Interviewing Senior Execs

http://delian.io/lessons-2

Summary 

• First identify whether the open role is value creating or value protecting. If it’s value creating, focus on ideas they’ve taken from start to finish even if they aren’t related to the role. If it’s value protecting, focus on whether they have lots of prior domain expertise related to the value you expect this role to protect. 
• Assess whether they think like an owner. Do they own mistakes? Are they kept up at night by what they would do differently if they were CEO? 
• Are they capable of strategic thinking? Can they keep your entire business equation in their head and even come up with new levers you hadn’t thought of that can move certain variables? 
• Do their strengths align with the major risks of the company? Do they diversify your leadership team’s style and background? 
• Are they a magnet for talent? Can they bring on people even better than themselves?

Found this great article on interviewing senior folks. One major culture shock I had when I joined NI was the questions that were asked for lateral folks. Irresspective of what the person has accomplished we used to go with a set of questions and judge the person based (mostly) on answers to those. The person might have been highly accomplished, but if he/she failed to answer “our” questions, the person was not selected. For someone grown up in interviewing not specifically for skills (don’t get me wrong, skills are important – you don’t want to teach ‘basics’ to senior folks), but also for knowledge/insights, attitude, work-ethic, demonstrated ability to learn etc., I was at a loss of words. Hope it has changed now. 

The summary itself gives us a set of great processes and things to look for. Though it is directed towards startups hiring CXOs, it is applicable for us too when we hire Senior Enggs+ and GM+, though the scope of “strategic thinking” may be different for a GM when compared to a CFO.

What RamP's Reading: Feb'19

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Discover Your True North: Being a leader is about much more than title and management skills—it's fundamentally a question of who we are as human beings. Discover Your True North offers a concrete and comprehensive program for becoming an authentic leader, and shows how to chart your path to leadership success.

Take Your Time: The Wisdom Of Slowing Down: When the mind is unhurried, we are patient, kind, and focused, ready to respond to what really matters amidst the clamor of a busy day. The secret is to train our minds to work steadily and with one-pointed attention, however many tasks confront us.

For over forty years, Easwaran taught meditation and he distills the wisdom of slowing down in this book.

Why bad leaders focus on being friends first

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-bad-leaders-focus-being-friends-first-john-eades/

Interesting article.

I’ve always disliked leaders that sugar coat feedback and/or exaggerate accomplishments of the team members when there is none or at best mediocre. This might be fine in the short run (people will “like” such leaders better than someone that is seen demanding/challenging), but in the long run everyone finds out resulting in a trust deficit. Of course it doesn’t mean one should not focus on friendship or friendly leader aren’t effective. Colin Powell said “Being responsible means sometimes pissing off people” in his celebrated principles of leadership. 

I also have made a my fair share of mistakes of being “too much people focussed” and therefore not able to make good business decisions which would be long term (and win-win).

Ofcourse no one likes constructive feedback (though we publicly proclaim that we actually receive less feedback and welcome more), but in the long run we need our leaders to challenge us and help us grow. And for that to happen we have to be open for constructive feedback. Focussing on being “liked” is a big impediment. When we expect this from our leaders, why not provide the same for people that have given us an opportunity to lead them.

Is your team overwhelmed?

If Your Team Is Overwhelmed, What Can They Stop Doing?

Project overload is real. But as a leader, it can be hard to tell whether your team needs more resources or just could be working more efficiently. Start by asking people to identify their key activities and how much time they spend on them in a typical week. Use that data to assess workloads and priorities. Consider which tasks the team could stop doing and which might benefit from having their process rethought. Pay special attention to low-value projects that have to get done but that take up an inordinate amount of time. Are there ways to simplify the workflows to reduce the amount of time your team spends in these areas? And last but not least, look for tasks that simply can be done more quickly. If your team is still struggling after these steps, it might be time to hire more people.

(From HBR)

Learning Process

I came across this gem:

Keith Holyoak, a UCLA professor of psychology and one of the world’s leading thinkers on analogical reasoning, recommends people ask themselves the following two questions in order to hone their skills:

1. What does this remind me of?

2. Why does it remind me of it?

By constantly looking at objects in your environment and material you read and asking yourself these two questions, you build the muscles in your brain that help you make connections across traditional boundaries.

The above was in an articlethat sheds light on how Elon Musk is able to learn so many things in so many areas, that is a great read not just into processes practiced by Musk, but also to get an idea as to how one can accelerate learning.

It takes goodwill to be heard

It takes courage to speak up, but it takes goodwill to get heard. Before speaking truth to power, it helps to establish that (1) you excel at your job, (2) you're not selfish, and (3) you're invested in the organization.

Read the HBR article on strategies for cultivating every day courage  here (via @AdamMGrant - do follow him if you aren't yet).

Nuggets from Adam Grant

We need to invest time in getting at becoming better leaders (BBL). If we don’t we’d risk becoming irrelevant pretty soon as orgs do not wait endlessly for us to get better. There are many ways – observe, get mentored, read books, follow tweets, podcasts, blogs of celebrated pundits, listen to TED etc., As I’ve a goal to improve coaching and dev across RF (and struggling what it means to do so), I thought I’ll share few good gems (books, tweets, podcasts, TED talks etc). Here is the first one. I’ll put “BBL” in subject line to identify these. Encourage all of us to share interesting things you find.

Prof. Adam M Grant is a Wharton professor of psychology, author of successful books like Originals, Give and Take, Option B (with Shelly Sandberg) and a very strong communicator. His tweets are gems and I strongly recommend to follow him (@AdamMGrant). Some of his latest ones: