Draw No Boxes

As a parent and teacher, I have always been interested in how people learn. I watched my children gaze in wonder at the mobile above their bed. I observed them learn to walk, talk, recognize themselves in a mirror, write, do complex math, and succeed and fail at many other endeavors. Watching them, I learned about myself. These observations only piqued my interest in exploring “how we learn.”

This interest led me to look at the various models to describe how people learn. Around 1980, Gordon Training International published the “conscious competence” model. The model offers a framework for how people gain and internalize knowledge. The model describes the individual as beginning as “unconsciously incompetent” (UI) – they did not know what they did not know. When the individual realizes they do not understand something, they become “consciously incompetent” (CI). At this point, the individual could learn the discipline and become “consciously competent” (CC). With time and application, the discipline becomes completely internalized, and the individual becomes “unconsciously competent” (UC) – doing the discipline without thinking.

This model transcends ego. For you to learn, you must first not know. I have pursued education for a long time. The greatest learning in my education and professional endeavors is how little I truly know. My Ph.D. added a very small piece of knowledge to the universal body of knowledge. Indeed, I am an expert in a genre, but it is only one of thousands and thousands of genres. I recognize I am “unconsciously incompetent” of many things – – are you?

We will explore this “conscious competence” model further later.

Until next time.

Dr. Dave

We have all encountered leaders who feel they are (and must be) the smartest person in the room. I have experienced them many times. My biggest errors occurred when I thought I knew everything and did not seek out those individuals who could give me more information or act as a sounding board. This type of arrogance can be unintentional or quite intentional. For some, it begins with a promotion, being told they are smart or acquiring some accolade or title. Sometimes, these types of leaders relish the attention, power, and control but ultimately become a bottleneck or constraint to productivity. Regardless of the reason, I want to offer some helpful ways to 1) not become this type of leader and 2) help the team make the best decision.

First, make decisions WITH your people. Solicit input and when that input sways your decision, call it out in a positive way. “That is a good thought, and it is a little different than what I was thinking. I think we should . . . “. Don’t be scared to admit an idea is good and perhaps you were wrong. If you are never wrong, you are likely not honest or not challenged.

Also, offer some alternatives to their initial thoughts. Sometimes these alternatives are not meant to change the decision but to vet it. “That is a good thought, but what happens in this scenario if . . . what are your thoughts in that case?” Be ready if the answer is, “well, I guess it won’t work.” You do not want to shoot down people’s ideas or creativity, but if the scenario completely blows the idea out of the water, then so be it. You could use their thought process to move down another line of exploration. If the mentee is just giving up, quickly restate the idea and the premise, then offer more thoughts but continue questioning the scenario. Remember, you do not have all the perfect ideas, and most implemented ideas are not perfect. You are just trying to get the best, although not perfect, idea on the table.
As demonstrated here – Ask questions! You can help your mentees by questioning them to the answer. Through these questions, they can see the logic you use to reach your decisions. Likewise, you will learn how your people think and broaden your thinking. Questions allow you not to have the answer and vet your own ideas without being wrong.

I will talk about using questioning periodically. I feel it is a powerful and underused tool. Become a questioning master! I will try to help!

Until next time!

Dr. Dave

Dr. Kurt Lewin is the author of seminal works in organizational behavior circles. Lewin offered a simplistic model to explain the change process. The process consists of three phases – “unfreeze – change – freeze.” The “unfreeze” phase announces the intention to change by making the norm for the behavior specifically targeted and helping people deal with letting go of the old norm. The unfreezing of the norm is immediately followed by the movement to the new norm, referred to as “change.” Finally, the organization or culture will establish this change or new destination as the new norm and “freeze” it. Voilà – CHANGE!

You may say to me at this point, “Well, DUH, Dr. Dave! You can’t change something until you prep the people, make the change and re-freeze it if you want to sustain the change.” Well, if the change process were so “duh” easy, everyone would do it successfully. Dr. Lewin keenly realized organizations, people, and cultures would revert back to the previous norm or potentially degenerate into a version of chaos if the new norm is not frozen. I refer to this “sustaining the newly frozen norm” as the “Lewin Riddle.” I have found making a change easy; sustaining the change difficult. If you can solve the Lewin Riddle, your organization will succeed in responding to the winds of change.

So, the obvious question . . . What can I do to get the change to stick; what’s the answer to the Lewin Riddle?

Stay tuned, and we will discuss it further. The answer is elusive, as you may have guessed; however, I have come across several tools and techniques that may help. I also invite your thoughts on sustaining change and solving the Lewin Riddle in your organization.

Until next time!

Dr. Dave

So you walk into an interview and you meet a highly energetic/engaged hiring manager or human resources representative. The interviewer goes through the pleasantries, sets you, “the interviewee,” at ease, and begins the questioning.  The interviewer looks down at your resume/application and asks the first real question, “So tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult person you were working with?”  This energetic/engaged interviewer is utilizing “behavioral interviewing.”  The interviewer wants you to recount a specific experience demonstrating the behaviors you used to “deal with a difficult person.”  How you answer this question will be as important as the content.  Here is what I suggest:

1) Context: Tell the interviewer where you worked, your relationship with the individual, and why the person was difficult.
2) SPECIFIC situation: what was the project, work/task, etc., and what did you do (behaviors) in working through the difficulty
3) Results: how did your behaviors benefit the entire team, the difficult individual, and you

So what should you do to prepare:

1) Have the behaviors ready to explain the results on your resume: Take all the results from your resume and put some behavioral stories around them.
2) Be prepared with portfolios, letters of recommendation, or any other artifact that shows your behaviors in action
3) Google Behavioral Interviewing and look at the questions you see – there are many resources out there
4) Practice your stories, practice your stories, practice your stories – most of the situations you encountered in your career show several different behaviors

Whew! You read this post before you encountered a behavioral interviewer. Nothing lost. So the most common comments and the question I get is, “This is great! What do I do for the 80% of interviewers I encounter that are not behavioral interviewers?”  Set the foundation and give them behavioral answers!  The strength of preparing for a behavioral interview is the answers you would provide better represent you.  For example: “So tell me what you did at EXTRA BIG Company, says you were a DBA?”

1) Foundation: Yes, I was a DBA at BIG CO, in which I helped to create and maintain databases with high availability.  I liked BIG CO because I got to be proactive.  In one example . . .
2) Context: I was monitoring the databases and noticed a higher-than-normal latency during certain hours.  So I decided to explore it with some of my colleagues.
3) Specific results: As we looked at the environment, we noticed a program taking 25% more resources than normal. After talking to Michael in the application group, we determined we had a perfect storm problem.  At the time, the volume was low, but during our peak season, the system would choke because the transactions would be 250% higher.  We raised it to management and got a rewrite.
4) Results: We moved through peak season without incident, and the company saw record transactions.  Felt good to know we avoided problems by being curious and proactive.

The “other side” of behavioral interviewing is “behavioral answering.”  Use behavioral answering when you don’t have a behavioral interviewer and you will be better represented.  Prepare one way that fits both.

Hope this helps!

Until next time.

Dr. Dave

Over my career, I have found spending extra time on interviewing is SO important.  Really good people are out there, but you need to find out how they actually work.  A tool I use is called “behavioral interviewing.”  Not that I am a revolutionary here, but I am surprised how frequently the interviewer (HR and non-HR) and the interviewees lack familiarity with behavioral interviewing and its value.

Behavioral Interviewing is a technique where the interviewer asks the interviewee to recount previous experiences in response to questions.  When the interviewer uses behavioral interviewing, he/she must control the interview.  The interviewer must:

• Ask the questions properly to obtain behavioral information from the interviewee.
• Ensure the interviewee responds appropriately to the questions
• Be prepared with follow-up questions to get further behavioral information.

So how does it work?

The interviewer asks questions in the following manner:

” Tell me about a time when you . . .”

“Give me an example of a project [task] where you . . .”

“Tell about an experience in your past where you had to . . .”

From these questions, the interviewer will learn of times when the interviewee demonstrated (or did not demonstrate) the specified behaviors. The questions should be crafted to get information on the desired behaviors.

As mentioned earlier, the interviewer must be careful in accepting responses from the interviewee.  Frequently, the answers from the candidate will not be the recounting of experiences but rather answers such as “I would” or “I believe.”  You, as the interviewer, must stop such answers and ask for a “specific time when . . .” and drill into the answer for more detail.  Remember, you are attempting to determine how the individual will handle (or has handled) specific situations or people.

When you receive an answer from the interviewee, you have a great opportunity to use the interviewee’s words in your next question to either dive deeper or position your next question.  I refer to this technique as “conversational interviewing” because you are carrying on a “conversation” by using “their words” in your questions.  Several things happen here – 1) your credibility increases as the interviewer knows you are listening, 2) you put the interviewer at ease using their words, and 3) the interviewer will engage because they feel heard.  Think about it – you like when people use your descriptions, your terminology, or “words” in regular conversations; imagine an interviewer doing it – – powerful!

Behavioral interviewing – a powerful tool for the interviewer!

Next time, I will discuss how behavioral interviewing is a powerful tool for the interviewee!

Until next time.

Dr. Dave

Have you ever been in a meeting where you couldn’t get a straight answer? Everything presented is a problem; every problem is devastating, and the world as we know it is coming to an end. Turns into the proverbial “blame-storming” session. Well, you are not alone. I have been in many of these meetings as well. Frustrating!

So after the meeting, you take your frustration, vent a little, then put together a plan of action. You say to yourself, “I think I will talk to Jack directly.” So you set up a meeting and Jack accepts! You are stoked; he actually accepted! Interestingly, when the conversations are one-on-one, the hyperbole goes away. Frustrating!

Let me submit you have the meetings in the wrong order. You know the “hyperbole – ians.” Meet with Jack before your open forum, and you can build a message without the hyperbole. Increase your interactions on the small and medium “issues,” and be honest. If the problem is big, call it big. If the problem is small, call it small. Get an understanding of the issues and build consensus. Before you know it, the hyperbole will go elsewhere.

Until next time.

– Dr. Dave

I have a colleague that used the term “manic congruency” to refer to the dogged pursuit of having all of the elements in a business in alignment. Later, when we were involved in a discussion regarding the best development methodology for building applications, “waterfall,” “agile,” “RAD,” etc., I mentioned that it depended on the maturation of the organization and the characteristics of the project deliverable. My colleague stated, “that is what I meant when I said manic congruency.'”

The term is cool;  the concept is real. When choosing a process methodology, you should select the one that matches your organizational perspective and the deliverable. If your leadership cannot handle the realities of time and scope, you may want to consider a waterfall methodology. However, if your management is realistic, collaborative, and team-oriented, perhaps you can go to agile.  Of course, no one uses agile implementing an SAP or large-scale ERP system, so the deliverable is important.

Be careful. If you choose the wrong methodology, you are doomed to failure. Management will become frustrated and begin to micromanage the project. When the process methodology matches, even yellow projects can easily be discussed. We must ensure congruence, perhaps even “manic.”

Until next time!

Dr. Dave