CHAPTER 7: Turning the Keys: A Practical Guide  • The Art of Interviewing for Talent • Performance Management • Keys of Your Own • Master Keys Every great manager has his or her own style. But every great manager shares the same goal: to turn each employee’s talent into performance. The Four Keys, select for talent, define the right outcomes, focus on strengths, find the right fit, reveal how they attack this goal. Copyright © 2014. Gallup Press. All rights reserved. In the previous four chapters we described the Four Keys, how each works, and why each is important to the challenge of turning talent into performance. Now, in this chapter, we will describe what you can do to turn each of these Keys. Bear in mind that these Keys are not steps. They are not a structured series of actions intruding on your natural style. Rather, each Key is simply a way of thinking, a new perspective on a familiar set of challenges. As we mentioned in the introduction, our purpose is to help you capitalize on your style by showing you how great managers think, not to replace your style with a standardized version of theirs. We are not suggesting that you incorporate every single one of these actions into your style. These techniques simply represent a cross section of ideas gleaned from thousands of different managers. No one manager embodies them all. We suggest you pick and choose from these actions, refine them, improve them, and fashion them into a form that fits you. 192 Buckingham, Marcus, and Curt W Coffman. First, Break All the Rules : What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Gallup Press, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/capella/detail.action?docID=1584214. Created from capella on 2020-06-15 01:58:52. The Art of Interviewing for Talent “Which are the right questions to ask?”

1. MAKE SURE THE TALENT INTERVIEW STANDS ALONE Recruiting can be a complicated process. The candidate has to learn about you, the company, the role, and the details of his compensation. You have to check his résumé, make him an offer; he may counter, you then resubmit your offer; and so the negotiating continues until finally you both feel comfortable enough to commit. This process is important, but all of it should be handled separately from the talent interview. The talent interview should stand alone. It has but one purpose: to discover whether the candidate’s recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior match the job. This is difficult enough without trying to accomplish everything else simultaneously. So set aside a defined amount of time where both you and the candidate know that the exclusive goal is to learn about his talents. Let him know that the interview will be a little different from other interviews. It will be more structured, more focused; less banter, more questions. Copyright © 2014. Gallup Press. All rights reserved. 2. ASK A FEW OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS AND THEN TRY TO KEEP QUIET The best way to discover a person’s talents in an interview is to allow him to reveal himself by the choices he makes. In a sense, the talent interview should mirror verbally what will face him on the job behaviorally. On the job, he will face thousands of situations every day to which he could respond in any number of ways. How he consistently responds will be his performance. So in the interview, ask open-ended questions that offer many potential directions and do not telegraph the “right” direction — questions such as “How closely do you think people should be supervised?” or “What do you enjoy most about selling?” The direction he takes, spontaneously, will be most predictive of his future behaviors. When you have asked a question it is best to pause and remain silent. If he asks you to explain what you mean, deflect his question. Tell him that you are really 193 Buckingham, Marcus, and Curt W Coffman. First, Break All the Rules : What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Gallup Press, 2014CH7 Performance Management and Self Assessment

ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/capella/detail.action?docID=1584214. Created from capella on 2020-06-15 01:58:52. more interested in what he means. Say that it is his interpretation that is important. Let him answer your questions as his filter dictates. Let him reveal himself to you. Most important, when he answers, believe him. No matter how much you might like his first impression, if you ask him how important it is to be the best and he replies, “Well, I like to be the best, but mostly I just try to be the best I can be,” believe him. If you ask him what he likes about selling and he keeps talking about how quickly he wants to move into management, believe him. If you ask him what he loves about teaching and he never mentions children, believe him. Whatever he says, believe him. A person’s unaided response to an open-ended question is powerfully predictive. Trust it, no matter how much you might want to hear something else. 3.CH7 Performance Management and Self Assessment

LISTEN FOR SPECIFICS Past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior. Therefore questions like “Tell me about a time when you …” can serve you well. But be careful with these “Tell me about a time” questions. First, you should always be listening for a specific example. And by “specific” we mean specific by time, by person, or by event. In this way you will avoid giving credit to the person who rattles off a whole paragraph of theory about how important something is but who never actually recounts a specific time when she did it. Copyright © 2014. Gallup Press. All rights reserved. Second, give credit only to the person’s top-of-mind response. Past behavior is predictive of future behavior only if the past behavior is recurring. If the behavior does indeed happen a lot, then the person should be able to come up with a specific example with only one prompt. If he can, then it gives you a clue that this behavior is a recurring part of his life. For example, let’s say you are selecting for a sales position and you have decided to include the relating talent assertiveness in your talent profile. You might ask a question like “Tell me about a time when you overcame resistance to your ideas.” Notice that you haven’t asked for a specific — you have simply asked the individual to tell you about a time when it happened. However, you are now listening for a specific.CH7 Performance Management and Self Assessment

