They don’t care. You should show that you do!

Telemarketers hang up on me within 30 seconds, before even mentioning the product or service they are selling.

Their unsolicited calls often begin with a question: “How are you today?”

Because the caller asks, I assume he must want an answer. So, I tell him.

“Thanks for asking. My back is pretty sore today.”

Click! The telemarketer has hung up on me.

Well, that was just one telemarketer. Surely the next one will want an answer.

“How are you today?” he asked.

“All the better for receiving your call. I was feeling lonely and a bit down.”

Click!

That one gave me an epiphany: telemarketers don’t care.

Under pressure to produce, they don’t have time for conversation. Just a “Fine” or “I’m OK” before they launch into their sales pitch.

For them, “How are you today?“ is just a social convention. They are reading a script, and when we answer with more than one or two words, they don’t know where to go next.

Asking without caring about how people might respond comes up in other encounters we have daily. Whenever we make a purchase or pay for a restaurant meal, we are told to “Have a good day.” The speaker is usually just going through the motions.

Related Article: Has saying thank you become just a habit?

Words without meaning are often what staff experience when being recognized, too. Their  leaders drop clues that they are just going through the motions and staff members recognize those clues:

• The message is generic. Everyone hears the same words or receives the same letter of commendation.
• The recognition is impersonal. Recognition usually occurs in groups, rather than individually. The focus is on events, rather than day-to-day recognition.
• The person making the presentation doesn’t know the person being recognized, can’t pronounce their name, doesn’t know what they did or understand why it is important.
• The person doing the recognition lays it on too thick, as if they hope that among the many platitudes there will be at least one that fits the circumstance.
• There appears to be no relationship between the words of appreciation and anything the recipient did.

Attend an event to mark service anniversaries and someone will stand at the front of a room filled with people who have remained with the same employer for five, 10, 15 years or more, to speak about how valuable everyone is to the organization.

“We really appreciate you and your dedication to ABC Corp. You all work so hard and produce such great work.”

Those are the same words that have been spoken thousands of times to thousands of other employees in thousands of organizations.

Scanning the room, you’ll see people who are loyal to the organization, who work hard every day and produce terrific results. But then there are others. They feel no attachment to their employer, never work particularly hard and are responsible for shoddy outcomes.

All that everyone in the room has in common is survival. Over the past five years, they haven’t quit, they didn’t die, and they avoided being fired.

The speakers don’t seem to care about the differences in people’s commitment and productivity. They might care that the people who stay saved them the resources they’d need to invest to recruit their replacements.

For recognition to be meaningful, you must care about people and what they do. You must know staff members as people and value them as individuals.

When you are seen as caring, the recognition you provide will be perceived as Genuine, the one essential ingredient of GREAT staff recognition.

Including two other ingredients will be interpreted as evidence that you care. 

Recognition that is Explicit shows you are paying attention to what people are doing. You can be specific when describing the performance you appreciate.

Before you can recognize people in Appropriate ways you need to know them well enough to understand what is important to them. How you recognize them should reflect their interests and what’s important to them and respect their preference for recognition that is public or private.

Leaders who care about staff members as individuals don’t rely on generic, one-size-fits-all techniques and trinkets. They don’t send “Dear Occupant” letters that obviously convey the same cliche-filled message to everyone. They don’t host events where everyone is praised equally.

Whenever you read a book filled with staff recognition tips, tools and techniques, such as Thanks, Again!, realize that not all the suggestions will be right for you and your circumstances. Identify the ones you can adopt or adapt as Appropriate ways to recognize staff members you care about. Avoid others that would not be Appropriate for your workplace and staff.

Because they don’t care about us, telemarketers will hang up on us when we tell them how we are really feeling.

When staff believe leaders don’t care about them, they will “hang up” on them, too. When all recognition is generic, staff will conclude, “They don’t know me and they don’t know what I do.”

When staff members believe that their leaders know who they are, care about them and understand what they do, they will be more engaged in their work and less likely to leave. Staff members will feel they are where they belong when they feel their leaders care about them as individuals.

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Thanks, Again! Is available at Audreys Books, 10702 Jasper Ave., Edmonton (and on their website) and online from Amazon, Indigo, FriesenPress Bookstore, Barnes & Noble and from the Apple Books app.

