Just before that Interview (II)--What Happens Backstage

The Interviewer

When preparing for interviews, most candidates wonder what goes on in the minds of the interviewers. If only they can perceive the expectation of the interviewers, it will be a lot easier to know how to answer the interview questions. For this reason, this post will enlighten you on the preparation process taken by the interviewer and the intent of the interview.

The Interviewer’s Objective

For most organisations, the interview panel is drawn from employees of the hiring department and representatives of the Human Resources department. More often than not, the HR professional’s role is to help the hiring department use job-related interviewing techniques to find that right individual who fits the current job-opening.

Owing to the fact that people are different in their perceptions about other people and their abilities, managers approach the hiring process in different ways. Mike Deblieux explains that managers use either traditional or inventive approaches in selecting the right candidate to join their team.

The traditional manager is one who goes by the book. He writes a job description and bases the interview questions on that description. Every candidate is asked the same questions, and the best candidate is the one who can do the job described in the job description.

The inventive manager, on the other hand, doesn’t have a job description. In fact, she may not even have a job opening. She just wants to talk to people to see if they have something unique to offer to her team. If she finds someone, she’ll hire him. If she doesn’t, she won’t.

However, on the long run, both types of managers are particular on getting the individual that can carry out a set of tasks effectively in order to obtain the desired results. “A task is a process that includes following the steps that need to be followed to get the job done. These steps may include drawing an engineering schematic, building a spreadsheet or making a sales call.

Tasks are important. The successful candidate must be able to perform them and the interviewer must ask questions about them. But in today’s world, results are more important than tasks.

A result is measured by the success of the effort, not by the steps involved in getting that result. Many employees, for example, are required to answer the phone. Answering the phone is a task. A few people can answer the phone in a way that makes the customer feel wanted and appreciated. Making the customer feel wanted and appreciated is a result. Interviewers often assume that a candidate who has performed certain tasks can also produce the desired results, but often they are disappointed”. (Deblieux, 2004 –SHRM)

Therefore, the ultimate aim for the interview panel is to plan an interview that focuses on the candidate’s ability to perform not only a set of tasks but the tasks that produce the desired results.

The Interviewer’s Checklist

You might be surprised but interviewers do also prepare for interviews—they have a checklist of things to do to ensure they carry-out a good and fair interview. As a candidate, being aware of how interviewers prepare for the interview can help you anticipate questions that could be asked and for what reasons they could be asked.

Below is a sample of the recommended checklist for every member of an interview panel (Source: Society of Human Resource Management- www.shrm.org):

ü  Familiarize yourself with the duties and requirements of the job you are filling.

ü  Make sure you can answer general questions about the company and the benefits provided.

ü  Formulate questions that will focus on job-related aspects such as asking about situations that may have occurred in previous positions (see reference form for ideas).

ü  Write down and organize the questions in the order you will be asking them

ü  Review applicant's resume and/or application:

o   Review the job description(s) for the position(s) you are attempting to fill. Note minimum requirements needed and refer to them often as you review resumes/applications.

o   Check work experience for applicability to the position for which they are applying, length of time in each position, promotions or awards received, reason for leaving each position.

o   Note gaps in employment but do not assume they were caused by negative reasons.

o   Check educational background for qualifications necessary to successful job performance.

o   Note special skills (i.e. computer software, office equipment).

o   Note on a separate piece of paper any pertinent questions that arise when reviewing the resume/application

o   During selection, screen the top group to further narrow down the candidates. On average, about 10 resumes per open position should be sufficient.

Typical Interview Questions and Why They Are Asked

For every question an interviewer asks, you can be sure that it is meant to find out something about your competence or personality, both of which are important to your performance on the job. The reason why most seemingly qualified candidates fail interviews is however centered on the fact that they do not know what questions to expect at interviews and when the questions come, they do not know for what reasons the questions are asked.

This chapter elaborates on why some particular types of questions are asked and what the interview could likely be out to know when such questions are asked.

Categories of Interview Questions:

I.      Behavioral: 

These types of questions are asked by the interviewer with the intent of perceiving the candidates personality and values. The questions are mostly situational questions that are posed to know how you behave in certain circumstances or conditions.

