The Art of the Smart Interview.

When doing a company narrative, there's no greater source for authentic storytelling than the one-on-one interview. It's a giant part of the discovery phase for every company narrative we have the privilege to produce at humanifesto studios.

The interviews are where I source everything from language and tone to titles and taglines. They are an enormous treasure trove of anecdotes and experiences that reflect the conscious and unconscious beliefs, behaviors, aspirations, and values of the organization.

Interviews are doorways to the collective soul of a company.

While on the surface it may seem like an interview is an interview is an interview, in the context of unearthing the embedded and embodied truth of an organization it is something that must be engineered for maximum insight and impact.

The art of the smart interview is more of a dance than a conversation, adhering to a finely-tuned choreography I've honed over the 15+ years I've been doing them. These are the stages and steps I take when interviewing clients for company narratives.

Step 1. The List (who to interview)

Who to interview is the most important priority to get right.

Because if you're the leader who hired me, you didn't hire me to tell you what you want to hear or what you already know. You hired me to tell you what's true, and the real truth isn't in controlled sound bites from the top-down. It's in the anecdotes and everyday experiences from the bottom and the middle up. Sure, I'm going to interview you, but the story isn't about you — it's about the collective consciousness you direct and guide to make a meaningful difference in the world.

The most important part of an interview list is that it's an experiential mix of the 90%, which means creating a list that's cross-functional, cross-cultural, and cross-generational. It's also about past-present-future and multi-level, including informal and formal positions of authority.

Believe it or not, by the time I've hit a half-dozen interviews, I'm already seeing patterns and redundancy, so it doesn't take a ton of interviews to gather the representative truth (at least the way I do them). I just need enough to create an emotional, psychological, strategic, and tactical blueprint of the company's "body" or life form — where's the consciousness? the center of gravity? the forgotten wounds and/or pain? the "foreign bodies" of a failed grafting or acquisition that never quite worked as expected? the immune system that's struggling to stay focused, aspirational, alive and strong? the beating heart that keeps hope and purpose alive?

It's my job to do enough interviews that I can assemble the broadest swath of individual perspectives into a unifying image of the metaphorical elephant.

Step 2. The Order (the interview schedule)

It's important to recognize that with every interview that you, the interviewer, do — you are changed. You can't help it. Even if you successfully empty yourself of "self" at the beginning of your inquiry (which is essential when starting your interviews), once you begin gathering information, you're filling up every sense and every cell with information that will eventually become the building blocks of your client's story.

The order in which you conduct your interviews matters.

When I set up an interview schedule, I'm super deliberate about when to interview specific people on the list, especially if their persona or role has an outsized impact on others' opinions or the outcome of the work itself.

This was the case with a project we did for the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, the brainchild of political thought leader and beloved professor of political science, Larry Sabato. I purposely interviewed Larry last, after interviewing the leaders on his team and several Board members.

While this work was focused on the past-present-future of the Center for Politics as well as Larry's personal legacy, I didn't want to be biased by Larry's affability or magnetism — he's super magical and super beloved by everyone who's had the privilege and pleasure to study with him. I wanted to meet with Larry after I had already made my independent discoveries and seen the patterning, so that I could present my insights and observations to him in a way that allowed him to thoughtfully respond while also adding nuance.

I needed to be well-versed and informed in everything Center for Politics beforehand so that I could bring deep insights to test and refine with him instead of just information. I always want the person I'm interviewing to feel that it was a good use of their time.

Step 3. The Format (1:1 or group)

I rarely, if ever, do group interviews when building a company narrative.

There is so much more to be gained through 1:1 interviews, and it's because whenever a second voice or perspective enters the conversation, the first voice takes that person's power and perspective into consideration when expressing themselves. It's just part of our hard-wiring as humans who know that, if we don't want to be kicked out of the tribe to fend for ourselves, we have to compromise or stifle our individuality just enough so that we can "get along."

Group interviews dilute the truth by gravitating toward the loudest or most powerful voice in the room.

This is the effect of conformity bias, and it starts with just one additional voice in the room. It shows up in a number of ways: jumping into agreement with the other without adding any additional nuance, deferential nods or longer stretches of silence that further diminish one's presence and create more space for the one who's more dominant, allowing oneself to be talked over or interrupted, and "take-backs" or editing of one's responses to blend in better with the "narrative" that is being woven in real-time.

Every time one of these things happens, I am further removed from what is true. The interview is now veneer. I don't want veneer, because veneer is the starting point to sounding like everyone else. It's the root of "fitting in," when a company's differentiation — and authenticity — is all about standing out.

What makes an organization unique isn't its apparent perfection — it's actually in all the ways it meets its own limitations and flaws. It's in the hard choices and trade-offs where we truly meet our character as individuals, and it's no different for a company.