You asked about: Recruiting to rural communities

Question: How do I attract amazing candidates who want to try teaching in a rural community?

Attracting teachers to smaller communities has always been a challenge and it hasn’t become any easier as Canada appears to be experiencing a teacher shortage. What you face reminds me of my first experience recruiting teachers to Fort McMurray Public Schools. 

There was no Canada-wide shortage of teachers, but there was a shortage of teachers in Alberta who wanted to move to what was perceived as an isolated northern community with few amenities and a “harsh climate.”

Over that spring and summer, we succeeded in attracting a sufficient number of applications and interviewing enough candidates to fill more than 100 vacancies. The pursuit of teachers took me across the country, to provinces where shortages of teaching positions produced an abundance of recent graduates anxious to start their teaching careers and willing to go anywhere to do so.

Since that summer of anxiety, I have become an observer of recruitment practices. What works and what doesn’t?

Success seems to depend on the creativity you use to make your organization stand out from the crowd. This should be easy, because in education as in other fields, many organizations rely on a strategy I cynically refer to as, “We’re-Just-as-Boring-As-The-Next-Guy.”

Employers’ advertising state that they are looking for candidates who are dedicated, hardworking, career-oriented team players who enjoy a high-energy environment—which is exactly what every other employer is seeking.

In exchange for an employee’s time, potential employers promise an “attractive remuneration and an excellent benefits package”—just like the other guys are offering.

It’s easy for potential applicants to compare these similar requirements and benefits because everyone advertises where everyone else advertises.

Nothing distinguishes one organization from similar organizations that are hiring. Nothing captures the excitement of their workplaces. “Come work for us. We’re just like every other organization in our field. We’re just as boring.”

Success in attracting applications demands different approaches that will capture the attention of potential applicants.

Humour can be the key. Back in the 1960s, Northlands School Division advertised in the United Kingdom and Ireland for teachers for remote northern communities by warning that, “No Weaklings Need Apply.”

Other organizations combine a mix of humour and vanity to attract applications.

On a screen at the Las Vegas airport a few years, Clark County invited “All Heroes” to apply to teach in its schools—“Cape Included.”  

A recruitment poster in Edmonton’s Block 1912 coffee shop consisted of just a few words—“Qualifications: must be awesome. If this describes you, come prove it.” 

Of course, people applied. Who doesn’t consider themselves “awesome?”

Another factor that may have contributed to the success of those campaigns? They appeared where likely applicants would see them. On the “Fish Where the Fish Are” episode of the CBC radio series Under the Influence, advertising guru Terry O’Reilly describes recruitment campaigns that succeeded because they were creative and were placed where potential applicants would see them.

For example, when recruiting for a new store in Australia, Ikea slipped an extra instruction sheet into every box of furniture sold there. Titled, “Career Instructions: Assemble your future,” the insert advised people who were already customers that they were hiring and provided instructions on how to apply. 

Costs were minimal and the campaign attracted more than 4,000 applications for 280 positions.

My most successful advertisement, as measured by the number of responses,  appeared in the ATA (Alberta Teachers’ Association) News and announced our intent “to hire the 10 best teachers in Alberta.” Anyone who felt they were one of the 10 best was invited  to apply.

Hundreds did!

Another way to “advertise” vacancies is to let parents or customers know you are hiring.

Returning a rental car a few years ago, I was surprised when the person behind the counter announced that, “We are hiring.” I said I wasn’t interested. He was undeterred. Did I know someone who might be interested?

Another potentially productive approach is to ask existing staff, particularly those early in their careers, “Do you know someone who is about to graduate who will be looking for a job?” They just might.

In 2019, McDonald’s restaurants tackled their recruitment challenges with a campaign that invited friends to apply together. “Friends wanted. Be more than friends. Be co-workers.” The US Army has used a similar approach, inviting applications from two friends, married couples and groups of up to five buddies.

I am going to wrap up this article by describing a marketing campaign that we designed for a client that had nothing to doing with recruiting staff but which might be a template that can be applied to attract more applications for jobs in smaller communities.

When a post-secondary institute asked us to develop a smoking cessation campaign targeted at its students, we suggested something that was likely completely different than what they’d expected. We proposed a tongue-in-cheek campaign that focused on what smokers would miss if they stopped smoking.

To their credit, the client took a risk and worked with us to develop posters and bookmarks that focused on the “benefits” of smoking, such as:

• Opportunities to go outside, no matter the weather (illustrated with a picture of a smoker drenched by rain).
• Opportunities to assemble a complete collection of warning labels from cigarette packages.

Based on this experience, I believe that a recruitment campaign that highlights what people would miss if they abandoned urban centres in favour of a job—and a life—in a smaller community, could mention:

• Spending an hour commuting to work every morning and another hour in the afternoon rush-hour traffic.
• Spending most of your paycheque on rent
• Having to drive every time you needed to go shopping for anything
• Being anonymous to senior leadership, who they never meet and seldom see

It’s always going to be a challenge to attract suitable applicants to smaller communities, but creative approaches may make your efforts more successful.

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Interested in spending a few minutes brainstorming solutions to your unique recruitment challenges? Click here to schedule a free, no-obligation conversation with Nelson.

The case for evidence-based hiring

A campaigning politician recently promised that, if elected, he will employ an “evidence-based decision-making model” to resolve society’s problems. This would contrast with his opponents’ practice of “decision-based evidence-making”—seeking evidence to support decisions that have already been made.

Sounds good. Wouldn’t we all welcome a world where decisions were based on the best available evidence?

Yet, while no one would admit to doing the opposite—using an evidence-making approach—the world is full of examples of decisions that were made without first carefully examining the relevant information.

Often, decisions are made first, then followed by a scramble to find reasons that justify the choices of politicians and business leaders. “Evidence-makers” rely on conspiracy theories, “alternative facts” (thanks to former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway for inventing the term), and the deliberate misinterpretation of credible research findings.

It happens in politics, where solutions that are popular (i.e., what gets you elected) may be at odds with approaches that work elsewhere or are supported by mounds of research. It happens in business, where policies are created to address problems that don’t exist.

Alas, it also happens when hiring, when decisions are driven by factors that may be unconscious, such as gut feelings, biases and first impressions.

Detective Hercule Poirot provides an interesting take on the power of the subconscious near the end of the 2023 film, A Haunting in Venice: “My subconscious mind assembled facts ahead of the rational.” 

A rational approach is essential whether identifying a murderer or identifying the right person to hire. When you have a vacancy to fill, you must use interviews and reference checks to gather pertinent evidence before making your hiring decision.

Before beginning to gather evidence, identify the competencies and attitudes the ideal next addition to your staff should possess. Develop questions that will reveal evidence that candidates have what you are seeking. Create a rubric that enables you to objectively assess responses to each question. What would you expect of a potential top performer? What would be acceptable? And what would be an unsatisfactory response?

During interviews, avoid asking opinion questions. Don’t ask candidates, “What would you do if …?” Ask how they have responded to circumstances similar to those they might encounter if hired. 

Don’t ask if they feel collaboration and customer service are important. Instead, ask them to describe a time when they collaborated with co-workers or how they resolved a customer’s problem.

Don’t ask references if they would hire this candidate again or for their assessment of the individual’s performance. Ask them to describe how the candidate has collaborated with colleagues or how they responded to a customer’s issue.

Keep your questions short to avoid providing hints about what you would prefer to hear from the candidate. 

Decision-first hiring often results when interviewers make a quick judgment about candidates. Once judgments are made, interviewers stop listening for evidence that is contrary to their first impressions. 

Keep an open mind. Resist the urge to make early assessments based on what happens early in interviews. Candidates who perform poorly early on may redeem themselves as the interview progresses, while early “front-runners” will fade in the stretch. Collect as much evidence as you can before making hiring decisions.

When you practise evidence-based decision-making, you are setting yourself up for hiring success. You will be prepared to select the right people to fill your vacancies.

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Want to make evidence-based hiring the norm in your organization? Contact Nelson (nmscott@telus.net or phone/text 780-232-3828) to schedule an Interview Right to Hire Right workshop for your leadership team or to learn more about this and other workshops and programs.

Genuine curiosity can lead to more inclusive workplaces

While I was writing Thanks, Again!, I had the opportunity to pitch the concept to a literary agent, who asked a question that changed the trajectory of the project.

“Is there anything in the book about DEI?”

I didn’t exactly respond, “Huh?” 

But apart from understanding that she was referring to diversity, equality and inclusion I was very much lost for an answer. There wasn’t anything in the manuscript about DEI. 

What does an old white guy know about DEI? 

How could staff recognition be linked to DEI? How could recognition contribute to creating a more inclusive workplace, a place where everyone felt they belonged, somewhere they were comfortable being themselves?

I had to learn more before beginning to write Theme 22: Diverse and Inclusive: Recognition for Workplaces Where All Feel They Belong. First, I looked at what DEI experts were saying, but I didn’t stop there. 

What I did next turned out to be the most rewarding part of researching the book. I spoke to people for whom DEI was part of their lives. I showed them what I had written so far and they told me what was missing.

They described their lives as members of a “minority.”

To be honest, I was nervous venturing into their lives. Fear of offending others can prevent us from learning more about the values and culture of those with whom we work. What will they think? Will I be showing my ignorance? Will I be asking questions to which I should already know the answers? 

Fear and discomfort should not stop you from asking questions motivated by a sincere desire to learn. If you don’t engage with people, how will you increase your understanding?

I soon discovered that people welcome the opportunity to talk about their background and beliefs.

By being curious, a bond was developing with those with whom I was talking. I learned about their lived experience, which helped me understand who they are today.

In Thanks, Again, I built on an idea from Micheal Bach. In his brilliantly titled book, Birds of All Feathers, Bach suggests making “diversity moments” part of staff meetings—“when someone shares something about themselves to help educate their co-workers on the diversity that exists around them.”

Related Article: An exercise to better understand the diversity of your workplace

When presenting my Where Staff Feel They Belong at a recent convention, I conducted an impromptu diversity moment.

Spying a woman in the audience wearing a hijab, I approached her and asked if she would be willing to explain Ramadan to me and others in the room. This she did with a simple, easy-to-understand explanation of the daily fast that Muslims observe during the holy month. I believe that most left that session with a better understand of Islam.

Did she mind that I put her on the spot with my question?

“No,” she responded. “I enjoy talking about my beliefs.”

This experience reminded me of another spontaneous learning opportunity several years previously, when I asked participants in a non-credit college communication skills course to identify barriers to effective communication. “Accent” appeared on the resulting list. 

Without thinking about what might go wrong, I asked the three participants who I perceived as having accents to share what they did to overcome this communication barrier.

It may have been that one of the participants misunderstood the question or that she saw this as an opportunity to say something that she felt needed to be said. Either way, the insight she provided was valuable.

“I find it really difficult to understand the accents of people in Canada.”

I like to flatter myself that both these experiences were planned to create a valuable opportunity to learn about how individuals are shaped by their backgrounds, cultures and beliefs.

Whether that was the case or not, these episodes and my experiences while researching Thanks, Again demonstrate the power of genuine curiosity to strengthen connections with others.

Be curious. Ask questions. Be attentive. Listen to learn and understand. Make yours a more inclusive workplace.

You asked: About Team Recognition

The Question: How do I recognize the team for what it did?

The Answer: This question takes me back to when I was working on my first book, Thanks! GREAT Job!

A reader who agreed to read an early draft felt something was missing. All the tips were focused on recognizing individuals for what they did and there was nothing about team recognition.

“Where I work, we consider ourselves to be a team,” she wrote. “We want to be recognized for what we do as a team.”

She had made a good point. There was little in what I had written about how to celebrate team successes.

I added a chapter on team recognition, which included a caution that team recognition did not eliminate the need to recognize individuals.

Both team recognition and individual recognition are needed; they complement each other. Feeling part of a team that is being recognized for what it accomplished together is important, but staff members also need to feel they are valued as individuals and appreciated for how they contribute to the team’s success.

Team recognition can lead to individual recognition. Begin by describing what the team achieved and then acknowledge individuals for how they contributed.

Years ago, our son’s minor hockey coach used a year-end celebration of the team’s winning season to highlight each player’s unique contribution.

There were the usual awards you would expect, such as “Most goals” and “Most assists.” Other awards showed that the coach noticed what the player did: “Top faceoff man,” “Best at congratulating teammates for a good game,” and “Most defensive forward.”

Here are a few ways you can celebrate teamwork and what the team accomplishes:

• Invite everyone to a celebratory lunch or dinner, host a pizza lunch or schedule a barbecue in the parking lot at the successful conclusion of a project.
• Invite the team to plan for the celebration of its success. Provide a budget to make a celebration possible.
• Schedule a team outing—a movie, sporting event or concert.
• Involve team members in the planning of celebrations as milestones are reached, rather than  always waiting until the project has been completed. 
• Schedule a “Teamwork Day,” when teams from different departments can show off what can be accomplished through teamwork. 
• If the team receives a tangible award, follow the example of what happens in the National Hockey League. Each member of the Stanley Cup winning team is given the trophy for a day. Many return to their hometowns with the cup to celebrate where their hockey journey began. Allow each member of your team to “own” the trophy for a day, during which they can display it in their work area or take it home to share with their family.

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For more on team recognition, check out Thanks, Again! (Theme #24: Team Recognition). Thanks, Again! is available from bookstores everywhere, including Audreys Books, 10702 Jasper Ave., Edmonton (and on its website), online from Amazon, Indigo, FriesenPress Bookstore, Barnes & Noble and from the Apple Books app.

Get Your “Jury” Right When Hiring

I have written previously that the purpose of juries in criminal trials and interview panels are similar. Both are charged with the responsibility to make decisions based on their examination of the facts presented to them.

What juries decide must be unanimous. What interview panels decide should be. Whatever they decide has a profound effect on individuals’ futures.

Selecting who will sit on a jury is an important first step in criminal trials, as is deciding who to invite to join an interview panel in the hiring process. Just as a great amount of investigation occurs before a trial begins its jury selection, interview panels should be assembled early in the recruitment process to assist in identifying the criteria by which applicants will be assessed and in writing questions to be asked during interviews and reference checks.

Both juries and panels require people who are able to keep an open mind, resist making preliminary judgments, set aside biases and focus on the evidence as presented, whether it comes from witnesses during trials or from candidates and their references when hiring.

The challenge of empanelling a jury likely has never been so stark as it will be when jury selection begins on March 25 in the New York trial of Donald Trump.

The former and would-be future American president faces a 34-count indictment related to alleged hush money payment to former adult film star Stormy Daniels just weeks before the 2016 election.

Recently published articles on the websites of BBC News and ABC News illustrate how difficult it will be to find 12 jurors, plus six alternatives, for this trial. While the process could wrap up within a day, it could also extend for several days.

Jury selection could take a great deal of time, former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told the BBC, because “everyone knows who Donald Trump is. Everyone has an opinion about him.”

“Trying to find a pool of people who don’t know, don’t have a view about Trump or don’t know about the case is going to take time,” former federal prosecutor Josh Naftalis told ABC News.

The BBC article predicts that, “Prospective jurors could face a range of questions when the trial kicks off, from where they get their news to whether they have ever put a political bumper sticker on their car.

“They may also be asked if they believe the 2020 election was stolen, if they have read any of Mr. Trump’s books or if they have listened to anything from [Trump’s former personal attorney Michael] Cohen,” a frequent guest on television news networks.

While the consequences are not as severe as in criminal cases—no one is going to jail—the decisions of interview panels will impact the lives of the people they interview. Take care when selecting who will sit on interview panels.

Do they know some of the candidates, but not others? Do they have opinions about those they know? Are they able to suspend judgment until they have heard what each candidate has said? Are there any biases that might influence their opinions about candidates?

In the ABC article, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, who previously served as the chief of the Manhattan district attorney’s trial division, sounds an optimistic note about jurors’ ability to set bias and opinions aside in Trump’s trial and focus on the facts. 

“There’s something very solemn about a courtroom and sitting in judgment of somebody.” 

Interview panels should treat their role just as seriously.

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Considering who to invite to join interview panels and their role on the panel is a topic covered during the daylong workshop Interview Right to Hire Right. Contact Nelson (nmscott@telus.net or phone/text 780-232-3828) to schedule Interview Right to Hire Right training for your leadership team or to learn more.

You asked About: Recognition in Larger Organizations

The Question: How do we deliver recognition in a larger organization?

The Answer: The answer depends on your position within the organization. It’s different if you are a frontline leader, who supervises the work of a small number of workers, than if you lead an organization with hundreds or thousands of employees.

Whatever your role, wherever you fit in the hierarchy, you can always take the initiative to increase the amount of recognition for the people whose work you supervise. Don’t wait for others to take the lead. Recognize excellent work when you see it. You don’t need anyone else’s permission to acknowledge work well done. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

That said, when top leaders set the example, the commitment to staff recognition will spread more quickly.

I was specific about the audience for my most recent book, Thanks, Again! More Simple, Inexpensive Ways for Busy Leaders to Recognize Staff: managers, supervisors, school principals, small business owners, department heads and other frontline leaders who grasp the power of staff recognition.

Thanks, Again! was not meant for senior leaders. Yet it contains a few pages that look at recognition from the perspective of senior executives who understand the importance of staff recognition and are committed to creating a culture where staff feel they belong, feel valued as individuals and appreciated for what they do.

Senior leaders in larger organizations cannot do it alone. They can’t recognize everyone in the organization. They obviously can’t know all employees, and what they do, well enough to provide recognition that is Explicit, Appropriate and Timely.

They must share this responsibility with other leaders in the organization. Recognizing staff becomes an expectation of leaders up and down the hierarchy.

It begins with senior leaders becoming role models for a recognition-rich workplace by recognizing people who report directly to them for behaviours they want to see repeated. That includes managers and supervisors recognizing staff members for doing their jobs well. Senior leaders should recognize the recognizers.

Senior leaders can pave the way by providing the tools and training others need to recognize staff effectively. Leadership team meetings should regularly include discussions of the use of staff recognition to boost morale, increase engagement and improve retention.

Senior leaders can pass on staff recognition tips, tools and techniques they encounter. They can ensure all managers and supervisors have a budget for staff recognition. 

During regular one-on-one meetings with their direct reports, senior leaders can ask them what they have done to recognize staff since the last meeting.

A useful criteria to include when recruiting for leadership positions is the candidates’  demonstrated ability to recognize staff. While people can aways be trained to recognize others, the ideal situation is to hire people who have a record as recognizers.

During hiring interviews for leadership positions, candidates should be asked to describe how they have recognized a staff member or co-worker for doing their job well. Successful candidates should have a track record of recognizing others effectively, appropriately and frequently for their contributions or achievements. 

Effective staff recognition can begin anywhere in the organization, but when top leaders set the example the commitment to staff recognition will spread more quickly.

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Theme # 4 (Senior Executives, Front-line Staff and Recognition ) of Thanks, Again! was written for senior leaders. Thanks, Again! is available from bookstores everywhere, including Audreys Books, 10702 Jasper Ave., Edmonton (and on its website), online from Amazon, Indigo, FriesenPress Bookstore, Barnes & Noble and from the Apple Books app.

You Asked About: Recognition for Under Performers

The Question: How can you encourage staff that you don’t appreciate because they don’t earn it?

The Answer: I appreciate the phrasing of your question. To be Genuine, recognition must be deserved. Recognition must be earned!

While it is common to refer to people earning their pay, the reality is that everyone who shows up for work will receive a paycheque at the end of the week or month. And they will continue to receive one until the day they quit or are fired, whether they do the job well or not. 

Everyone is entitled to a  paycheque, but recognition is different. 

Recognition is “earned” by doing one’s job well, by making contributions and achieving results that are valued because they move an organization closer to its goals or reflect its mission and values.

One hopes that everyone within the organization will be recognized from time to time. If someone never makes a recognition-worthy contribution, why are they still there?

Recognition should never be given “just because they haven’t been recognized recently.” Recognition that is undeserved diminishes the value of all the recognition you provide.

Finding reasons to recognize some employees may seem an impossible challenge. It requires you to search for minor successes. What small tasks do they do well?

Be specific in describing what the staff member did and recognize them in ways that are proportional to what they did.

Be clear that you are only acknowledging one aspect of their work and are not providing an overall assessment. By recognizing praiseworthy—albeit minor—behaviour, you demonstrate fairness in your feedback. The recognition you provide may be the boost the individual needs to pull up their socks and begin to contribute in a more meaningful way.

If, as an outcome of performance assessments, individuals are expected to set growth goals, recognition can be used to keep them on the path to improvement. Successful steps along the path may lead to recognition.

Are you inadvertently “leading the witness” when interviewing?

Fans of courtroom dramas such as Law and Order will be familiar with a line that appears in many scripts: “Objection your honour; counsel is leading the witness.”

The Oxford Dictionary of Canadian English offers two definitions of a leading question:

1. a question that prompts the answer wanted.

2. A craftily worded question intended to lead the questioned person to say something incriminating.

Leading questions can change the witness’s memory of the event.

“Did they tell you not to tell anyone?” prompts the witness to answer “Yes.”  Asking “What did they tell you?” doesn’t limit the scope of what the witness remembers about the conversation. 

On the other hand, rather than asking, “What did you see when you entered the house?” a lawyer might lead the witness to a single-word answer by asking, “Was the glass broken when you entered the house?”

“Leading the witness” is not limited to courtrooms. Questions can be manipulated in surveys when the purpose is to confirm a point of view and not to learn what people think. 

During hiring interviews, interviewers phrase questions in ways that will sway the candidate to answer in a particular way. After requesting  the candidate to recall a specific experience, they unintentionally hint at the appropriate way to responding by adding, “What did you do?”

For example: “Describe a time when you had a conflict with a co-worker. How did you resolve this situation? What did you do to restore your relationship with this individual?”

Ideally, the interviewer would want to learn exactly what the candidate did to resolve the situation and restore the relationship with the co-worker but leaving those extra questions unasked provides candidates with the latitude to answer the main question as they wish. 

If an interviewer stops after requesting that the candidate, “Describe a time when you had a conflict with a co-worker,” they might learn about how the candidate feels about conflict and who is responsible for resolving them. You could learn that the candidate’s solution was to avoid interacting with this co-worker in the future. Perhaps they left it to the other person to take the first steps toward restoring the relationship or expected their supervisor to step in to resolve the conflict.

 It’s unlikely that’s what you would hope to hear from a potential staff member, but you would have learned none of this if you had asked how the candidate had resolved the conflict and restored the relationship.

The best way to avoid asking leading questions is to ask short questions. If necessary, you can follow up the candidate’s initial response with additional questions to learn more about the candidate’s past performance.

Whether in the courtroom, conducting surveys or participating in hiring interviews, the goal should be to learn as much as possible. Asking questions that hint at the appropriate response will limit what you learn. And when hiring, what you don’t learn can prevent you from making the right hiring decision.

No Quick Route to Hiring Right

Fleur Perkins: Which do you want? You can have it quick or you can have it right.”

John Barnaby: How about both?

— Midsomer Murders, Season 21, Episode 1: “The Point of Balance”  

What Deputy Chief Inspector Barnaby wants—a quick path to identifying the murderer—is similar to what many managers, school principals and others in leadership positions wish for when hiring: to fill the vacancy with the right person as quickly as possible.

Barnaby wants immediate answers to his questions so he can quickly fill a vacant jail cell. What killed her? Is there DNA under her fingernails? When did she die?

The pathologist deflects each question by saying that she will know more after she  “gets back to the lab,” where she can examine the body before providing definitive responses to Barnaby’s inquiries.

When Barnaby’s impatience with the pathologist’s cautious approach becomes obvious, the pathologist responds with a question of her own: does the police officer want quick answers or does he want them to be correct?

Receiving answers that are both quick and right when investigating a crime or when hiring would be ideal, but if you can have only one, making the right decision always trumps one that is quick.

As legendary western lawman (and some historians would suggest, occasional outlaw) Wyatt Earp said, “Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything.” True during gun fights. True when hiring.

Success in detective work or in hiring comes from slow but steady progress after examining all the available evidence to make the  arrest or hire the right person. It’s not done by acting quickly.

The temptation to fill a vacancy quickly is hard to resist, particularly in the face of pressure from other staff, from clients or customers. Vacancies mean that some tasks will go undone and existing staff may be required to assume a greater workload.

Getting it wrong comes with consequences. Failing to hire the right person is the equivalent of arresting the wrong suspect. Wishing to avoid the short-term pain caused by a vacancy can lead to the long-term pain of living with a hiring mistake.

Like detectives, you want to get it right the first time.

Taking time to review the evidence gathered from resumes and during interviews and from reference checks before making a job offer is as important as taking time to examine all the clues before identifying the killer.

As we learned from Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare, success can come from proceeding with caution rather than acting quickly and carelessly. Slow and steady wins the race.

Fleur Perkins gets it. Whether investigating crime or hiring staff, you must want to “have it right.”