In answering this type of questions, there is never a right or wrong answer. Remember that the intent of the interviewer is to find out if you have the right behaviors that fit the job-role you are applying for, the company’s culture and values. It is important you know the type of individual the company is seeking to recruit for that job so that your answers shows that you have the required behaviors to thrive on the job.

The best approach to answering behavioral questions is by sharing past experiences. The premise behind behavioral interviewing is that the most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in similar situations.

Although it will be more difficult to prepare concrete answers in advance to these interviews (as opposed to traditional ones), you can and should take some time to review your understanding of yourself, your past successes and concrete examples of your accomplishments. Work on honesty, sincerity and candidness. When you start to tell a behavioral story, the interviewer may try to sort out the details by understanding your behaviors. 

The interviewer will probe for more depth, detail or understanding with questions like: “What were you thinking at that point?” or “Tell me more about what you discussed with that person.” If you’ve told a story that’s anything but totally honest, your response will not hold up through these probes

Examples of Behavioral Questions:

                            -      Describe what you would say if asked to talk about yourself in a group of 15 people

                            -      If someone told you that you had made an error, describe how you would react and what you would say in your defense.

                            -      If someone asked you for assistance with a matter that is outside the parameters of your job description, what would you do?

                            -      You are a committee member and disagree with a point or decision. How will you respond?

                            -      Describe what you would classify as a crisis.

                            -      You are angry about an unfair decision. How do you react?

                            -      Suppose you are in a situation where deadlines and priorities change frequently and rapidly. How would you handle it?

                            -      How do you know when you are stressed? What do you do to de-stress?

                            -      Tell me about a time when you were a part of a great team. What was your part in making the team effective?

                            -      It’s 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. Your supervisor gives you an assignment that needs to be finished by 8:00 Monday morning. You have already made plans to be away the entire weekend. What would you do?

            II.      Interpersonal:

When interviewers ask this type of questions, the intent is to know more about the candidate’s competencies by hearing from the horse’s mouth.

The mistake most candidates make is that they try to over-sell themselves by exaggerating and trying to paint themselves as perfect people. What you must know is that interviewers already know that you are not a perfect person who makes no mistakes; you are human and so they are not surprised when you express your human limitations. Always remember that for this type of questions interviewers know when you are exaggerating or telling lies- your answers will be illogical.

You should however be cautious of being seen as having a nonchalant attitude towards your weaknesses, therefore, whenever you talk about a weakness whilst describing yourself, make sure you also talk about the steps you’ve taken to improve yourself (i.e. overcoming the weakness).

Below are some examples of interpersonal questions:

                                  -            What are your strengths?

                            -                  What would your last boss say about you?

                            -                  Describe how you like to be managed, and the best relationship you’ve had with a previous boss.

                            -                  If I asked your previous/current co-workers about you what would they say? 

                            -                  Describe what you see as your strengths related to this job/position. Describe what you see as your weaknesses related to this job/position.

                            -                  Explain the phrase “work ethic” and describe yours.

                            -                  What kind of people do you find it most difficult to work with? For example, assume you are in a situation where you have to deal with a person very different from yourself and you are finding it difficult. What would you do?

                            -                  What methods do you use to make decisions? When do you find it most difficult to make a decision?

                            -                  Describe a difficult time you have had dealing with an employee, customer, or co-worker. Why was it difficult? How did you handle it? What was the outcome?

                            -                  What do you do when others resist or reject your ideas or actions?

                            -                  What do you think are the best and worst parts of working in a team environment? How do you handle it?

                            -                  Under what kinds of conditions do you learn best?

          III.      Creative Thinking:

These questions are asked to examine the candidate’s intelligent quotient (IQ) level, his/her thought-process, and the mind-set, perceptions of issues and how conclusions are reached. It is simply to know how smart the candidate is.

Like the behavioral questions, there is no right or wrong answer to Creative Thinking questions. In answering the questions, you need to be objective about the issues discussed, however, be cautious of drawing conclusions that makes you look dogged to your perceptions and views- It is better to show a bit of flexibility here.

Some examples of Creative Thinking questions are:

                                  -            What's the best book you've read in the last year? Please take a minute and tell us what you liked about it.