Here are two, of the infinite number of possible answers: 194 Buckingham, Marcus, and Curt W Coffman. First, Break All the Rules : What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Gallup Press, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/capella/detail.action?docID=1584214. Created from capella on 2020-06-15 01:58:52. 1. “I think it is very important to be persistent, particularly if you really believe in your ideas. We really encourage that kind of candor here. With my team, if I have a suggestion that others disagree with, I know they will expect me to keep supporting my idea until somebody comes up with a better one. In fact, it happens all the time.” 2. “It happened yesterday.” Which is the better answer? Well, it is hard to say which is “better.” But 2 is certainly the more predictive answer. Here the candidate spontaneously gave you an example that was specific by time, “yesterday.” You don’t know exactly what happened, but who cares? The details are less important than the top-of-mind specificity. You didn’t ask for a specific, but with only one prompt, “Tell me about a time …” he gave you a specific. Although you must ask many more questions to gain a fuller picture of his talent, his answer here is a first clue that this behavior, supporting his ideas in the face of resistance, is a recurring part of his life. Copyright © 2014.

Gallup Press. All rights reserved. By contrast, in 1, the candidate gave you a nice little description of why she thought it was important to be candid and then claimed that “it happens all the time.” There is nothing wrong with this answer. But, lacking any specifics, there is nothing predictive about it, either. Faced with answers like 1, some managers are tempted to probe, “Can you tell me more about that? Can you tell me what happened?” They then judge the answer on the quality of the person’s example: How much detail did she provide? How articulate was she? Do I agree with what she said she did? This is a cardinal sin of interviewing. Regardless of the detail the candidate eventually provided, if she needed two or three probes to describe a specific example, then the chances are that the behavior in question is not a recurring part of her life.CH7 Performance Management and Self Assessment

When you ask “Tell me about a time” questions, don’t judge the response on the quality of its detail. If you do, you will end up evaluating whether the person is articulate or whether the person has a good memory, rather than whether he or she has the particular recurring talent you want. Instead, judge the response on whether it was specific and top of mind. (Of course, with either 1 or 2, if you want to ask more questions to satisfy your own curiosity, go ahead. But remember, even if she eventually provides you with 195 Buckingham, Marcus, and Curt W Coffman. First, Break All the Rules : What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Gallup Press, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/capella/detail.action?docID=1584214. Created from capella on 2020-06-15 01:58:52. a detailed example, the fact that she required two or three probes to dredge it up tells you that the behavior is not a recurring part of her life.) 4.CH7 Performance Management and Self Assessment

CLUES TO TALENT Aside from specific examples of past behavior, what else should you be listening for? Are there any other signs that can tip you off that the candidate does indeed possess the talents you are looking for? Over the years we have found many small clues to a person’s talent: a sudden glimpse of excellence at the role, a yearning toward certain activities, a feeling of flow while performing the activity. Of all these clues, two might be useful to you during the talent interview. Each person is so complex that no interviewing or testing system will ever be able to define his profile of talents perfectly. However, if you focus your questions toward these clues, then, like an image on a fresh Polaroid, the person’s most dominant talents should gradually emerge. You can then compare his talents to those in your desired profile and assess the match. a. Rapid Learning Copyright © 2014.

Gallup Press. All rights reserved. When you learn a new role, you tend to learn it in terms of steps. Sometimes the steps stay with you no matter how hard you practice. For example, you may have been giving presentations for years, but you still struggle. Every time you have to present you revert back to the three basic steps you remember from public speaking class: “Okay, first I must tell them what I am going to tell them; then I must tell them; then I must tell them what I just told them.” But with other activities, the steps just seem to fall away. You feel a sense of gliding, of smoothness. For example, after a couple of months as a salesperson you may have begun to feel this smoothness. All of a sudden you seemed to be able to see inside the mind of the prospect and you knew almost instinctively what words to say next. Or perhaps as a student teacher, after your initial nervousness had faded, the names of the children came easily and you found yourself walking up and down the rows of desks as if you had been teaching all of your life. When you have this feeling it is as if the steps of the new role are simply giving form to a mental pattern already grooved within you — which, if you think about it, they are. 196 Buckingham, Marcus, and Curt W Coffman. First, Break All the Rules : What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Gallup Press, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/capella/detail.action?docID=1584214. Created from capella on 2020-06-15 01:58:52. Rapid learning is an important clue to a person’s talent. Ask the candidate what kinds of roles she has been able to learn quickly. Ask her what activities come easily to her now. She will give you more clues to her talent. b. Satisfactions Everyone breathes different psychological oxygen. What is fulfilling for one person is asphyxiating for another. Great accountants love the fact that two plus two equals four every time they do it. Great salespeople get a kick out of turning a no into a yes. Great flight attendants gravitate toward the tired, angry business traveler or the boisterous school sports team at the back, because they enjoy turning around the tough customers. A person’s sources of satisfaction are clues to his talent. So ask him what his greatest personal satisfaction is. Ask him what kinds of situations give him strength. Ask him what he finds fulfilling. His answers will help you know what he will be able to keep doing week after week after week. 5. KNOW WHAT TO LISTEN FOR Many managers have a list of favorite questions they resort to every time they interview someone. So do great managers, but with one important distinction. They ask only questions where they know how top performers respond. Copyright © 2014. Gallup Press. All rights reserved. In their mind, the question is not nearly as important as knowing how the best answer. For example, here is a question that can identify the different striving talents of salespeople and teachers: “How do you feel when someone doubts what you have to say?” You might think that the best salespeople would say they like a little doubting, that it would give them a chance to show just how persuasive they could be. Surprisingly, they don’t. They report that they hate it. It upsets them to be doubted (although they may not show it) because, as we described earlier, great salespeople are selling themselves. To doubt them is to question their personal integrity. Disagree with them, argue with them, choose not to buy from them. But don’t doubt them. Average salespeople are not personally invested. They don’t mind being doubted, so this question doesn’t strike any emotional chord with them at all. 197 Buckingham, Marcus, and Curt W Coffman. First, Break All the Rules : What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Gallup Press, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/capella/detail.action?docID=1584214. Created from capella on 2020-06-15 01:58:52. For sales managers, then, this has proved to be a good question, because what they listen for is, “Upset.” (Of course, this isn’t the only question great sales managers ask. As we described earlier, the worst salespeople are also upset by rejection. Managers must ask further questions — “how” questions and “who” questions — to discover whether the candidate possesses other vital sales talents, like innate assertiveness or a love of breaking the ice with people.) By contrast, it turns out that great teachers say they love being doubted. They cherish those moments. Great teachers instinctively interpret the “doubters” as students, and they see this doubting as a sign of an active, inquisitive mind. For great teachers, then, doubting means learning. Conversely, average teachers say they don’t like to be doubted. Their first point of reference is their own competence, not the students’ learning. Being doubted means having their competence challenged, and for them there is nothing worse.