Getting to the inner greatness of an organization means creating safe space for the individuals I interview to be vulnerable — about their own origin stories, their desires for growth, the experiences they've had or are co-creating, and how their aspirations and the company's aspirations are in alignment, or not.

This is the "wabi-sabi" approach to interviews — because that's where the really good stuff lies. The true nature of an organization's real story is in the grit, not the polish. Anyone can do polish, but polish isn't where you connect with your audience — you connect with your audience through your authenticity which embraces your imperfections.

If you want to find the truth, you need to meet with people individually. You need to become just two people talking, one soul to another.

Step 4. The Questions (what to ask)

This one's super delicate and it's a really tricky balance.

You have to have clarity about the problem you're solving, and you have to have some hypothesis about what you're searching for and how to solve for it, but it has to be loose enough to allow for flow and change — you cannot enter an interview with a predetermined set of answers, otherwise, you're telling your story, not your client's.

After having done enough research to understand the "bones" of the problem I'm solving for and the context in which I'm solving it, I create a loose set of questions based on a loose set of assumptions and organize them into a build that establishes a deep connection and flow in a very short amount of time.

I always start with The Personal (I want to know who they are independent of their role), which fuels The Purposeful (I want to know what gives their life meaning), which informs The Execution (I want to know about their lived experience where company Purpose meets company strategy).

Part I: The PERSONAL

While the oft-quoted Dale Carnegie phrase, "to be interesting, be interested," feels super performative, self-serving, and manipulative to me, I happily subscribe to the more loving and less utilitarian version:

The royal road to a person's heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most. If we talk to people about what they are interested in, they will feel valued and value us in return.

While this version still recognizes the benefit to the questioner, the benefit is recognized as an energetic byproduct of genuine inquiry, rather than a quid pro quo means to a transactional end.

Kind, curious inquiry is the most important building block to real connection and trust.

I genuinely love hearing people's origin stories. I mean they have 5-10 minutes to tell me what they think is the most important thing I need to understand about them. How can I not be fascinated by what they choose to bring in and what they choose to leave out?

Our origin stories often reveal our deepest longings and values — even if we're not actively pursuing them or living up to them in the moment. Our origin stories are where we feel deep alignment with our lives, or deep dissonance. Our stories are the sum of our decision-making and chosen paths. It's what led this person to this role at this company at this moment. It's how they see themselves and their value. It should also be how they see their aspiration.

Part II: The PURPOSEFUL

Nobody wants to be a cog. Nobody.

What people want is to be empowered to contribute in a meaningful way to the highest aspirations of the enterprise.

A desire for Purpose is in our DNA.

This is part of our evolutionary impulse to grow and change and become something more. It's why there's such a fierce backlash to return-to-office mandates for those who have realized — after choosing how, where, and when to do their best work during the Covid years — that their process, productivity, and flow are not actually dependent on being at the office. In fact, for many of these workers, they realized just how much of their lives was actually being taken from them without compensatory benefits. But that's another story for another day.

This stage of the interview is about exploring the big "why?" for both the individual and the organization. This is where I'm seeking concurrence and convergence between where the Purpose of the individual meets, supports, or is reinforced by the Purpose of the company, because this is the source of true employee engagement.

Aligned Purpose is like having lightning in a bottle — it makes an organization unstoppable.

When an individual recognizes that they are valued for more than their work, that they are contributing to something so much larger than them, and that it's also personally meaningful — there is deep alignment between success and fulfillment. While success is based in material and organizational impact and achievement that can be measured, fulfillment is based in something much more enduring: inner enrichment.

When success and fulfillment are in alignment, the organization unlocks the "secret sauce" of unlimited passion, fierce loyalty, and unwavering commitment from the employee. It's the essence of that famed NASA janitor who quipped to JFK during his tour of the NASA facility, "I'm not mopping floors, I'm putting a man on the moon."

Part III. The EXECUTION

This last part of the interview is reserved for the "How."

It's basically where all the many decisions and trade-offs and compromises happen that determine the path and momentum of an organization. It's where we choose to live up to our promises and aspirations, or where we make excuses for all the ways we don't.

This is where I unearth all the things that are working — and all the things that aren't. This is about finding all the places where what a company says and what a company does just aren't as aligned as they could be, which creates confusion and disappointment among all the people sacrificing time with their families and hobbies and pets every day to make a difference. It also creates confusion in decision-making when stated priorities are not met with adequate resources, time horizons, or expectations.

Execution is where the idealism of Purpose meets the realism of Strategy.

By unearthing both the consonance and dissonance of a company's execution through the anecdotes and lived experiences of a wide range of contributors, I'm able to help leaders see all the ways they can close the gap between who they are as an enterprise, and who they aspire to be.

Step 5. The Listening (how to engage)

Those who know me know I'm a talker, and when I'm particularly excited about a subject, my energy and enthusiasm can be a bit overwhelming for some. I love sharing my ideas and discoveries, and I particularly love sharing things that I think are important and transformative for individuals to reclaim their power and sovereignty — precisely because they've helped me reclaim my own.

But when I'm doing interviews as part of my discovery process, I'm a completely different person. Because when I'm doing interviews, I am not there to talk or share — I'm there to listen and learn.

I'm uniquely designed for this.

Now anyone can do an interview — it's why I'm sharing my approach so that it might inspire and support others. But nobody does an interview the way I do an interview. It's part of my magic (and we each have our own) in the way I'm uniquely designed. These gifts are integral to my own Purpose, which means I no longer take them for granted — I fully understand them and how I'm to use them for the greater good.

If you already know Human Design or follow my Human Design newsletter, you'll know why my Human Design equips me uniquely for this kind of engagement: I have the 4/1 profile lines (the "Warm/Connected Investigator"); the Integration channel of Awakening (The Stoic); the Individual channel of Exploration (The Explorer); the gate of The Listener; and the Collective channels of Logic, Transformation, and Maturation (The Strategist, The Entrepreneur, The Gardener).

Not everyone is designed to do one-on-one interviews, or to do them this way.

I am.

I'm actually built for this — and the person on the other side of me can feel it.

I listen with my eyes and ears.

When playing the role of interviewer, I'm there to ask the questions.

I do not interrupt. I do not finish their sentences. I do not engage in conversation. I do not agree or disagree. I create a space — a stage of sorts, that's not unlike that of a psychologist — where the person I'm interviewing feels completely safe and seen.

The interview is an invitation for the other to empty themselves of whatever is on their heart or mind.

My only agenda is to ask penetrating questions and to listen — without pressure or judgment or bias or even validation. I just listen as they pour their stories and language and silence into our shared space and into me, where all the information begins to weave itself with all the prior interviews into a synthesized tapestry.

I listen to their words and their stories. I witness their body language. I listen to their split-second self-edits and silences and nudge them ever deeper when I sense they're holding back.

When I do these interviews, it's a full-body, almost athletic experience of supreme concentration and hyper alertness. It's physically exhausting to be "on," and physically exhausting to come down and physically exhausting to fully absorb the information and experience. It's the reason I can't do more than four interviews in a day, and it's even better if I can limit them to three if the project timeline and scheduling synchronicity allows.

I see patterns.

After I've done a handful of interviews, maybe 5-7, patterns start emerging.

This is the stage of real-time synthesis, and it's when interviews start to get super exciting and "alive" for me, even though the person I'm interviewing has no idea — it's just an ordinary interview for them.

A new dynamic emerges for me where I have a loose story-line that is from the collective client, and where little nuggets of truth are emerging that I now get to "double-click" and test insights and go deeper. So while I continue to inquire for breadth of understanding, I am now going for depth into the emerging pillars of the company's story.

I have to be totally alert and alive with all the information from previous interviews at the forefront of my mind so I can start piecing and assembling in real-time the practical and conceptual connections that bridge functions, worlds, and stories — my brain feels like popcorn as the kernels heat up and come to life in the pan.

Once the first patterns emerge after the first few interviews, I start to abandon the loose structure of my initial questions (except the personal and purposeful), because I'm no longer at the surface of my understanding, I'm now fleshing out details to fill gaps and create depth. I'm trusting my intuition and energy to follow the lede and take me and the interview wherever it needs to go.

I seal the interview.

I think of these interviews as sacred spaces.

I mean, how often do we just pause and reflect and connect with ourselves or another in the workplace and about the meaning of work? These interactions are little luxuries. By the time we finish the interview my client is often lit up and highly energized.

I often hear from the people I interview that it feels like really good therapy — and, well yeah, it is. When you get to show up as your true self with vulnerability and without the artifice of having to prove anything or defend yourself against someone else's expectations or criticisms or judgments — you just get to show up and be seen — that's what it feels like when we're no longer "performing" and simply being. That's what it feels like when we're living in alignment with our whole, authentic self.

I've learned the hard way to keep recording until the client actually leaves the session, because in the waning moments of such an intimate conversation, there is often an inspired reflection by the client or a turn of phrase that I could never invent on my own and I'm unable to write down fast enough in their exact words.

The sacred space of these interfaces has a way of piercing the veil to the Divine that our conversation has invited in, and I don't want to miss a single word of it.

Conclusion

The goal of a company narrative isn't just about telling the story — it's about the audience internalizing the story.

If you don't take time to interview the people who are actually in the story, what's the point?

If you want to learn more about The Art of Smart Storytelling, subscribe here.

If you're looking for an expert facilitator and thought partner to help you tell your story, we can help.

If you want to become a more magnetic, successful, impactful, and empowered leader or contributor, subscribe to our other newsletter that focuses on helping you hack your Human Design.