                                  -            What was the most creative thing you did in your last job?

                                  -            What is your interpretation of “success?”

                                  -            Describe an ideal work environment or “the perfect job.”

                                  -            In what way(s) do you express your personality in the workplace?

          IV.      General:

This category of questions is mostly job-related questions. They are meant to check up the candidates’ understanding of the responsibilities that comes with the current job-opening and how it relates to his/her past job experiences (if any). The object is to know if the candidate is aware of how he fits the job and the culture of the organization.

The key to giving the best answers to these questions is for the candidate to know as much as possible about the company as well as the job he/she is being interviewed for. He/she should be able to explain how the job fits into his/her career path and what skills, knowledge and abilities he/she possesses which can ensure high-performance on the job.

Typical examples of General questions are:

                            -                  Could you share with us a recent accomplishment of which you are most proud?

                            -                  What would you have liked to do more of in your last position? What held you back?

                            -                  Tell us a bit about your work background, and then give us a description of how you think it relates to our current opening.

                            -             What are your qualifications in your area of expertise, i.e., what skills do you have that makes you the best candidate for this position? Include any special training you have had (on-the-job, college, continuing education, seminars, reading, etc.) and related work experience.

                            -                  Why have you applied for this position?

                            -                  What skill set do you think you would bring to this position?

                            -                  Tell me about your present or last job. Why did you choose it? Why did you/do you want to leave?

                            -                  What was your primary contribution/achievement? Biggest challenge?

                            -                  What are your short-term and long-term goals?

                            -                  In what areas would you like to develop further? What are your plans to do that?

                            -                  What are some positive aspects of your last employment/employer? What are some negative aspects?

                            -                  What are your career path interests?

                            -                  What do you know about our company?

                            -                  Why should we hire YOU?

                            -                  If the position required it, would you be willing to travel?

                            -                  If the position required it, would you be willing to relocate?

                            -                  If you were offered this position, when would you be available to start?

                            -                  After learning about this opportunity, what made you take the next step and apply for the job? 

                            -                  If you are the successful applicant, how would you expect to be different after a year in this position?

                            -                  Tell me anything else you would like us to know about you that will aid us in making our decision.

                            -                  What questions would you like to ask me?

FOR MORE GUIDANCE ON PREPARING FOR INTERVIEWS, I WOULD RECOMMEND: www.editmycv.com amongst other resources you can find on-line.

All the best!

"Just before that Interview" (I)

Why do companies conduct interviews?

The 21^st Century company has a lot to deal with- increasing marketing competition, rising shareholder-expectations, customer satisfaction etc. This is why there is an increase in the hunt for talents (i.e. individuals who can help a company increase its productivity); companies seek for people who have the knowledge, skills, attitudes and competence required to add value and guarantee company-growth.

Interview sessions are a part of the selection process that company managers (or their consultants) conduct to find the right individual(s) who can help their teams to be successful. It could be physical or virtual. Physical interviews could be oral or written face-to-face interviews whilst virtual interviews are conducted via electronic means- telephones, instant messaging, voice conferencing etc.

To understand why companies conduct interviews after making a short-list of individuals whose résumés they’ve assessed, one need to understand a bit more about the entire process of recruiting a new employee.

The Selection Process

After a company identifies the need to have a new employee or set of employees, a job request form is filled ideally by the recruiting manger. The job request form elaborates on why the department or business unit needs a new employee (a summary of how it fits into the organisation’s overall strategic plan), the role of the new employee, the tasks of the new employee, who the new employee will work with and report to, and most importantly (to you) the skills, knowledge and competences required for the job.

The job request form is then forwarded to the Human Resources Department, to a Recruitment Consultant or the Department could decide to handle the selection process in-house. When an HR professional receives the job request form, his/her main responsibility and intent is to find that (or those) right individual(s) who fits the job as well as the role. The receipt of the job request form is followed-up by an internal and/or external advertisement of the job-vacancy, résumés are received and the Pre-selection process starts.

