties, and how genes can partially underlie our creation of social ties to begin with. His work also sheds light on how we might take advantage of an understanding of social networks to make the world a better place.

Christakis explains that he and James Fowler (co-author of Connected) have become obsessed with trying to figure out how and why we form networks and how and why they affect us.

Once you start mapping these networks -- they’re so intricate and so beautiful and so interesting -- you just can’t help but wonder why we humans make them. Why does a spider weave its web? Why does the web have a particular kind of shape? It’s not a coincidence. You look at these webs and you think, “My God, what purpose do they serve? And, how do they affect us?”

Watch his TedTalk presentation, "The Hidden Influence of Social Networks".

Here is the web site for their book Connected.  And here is a link to another interview.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Happiness and Sadness Spread Just Like Disease (simoleonsense.com)
• Is Divorce Contagious? (freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Has a plague of social illness struck mankind? (slate.com)