This question works well for selecting teachers, then, but only if the desired response is, “I love it.” Copyright © 2014. Gallup Press. All rights reserved. The question doesn’t work at all if you are selecting nurses. Why? Because the best nurses do not answer in a way that is consistent with each other and different from their less successful colleagues. When you think about it, this is hardly surprising. After all, on those rare occasions when a nurse is doubted, how she reacts to the doubting probably has little to do with how good a nurse she is overall. How can you develop these question/listen-for combinations? First, you can try out a question on a few of your best employees and a few of the “rest” and then see if the best answer differently, consistently. If they do, the question/listenfor combination is a good one. If they don’t, as with nurses and the “doubting” question, then the question might not be worth asking. Second, you can ask the question of all new applicants. Write down what they say and keep a record of it. After they have been hired, check back to see if the people who subsequently performed well answered your question in a consistent way.CH7 Performance Management and Self Assessment

This takes time and focus, but, as with any art, time and focus are required to cultivate the art of interviewing for talent. 198 Buckingham, Marcus, and Curt W Coffman. First, Break All the Rules : What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Gallup Press, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/capella/detail.action?docID=1584214. Created from capella on 2020-06-15 01:58:52. Copyright © 2014. Gallup Press. All rights reserved. The concept of talent applies to all that great managers do. However, the activity of selecting for talent is separate. It occurs at the time that you make the hiring decision. The activities of the other three Keys — define the right outcomes, focus on strengths, and find the right fit — cannot be separated so easily. How you set expectations for someone is interwoven with the way you motivate him to achieve those expectations. How you motivate and encourage him is often part of a broader conversation where you are also helping him find the right fit. The day-to-day challenge of turning talent into performance involves the turning of all three Keys, all at once, all the time. 199 Buckingham, Marcus, and Curt W Coffman. First, Break All the Rules : What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Gallup Press, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/capella/detail.action?docID=1584214. Created from capella on 2020-06-15 01:58:52. Performance Management “How do great managers turn the last three Keys every day, with every employee?” The exemplary managers Gallup interviewed described a variety of ideas for turning the final three Keys. But their real challenge lay in disciplining themselves to implement these ideas with each of their people, despite the day-to-day pressures of getting the actual work done. They met this challenge by following a routine, a “performance management” routine. This routine, of meetings and conversations, forced them to keep focused on the progress of each person’s performance, even though many other business demands were competing for their attention. Each manager’s routine was different, reflecting his or her unique style. Nonetheless, hidden within this diversity we found four characteristics common to the “performance management” routines of great managers. Copyright © 2014. Gallup Press. All rights reserved. First, the routine is simple. Great managers dislike the complexity of most company-sponsored performance appraisal schemes. They don’t want to waste their time trying to decipher the alien terms and to fill out bureaucratic forms. Instead they prefer a simple format that allows them to concentrate on the truly difficult work: what to say to each employee and how to say it. Second, the routine forces frequent interaction between the manager and the employee. It is no good meeting once a year, or even twice a year, to discuss an employee’s performance, style, and goals. The secret to helping an employee excel lies in the details: the details of his particular recognition needs, of his relationship needs, of his goals, and of his …