Pre-Selection:

It is important to state here that your résumé is your first selling point to your desired employer.  It could be compared with a Sales Brochure that a car manufacturing company produces to show and explain the special features of their product to an intending buyer. There is an obvious need for this sale brochure to be attractive, explicit on the unique features of the car all in order to ensure that it catches the attraction of the intending buyer. A good sales brochure makes an intending buyer willing to test-run the car just like a good résumé gives the recruiter the willingness to test-run the candidate’s knowledge, skills and competences through interview sessions.

Once you have been invited for a job-interview, you can be sure that the recruiter already has a feeling that you possess the requirements needed to fill the job. The interview session(s) is your one-and-only opportunity to convince the recruiter that the “unique-features of the car” (i.e. the competences you possess as reflected on your résumé) actually exist.  At the interview, the intent of the recruiter is to select the best candidates from the pool of candidates who have been shortlisted to fill the job opening.

Interviews:

As explained by Mike Deblieux in his article- A Conversation With A Purpose, “an interview is a special conversation. In a sense, it is part of a research project to find an individual with specific knowledge, skills and abilities. A successful research project requires a carefully defined hypothesis and an objective researcher”. Ideally, interviewers seek to use job-related interviewing techniques to find people who can help their teams to be successful and “job-related techniques involve collecting and using specific information to predict whether or not a candidate will be successful on the job”. 

NEXT: I'll be talking about "the Interviewers"--what do they do to prepare for the interview and what will they be looking out for?

SIMPLICITY OF LEADERSHIP: THE “LOGGER” LEADER

[This is an article I wrote in December of 2006. Wondering how true my claims are 5 years on]

INTRODUCTION:

Leadership is fast becoming the most discussed management issue in the political and corporate governance sectors of the world’s economy; gaining a wider and wider listening-audience over time. However, as much as leadership is being talked about, there seems to be insufficient solutions or principles which when practiced, assures of effective leadership for “whosoever” holds a leadership position: these wide principles of leadership work for some individuals and do not work for others.

In my view, leadership surpasses a set of guidelines or principles; it rather requires a particular personality which can only be built over time by the difficult art of Personal Leadership. It could require an entire reconstruction of one’s personality, attitude to life and set of beliefs about people and their potentials.

This article looks at leadership from a common, yet uncommon, view. It looks at the role of a leader as the team-member who does not necessarily need to have the highest number of the competences required to achieve team goals but must have that single and needful competence -“leadership”- the ultimate guarantee for team success.

As the first article of the Virtual Leadership Series, it is necessary to state here that the views expressed in this article are applicable to both Physical and Virtual Leadership styles. Subsequent articles will however dwell more on issues peculiar to Leadership in a Virtual Environment.

LEADERSHIP RE-DEFINED

Numerous highly skilled leadership experts have defined and explained leadership using various approaches. Nonetheless, for the purpose of this article, I will define leadership in my own words which expresses my personal prior experience of leadership.

“Leadership is the ability to give what you don’t have, produce what you don’t possess, and succeed where you don’t have the expertise, all because you’ve learnt to effectively manage the “better” talents at your disposal” -Tobi Odunowo

Note the words: “better” talents! Many people in leadership positions feel threatened when they identify a more knowledgeable team-member in an area of speciality - such people could be said to be locked-in to a “leader’s-ship” practice rather than the real practice of leadership.

“LEADER’S-SHIP” OR LEADERSHIP:

“Leader’s-ship” occurs in a situation where the team-leader works under the assumption that “the buck stops with him/her”. Such leaders try to become the central point of the team but without the needful purpose of sharing or being generous with the decision-making power they possess as the “number-one”. This type of leader-attitude drives team-members to a state where they do not see their team responsibilities as their own work, but rather see it as the leader’s work (don’t be startled when you hear employees say “I’m going to the office to do Mr. Boss’ job!”).

People holding leadership positions should see themselves as a “Logger-Leader”- a leader who centralizes himself, not as the focal point of the team’s decision-making process and success-determinants, but as a facilitator and constant communicator of the team’s vision; the “hidden-force” that makes team-members to see team-goals as the drivers of their personal goals; and the one who doesn’t necessarily need to have the best skills but has the unique ability to place and utilize the available skills in each team member; someone who believes that the buck rather stops with “us”-the entire team!- that is Leadership!

