One of the qualities that I believe to be pretty much make
or break is self responsibility. How
much of what you do, what happens to you, and what your life is like do you
own? For instance, our 11 year old
(he’ll be happy to tell you only 6 days until his birthday!) forgets to write down his homework assignments, or forgets to bring home the book needed for the
homework. Now… I’m sure forgetting this
stuff is pretty normal at 11, and we can still use the example.
When I ask him why he didn’t write the assignment in his
homework book, he could say I got distracted, or I just forgot, however he
usually says something like… I was going to, and then Collin started talking to
me and… well…. or I was about to and I couldn’t find my pencil and then blah
blah blah, or I was just about to and the teacher started talking and I had to
pay attention to her. In the first two,
he is pretty much taking responsibility, and in the others he blames it on
everyone but himself.
Kids are like that, and while we need to talk to them about
their responsibility in it, we expect this behavior to continue, at least until
they get a little older.
Adults however, should not be like that. And yet too many of them are just like
that. They like to justify, rationalize,
or otherwise find someone or something other than themselves at fault. People who cannot accept responsibility for
their attitude, their actions, or what their life is like, cannot be good team
members. Taking responsibility for our
actions and ourselves is a quality that we cannot teach. Or at least it takes way more time and energy
than most of us have.
So… we have to ask questions to find out whether or not our
applicant has self-responsibility. But
what questions? Well… what questions do
we always ask? We get our applicants
talking about themselves of course. We
already have the rapport with them, so we just ask them about things that
haven’t gone as planned, or about mistakes they’ve made, or about any reasons
they left another job, team, or group.
If they have left a sports team, question the applicant
about what happened and why. Their description
will tell you all you need to know. Was
it the coach’s fault? The other
players? Or did our applicant play a
part in what happened?
Talk to me about something that went wrong at your last
job? We can see if they take
responsibility for their part in whatever it was. Get them to tell you all about their previous
performance reviews, and you can see if, in hindsight, they can own any of the
negatives. We all, without exception,
have issues with our parents at one time or another. Ask about arguments or disagreements they had
with a parent, and see if again, in hindsight, they can own their part in
it.
Talk to them about their grades in school. We’re not really concerned about the actual
grades at this point of course. But do
ask them if, looking back, they thought they could have done better? Why didn’t you get better grades? Do you think you are smart enough to get
better grades than you did? Then why
didn’t you? With luck they will own
their behavior, admit to being immature, choosing the wrong friends, being too
involved in sports, or something like that.
If they blame it on sports or the like, keep digging. Could they have made other choices? We need them to accept responsibility! I mean, here in the interview our job is not
to make them see that they should accept responsibility… we will only hire
those who accept responsibility.
A lot of people have had their own business at one time or
another. Ask all about that, and see
what happened. See if applicant owns
what happened to their business, good or bad, and especially the bad. If they had an employee take advantage of
them, did our applicant have any blame for hiring this person? Could they have made any different choices?
I would hope that after some time, and looking back at our
examples, our applicant can own up to their part in these things. If they cannot… you know the drill… thank
them for coming in, and move on.
Right after the ketchup question you can follow up with a
question about one of the team members in their store. Remember it is their store, with their name
on the sign and everything. So, after
the ketchup customer leaves, they are walking back to their office when a team
member asks if they can have a few minutes of their time. Of course they can… come up to my office in
an hour. The team member shows up, and
wants to talk about why they didn’t get the supervisor job last week. That jerk Terry got the job, and they need to
know why they didn’t get the job.
Well, remember that it’s your first day here, and while you
do now own the whole store, you don’t know anything about Terry, who may or may
not be a jerk, this team member, or any supervisor job. You do want to help though, because this team
member seems really upset, and you want to make him feel better about working
here. It costs a lot of money to replace
a team member. Without knowing anything
about the actual details of this job, what might you tell him about why people
get jobs, and why people don’t get jobs?
Do not accept ‘I don’t know’, or the like… they must answer this
question in whatever words they have.
Listen carefully to what the applicant has to say to our
team member. What they say to the team
member is likely what they believe to be true.
The follow up questions you ask will depend on what our applicant tells
the team member. This conversation will
be very telling, so listen carefully and take notes. We want to hear something about
self-responsibility, or about asking for feedback and listening to it. We do not want to hear that our new owner
doesn’t have time for this crap, and the team member needs to get back to
work. We can get an idea of other qualities
with the answer to this question, like empathy, emotional intelligence, listening
skills, compassion, and relationship building.
Worst case, we thank them for coming in, and move on.
You can suggest to the applicant that problems come in three
categories: ones we have no control over, ones we have some control over, and
those where we have total control. Then
ask whether they agree or not. Either
way, ask them to explain what they think about it in more detail. If they suggest that they have control over
almost all of their problems, we’re probably good with this topic. If, however, they don’t think they have
control over much at all, thank them for coming in, and move on.
In my opinion, self-responsibility is right up there with
the ability to hear and act on feedback, so take your time and get this one
right. Otherwise you will regret it for
a long time!
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