Who by GEOFF SMART

Author:GEOFF SMART
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780345510440
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

Why did you leave that job?

The final question of this vital Who Interview can be one of the most insight-producing questions you ask. Were the candidates for your position promoted, recruited, or fired from each job along their career progression? Were they taking the next step in their career or running from something? How did they feel about it? How did their boss react to the news?

A Players are highly valued by their bosses. B and C Players often are not. It is an important piece of the puzzle to figure out if somebody decided to leave a job after being successful (an A Player clue) or whether he or she was pushed out of a job by a boss who did not value their contribution (a B or C Player clue). A Players perform well, and bosses express disappointment when they quit. B and C Players perform less well and are nudged out of their jobs or forcefully pushed out by their bosses.

Don’t accept vague answers like “My boss and I didn’t connect.” That’s a non-answer. Get curious. Find out why, and stick with it until you have clear picture of what actually happened.

We encountered a particularly striking example of the power of this last question when we were interviewing a former VP of sales on behalf of a group of investors who were considering him for a CEO position. In the course of running through a list of his previous jobs, we asked, “Why did you leave that job?”

He replied, “I had a philosophical disagreement with my boss.”

That sparked our “What? How? Tell me more” curiosity. “What happened?” we asked.

“Well,” he replied, “I guess it came down to this one board meeting. I was there with my CEO, and the board was giving him a hard time because we had fallen short on our sales numbers.”

“What were the numbers?” we asked the former VP of sales.

“We were off our goal by 25 percent. The board was not happy. They really had my CEO squirming with all of their questions. He finally cracked under the pressure and said to the board, ‘If we do not achieve our target this next quarter, we’ll have to get a new VP of sales—meaning my job!’”

“What did you do?” we asked, sensing this was about to get interesting.

“Well,” he said, “I looked him right in the eye and said, ‘You know what? Your mother had a lot of foresight when she named you.’”

Our minds started whirring with the possibilities. There were so many questions we wanted to explore. “What was his name?” we finally asked.

“Well, his given name was Richard, but he went by the common nickname for Richard.”

Once again, we fought hard to maintain a straight face. This guy had just insulted his boss, the CEO, in front of the board of directors! “What happened next?” we prodded.

“The board thought it was hysterical, but Richard didn’t. He adjourned the meeting for fifteen minutes and called me into his office. That was when he fired me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.