ILLUSTRATING LEADERSHIP: HERDS-MAN AND LOGGER’S APPROACH

The Herd’s-Man Leader

Thinking back at school-days whilst studying at the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta in Nigeria, I had the privilege of learning about the nomadic herds-men who do not have homes but perpetually travel across the Sahara looking for pasture for their followers- the herds of cattle, to graze on. Remember, these cattle leaders have a goal- to find pasture for their cattle.

Let’s take a look at the styles and trend of leadership and “followership” as shown by the herds-man and his herds of cattle.

The herd’s-man is the leader of the team:

-         He tells them what to do and where to go at every point in time

• -         They always wait and look-up to him for instructions, they are not allowed to use their own initiative, the buck stops with the herds-man: their leader
• -      They have an idea of what the team-goal is (getting pasture) but it is only the leader that tells them how to get to the goal (the particular pasture where they will graze), they don’t think of a best approach to achieving that goal; decisions lie with the “boss”
• -       The team doesn’t have a defined goal- they look for pasture wherever they can find it; no definite destination, no periodic evaluations, it’s simply a visionless venture; an endless voyage.
• -         The leader leads and the herds of cattle have to follow; they don’t know exactly where they are going, and so they cannot plan nor do they require any special strategy. They just have to follow the leader!

The “Logger”- Leader

I also remember learning in school, from one of the courses on “Forestry”, about

Loggers living in riverine areas who fell trees at one side of the river and transport the felled logs to the other side of the river using the course of water-flow. The team-goal here is to move the felled logs to the other side of the river- but it is not just a vague goal, it is defined- the other side of the river refers to a particular “well-known” place which has only been seen by the leader – it is the leader’s vision that is ready to become the team’s shared-vision. The Logger is the leader and the felled logs are the followers.

Taking a closer look at the leadership style and trend of leadership and “followership” as displayed by the Logger and his logs, one begins to note that:

• -         The leader starts by arranging the logs in a way that is compactable with the water-flow; this requires that he fits the log in a position where they can display their in-built potential. Large logs have their place; small logs have their place; he also needs to consider the weight of the logs. In simple terms, he identifies the potentials of each log and keeps them where they fit: he realizes the fact that this part of the task could make or mar the achievement of his team-goal of getting all the logs to the other side of the river. We can describe this exercise as: “Strategic Selection and Placement: Right Peg in the Right Hole”
• 
  
•        His next task is to watch the course of the water-flow and identify how they (he and the logs) must trail the course in other to get to their destination (team goal)  This stage could be described as “Team-Goal Setting and Systems & Process Definition”. We also need to note that the water-flow may change at any point in time thus it is required of the leader and his/her team to be responsive and flexible enough to use the changes in water-flow to their advantage if they must remain on course in achieving the team goal. These types of leaders are not “systems-rigid”! (they are systems-fluid)
• 
  
• -    At this stage, 80% of the task is done! The systems and processes have been set in place; team-goal defined. The leader takes a back-rest and watches his logs transport them (he and the logs- the entire team) to the other side of the river (team-goal).
• 
  
• -         However, that is not the end of his task. There could be a log-jam! But the Logger is skilled well enough to know the log that caused the jam. He simply repositions the log and the flow continues.

Isn’t it so simple to be a leader? Simple to be a “Logger”-Leader!

COMPONENTS OF LEADERSHIP

Permit me to give another Agriculture-biased illustration. For my Bachelor Thesis, I worked on the project topic: “Effects of Selected Cover-Crops in Hoe-Mechanized Maize Plantation”. This afforded me the opportunity to inter-crop different types of legumes (mostly cover-crops) with maize whilst observing their diverse ability to add nutrients to the soil as well as prevent weed emergence through the canopy formed on the top-soil.

This perfectly illustrates the four factors that I consider as the main components of effective leadership. The first three represent the different crop-seeds: maize (main crop), legume (nutrient “generator”) and the cover-crop (weed controller). The last component represents the soil (the foundation on which team-goals will or will not thrive). All of these work hand-in-hand in ensuring optimal crop performance and productivity; and in this case, optimal team performance and productivity.

