Management Leverage Blog

I had a manager who ruled by metaphors. And it was extremely effective way of getting me to do things.. First of all, his metaphors often made me laugh. “I can feel for you but I can’t reach you,” was his way of telling me to leave him alone and figure out the solution myself.

Metaphors appeal to our emotions. But because they also leak our perceptions of the way the world works, they provide openings to persuade. If you hear a colleague say “business is war,” for example, you have not only discovered something about the way he or she may perceive the world of business, but also what behaviors are acceptable in that world.

Suppose I notice that ‘business is war’ describes the world as you see it. If I want to influence you to do something consistent with this metaphor, I would just use words you already identify with, such as ‘compete’ or ‘attrition’.
But that’s the easy part. What if I want to delegate some of my CRM duties to you. I can’t just say, “Business is about building relationships with our customers”, because you will say “No it’s not. It’s war.” Then we will go back and forth like my 3 and 5 year-old sons—“No it’s not.” “Yes it is.” “No it’s not”. But in a much more refined fashion, of course.

But if I first use your metaphor, I can guide you where I want you to go, because I have unconsciously tapped into what you already believe. I could say something like “We spend more time fighting with our suppliers than we do building relationships with our customers.”

Now, I have gotten your attention. And freed up some of my time.

The key is to simply listen.

What metaphors describe your boss’s view of the world? Your colleagues’? Your direct reports?

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Are you tired of hiring the best and the brightest, only to have them sabotage the climate of the entire division, and then leave. The problem has to do with fit. And you can’t leverage your time when you hire the wrong people.

The best way to interview  for fit is to ask behavioral questions that get at the heart of your culture, but are completely unrelated to your business.

Job candidates have already carefully crafted answers to the questions you plan on asking them—mostly, how can they benefit the company. But these questions don’t get at their values, and even if they did, they are only going to tell you what you want to here. After all, they have rehearsed.

To develop behavioral fit questions, you first need to brainstorm a list of adjectives that describe your culture. You can’t brainstorm alone, so enlist a few others to help. The key is precision.

Then, in a separate meeting, get these same people to help you brainstorm some questions that get at these precise adjectives. Make sure the questions have nothing to do with your business.

Let’s say you come up with ‘creative’ or ‘open-minded’. You could ask “If we could go anywhere for lunch, where would we go?” “McDonald’s” would be an uncreative answer. “The moon” or “Zimbabwe” are more what you are looking for.

Or maybe you don’t want creative people, but regimented people. You could ask something like “Do you put the toilet paper roll so that the paper is coming off the top, off the bottom, or both?” If you are looking for regimented people, you want them to put the toilet paper on the same way each time.

The best time to ask these types of questions is in the beginning or, in a Colombo-like question at the end of the interview. Job candidates will be more likely to leak their true feelings if you can surprise them.

I’m not saying that the usual interview questions are unimportant. You obviously need to know how the job candidate can help you in your business. These questions also give you an idea for how well they have prepared for the interview. But it’s hard to discern the all important element of values and fit. If they don’t fit, they will eventually leave, or be asked to leave. They’re not going to stick around. But how much damage do they cause before they finally go?

And then you are right back where you started in the hiring process. The long-term payoff (for the company and the employee) of someone who fits and grows within the corporate culture, is enormous.

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