Interviewing ? - Check the ingredients and the stew !

W's work best as triplets - and we're not talking pace bowlers

One of my favourite topics to think of is the correlation between " what was done" during an interview and " how the candidate turns out" in the long run and I try and overlay a longer time lapse to go back and see what course corrections I can effect on my own interviewing style. Early on, I realized I was focussed way too much on the "How to get things done? " which most smart people are good at and its harder to differentiate between them (sort of like averages for a batsman in cricket). I moved on to two W's " What got done ? and was that the best choice ?" and I found it "What" is a higher plane of thinking than the "How" ? and then onto "Why?" and then "Who ?". The 3W's "What, Why, Who" represent a triangulation of skill sets, passsion , detailing/depth of execution and perspective that reveal a lot more about the candidate in the long run.

Linear post success narratives dont' help

Over the past 2-3 months, I have been thinking about why most of us have been strait-jacketed about a linear narrative that often asks for the candidate to talk about their success and then "why it happened; what did the candidate do; how was it done " etc. The trouble with this is you choose the result first - tell me about a time when you were successful and then you are dependent on the candidate on the narrative. While this works exceptionally for junior roles, where the often the number of successes is a broad indicator of attitude, work ethic and smartness, as one gets into a higher level, it blurs a lot more. One probably gets to make 2-3 big decisions a year with some amount of deliberation and a lot of ambiguity - often one would be lucky to have 30-50% of the information available to make the decision.

Decision stew requires constant re-calibration and careful re-mixing of ingredients

For eg., " Why did you launch a new product ?" is a loaded question. To be honest no one's going to know the market size, potential of the product, how customers would perceive it etc. until after a few weeeks after the launch. Often, in this case what matters, is the ability to "salaami slice" the problem into manage-able modules. For eg., " we talked to 100 customers from across India and got specific feedback" is a far more powerful indicator in my mind than an answer that says " we felt it had a lot of market potential given demographic trends." The latter reduces the probability of failure by overlaying external data points vis-a-vis pure judgement in the former. It also forces you to think carefully about what are the 3-4 big questions and overlay intuition and gut with some sense check through argument, external data points. Ability to "double dip" or "triple dip" on the important questions and stew on answers and iterate if need be is, often a far important indicator of fine judgement than build a narrative post fact on a success - to this extent, its very similar to investing another field I am endlessly fascinated about. Slowing things done, not afraid to remix the ingredients and letting the stew boil over for longer is'nt wrong before the decision - infact, it often is an indicator of an adaptable, stretchable mind.

In summary, just picking up an event and pivoting the ask from a post facto analysis to a panoramic perspective of the key decision points (why - > what - > how) was done is a key indicator of the long term success of the candidate.