Component 1: The Team Vision & Strategy- (main crop seed)

The Team Vision and Strategy are the major drivers of the team. They are those goals that the team commits themselves to achieving. It is only when the Vision and Strategy are fulfilled that the fruits of the team’s success are seen by the outside world. A well-defined Vision and Strategy partially guarantees team success- “when we know where we are going and how to get there, the problem is half-solved”.

Component 2: Talent Utilization within Team-(leguminous crop seed)

A major characteristic of a good legume is that it adds nitrogen to the soil, thereby increasing the nutritive value of the soil. Leaders need to realize that the more they utilize the talents and expertise of team-members (especially those talents and expertise that they personally don’t have) the more they develop themselves through re-learning and subsequently team members are developed. It is important to allow all your team-members shine- when they shine, your team shines and when your team shines, you shine. Remember that the team is always called by the name of the leader- (e.g. “Mr. Brittle’s Team”).

Component 3: Leader’s Generosity with Power- (cover-crop seed)

Every individual loves to be the top-, if not sole-, decision maker. As the traditional management system seems to portray, the leader can step into this privilege as the sole-owner of all team decision-making powers. However, the modern model leader should learn to share his/her power to ensure that a good team environment is retained.

When, as a leader, you allow your team-members to have asses to decision making process, this gesture kills the “weeds” of complacency that usually arise from feelings of “not-being-among”; it kills the “weeds” of distrust and fosters team growth and productivity.

Component 4: Personality of a the Leader- (soil)

This is the last but obviously not the least component of leadership- the leader’s personality. As earlier stated, ideal leadership is not achieved through adherence to a set of principles but rather through the development of a personality that produces the “leadership competence”-a unique ability to be a leader, no matter what position you occupy!

A careful look at the illustrator- the soil, shows some characteristics that drips from an ideal leader. The soil is sacrificial in nature- it owns all the nutrients, water and air that the three other components need to stay alive. However, the soil is never reluctant to give it all up. A leader gives up the knowledge, power, time, exemplary life and all it takes to keep the team motivated. As the soil is the most unnoticed component in this illustration (the other components can be easily seen because they are above ground-level), a true leader is always ready to go unnoticed. He/she puts team first and the-self last!

This unique personality is not a natural attribute that every human is born with; some people have to re-construct their personality through Personal Leadership, to become that Ideal Leader! - “The “Logger”- Leader”- that is why some are born leaders while others are made-leaders!

Author: Tobi Odunowo

Tobi Odunowo holds a Bachelor of Agric. from the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria and is a Global Internet Member of the Society of Human Resource Management. He has had prior experience in leading global virtual teams whilst working for AIESEC International- world’s widest networked leadership development and exchange organisation. He’s also got experience in Change Management as a Consultant with The Capital Group, Ghana- a leading indigenous consultancy specialising in HR Services, Management Training and Financial Advisory Services. Tobi has a flair for Virtual Leadership and Strategic Management and is currently nursing a virtual consultancy initiative.

Living life as Inquiry* [excerpts from my upcoming book: "3Cs"]

“Whosoever can think deep will know how to give thanks”- Yoruba proverb [Literal translation]

Unfortunately, I am not able to tell you the exact steps to take in discovering your purpose in life. However, I can share with you the single thing people fail to do which makes it extremely difficult to discover the unique attributes and abilities the Creator has placed in them. Here lays the secret: People ask questions, a lot of questions, but not to themselves. People spend their whole life asking questions about others! “Oh, why did she act in such and such a way?” “Oh, why did he say this or that?” “Oh, they should not have had these things they have”; but they fail to sit still, reflect and question their own actions and reactions while making-sense of them.

*Professor Judi Marshal of the Management Learning and Leadership department at Lancaster University wrote a great piece published in the System Practice and Action Research Journal. She titled it “Living life as Inquiry”. The aim was to show how she “applies notions of inquiry as a method to many areas of her life space”. Judi explained what she meant by living life as inquiry. She says it refers to:

“a range of beliefs, strategies and ways of behaving which encourage her to treat little as fixed, finished, clear-cut. Rather she has an image of living continually in process, adjusting and seeing what emerges, bringing things into question”.

Get this! The beliefs you hold in your mind determine your ability to rightly inquire your life experiences.  There are people who blame others for every ill they experience in life. They continually believe someone somewhere is against them. Such people never inquire their life; rather they spend their days judging the life of others.

The big question is: When things happen in your life, what sense do you make of it? When you pass through an experience, what does it mean to you as an individual? The act of Sense-making is defined as “a process by which people give meaning to experience”.

When gold miners in South Africa dig deep into the rocks, what they initially find is not pure gold. In fact, it is a mixture of gravel, sand and gold. Gold miners therefore go ahead to extract the gold through what is termed “gold ore processing”. Typically, you cannot get the most out of your experiences until you get those experiences processed through inquiry with the purpose of extracting the senses those experiences make to you.

Your ability to effectively inquire your life experiences and learn from them requires a conscious resilient effort to work on your behaviours. You will have to hone your mind-set until you find it normal, natural and seamless to continually question what you know, feel, do and want. You then develop a keenness to keep knowing.

Let me introduce you to a process of inquiry that ensures you are able to make sense of your experiences. It is centred around three basic words that start most questions: Why, What and When.

Asking the “Whys”

When you go through experiences, it is important to make out time to reflect on your actions and those of others. When you do, learn to ask the “Why” questions.  Such questions as: Why did I fail to pass Physics while I easily made good grades in Sociology? This is best used in kick-starting an inquiry process. Asking the “Why” questions exposes the inner and outer arcs of attention. It influences your thoughts (inner) and actions (outer) based on the experience you are inquiring and subsequently, the sense you make of the experience. Asking the “Whys” enables you to analyse situations from diverse perspectives thereby boosting the richness of your learning.

Asking the “What questions”

After the “Whys” have been answered, the next is to get to know “What the answers to the Whys mean?” Using the previous example, you’ll be asking: “If I failed Physics because I realised I’m  not inclined towards science subjects, what does this mean to me?” Finding answers to the Whats reveals the action steps you could take hereafter. These answers simply help you make sense of the experience

Asking the “When questions”

Most people repeatedly act the same way not because they did not realise their past mistakes but because they failed to plan a change in behaviour—and therefore, their learning is incomplete. They might have realised their mistakes, but fail to learn from them by not taking new actions.

If answering the “What” questions helps you make sense of your experiences and exposes action steps, there is a need to set-out plans on when to take action; and this is by no means the least important thing to remember. Indeed, your learning is incomplete without this.

Travails of the “Rejected son”- Transactional Human Resources (HR)

Folks, kinsmen and fiends,

I cry and wail!

I make lamentations of my travails

Laid on me by my mother

The one who, in her care, I am placed.

I might not have been your first

But for long I remained your darling.

And when you were infamous,

I brought you the best of fame.

When you lacked relevance within the organisation

When all your efforts were mere routine

And you earned far less than the epitome of earnings

I, was all you knew!

Alas, the boom arose

All and sundry followed after his fame

He became the most loved in all fields

Everyone loves “strategy”! Oh! everyone does!

Does this massage their ego? I know not!

Would they regard as dumb those that care not about “strategy”?

I have been kept aside, but not left alone

And one of my own, my little brother

Has stolen my fame

Were it for a while, I would have held my peace

But for years, this might linger on

My mother rejecting me day by day

Putting me up for adoption

By those that know me not—Line Managers!

Yea, the ones who have more interest in their version of “strategy”

Than in me, the “rejected son”

- From “Transactional HR” to you [HR Practitioner], my mother!

In a bid to capture the history of Human Resources Management field, I decided to borrow a summarized account from Wikipedia, well laid out in layman’s language:

“Human Resources is a relatively modern management term, coined as late as the 1960s. [1] The origins of the function arose in organisations that introduced 'welfare management' practices and also in those that adopted the principles of 'scientific management'. From these terms emerged a largely administrative management activity, coordinating a range of worker related processes and becoming known, in time, as the 'personnel function'. Human resources progressively became the more usual name for this function, in the first instance in the United States as well as multinational or international corporations, reflecting the adoption of a more quantitative as well as strategic approach to workforce management, demanded by corporate management to gain a competitive advantage, utilizing limited skilled and highly skilled workers.”

From the 1960s up until the end of the 20th Century, the strategic potential of Human Resources Management was not quite discovered. Following the turn-around in the industrial sector where competitive advantage began to lie with human capital rather than financial capital, scholars as well as practitioners started to view the field from a different lens. They realised that if the people that make up the organisation made the difference, our approach to attracting, selecting, developing and retaining these people must be the new competitive advantage.

For those wondering if the “fad” about competitive advantage lying with the organisation’s people is true, my simple explanation to this has been a reference to the automobile industry. In the 1970s and 80s, Peugeot car brands were famous in my part of the world. These were French automobiles known for durability and because the company had greater financial capital than the upcoming Asian car manufacturers, they were able to make more sales. However, one would note that car manufacturers retained the same model of a car brands for many years—design, body-style, features remained the same. All they had to do was to keep their “men at work”, routinely producing the same cars they produced the year before. Research and Development was infamous—and if there was at all, it did not have the zeal to respond to consumer fantasies as at the present. Thus, the “richer” companies won because the consumers in that generation were more contented than us.

Then the tables changed! Consumer aspirations grew. Producers soured while options and alternatives prevailed; and so did the role of Human Resources within organisations—we became relevant; we got invited to making important decisions related to charting the “strategic direction” of organisations. Yet, we are still held back by the responsibilities of our “now-crippled first son”—transactional HR.

Describing transactional HR as a “now-crippled first son” is not to undermine its relevance to Human Resources Management today. However, it is important to note the presence of technology has transformed the way we do transactional HR, otherwise it could be regarded as “crippled” in its original form. The facelift afforded transitional HR through the enablement of technology is the very reason we could opt to put him up for adoption—by Line Managers—albeit, we still struggle with doing this successfully.

A question most often asked is whether Line Managers are ready to take-on the responsibility of our improved transactional HR? Are they ready to use the technological aids to request for new job positions, run shortlists, schedule interviews, conduct competency-based recruitment, carry-out performance agreements and appraisals, conduct performance feedback sessions, simply take full ownership of the transactional spheres of attracting, selecting, developing and retaining talents; while HR practitioners focus on the strategic dimensions of these?

Reflecting on my past experience as a Talent Management Consultant for a leading telecoms company, I had the responsibility of guiding Line Managers through conducting feedback sessions for their direct-reports. One complaint that came out clear could be summarised in the phrase I so often heard: “you are making me do HR work for you! I have my own deadlines. I’ve got my own work”. As true as this may be, Line Managers refuse to be convinced that managing their direct-reports (the ways it is defined by HR—expressed by transactional HR) is actually part of their work. They consider such tasks as developing a marketing strategy, implementing the financial strategy and the various other ways by which we “do strategy” in organisations as the core [and perhaps the whole] of their responsibilities.

As everyone seeks to concentrate on “doing strategy” in their different cubicles within the organisation, the solution perhaps lies in convincing Line Managers that transactional HR is a strategic approach to strategically getting their work done within the various ways through which they contribute to the success of their organisations; for without the right people, success is not guaranteed!

Power of #tweetgum- Staying Awake at Work

Picture this. You are attending a high profile meeting sitting in the midst of senior colleagues. You work in a traditional hierarchical organization where you are expected to “respect the bosses”. Being assigned the task of sitting by a projected laptop, you are expected to make changes to a set of documents being reviewed at the meeting. Suddenly, your eyes start closing-up; mouth attempting to slightly open up; head refusing to retain its vertical position; you suddenly realize that sleep has set in! This was my situation a day ago.

Having stayed up late to watch movies with the wife previous night, I certainly did not have enough sleep; my body needed more sleep. My usual approach to keeping awake on mornings succeeding nights I go late to bed was skipping breakfast to ensure I do not feel heavy and thus sleepy. However, yesterday morning was different. I could not resist the complimentary breakfast buffet offered by the hotel we were lodged in. And so, I had to bear the consequences of my action.

Amongst many options that played in my head as possible remedies to my sleepy feeling, I strangely picked up my blackberry, browsed through blackberry messenger while dosing in-between glances of past messages and contacts’ updates. And then, I decided to open the twitter app and tweet about my situation—the difficulty to keep awake at this important meeting that had me filling an important [better said, conspicuous] role. Truthfully, I have previously criticized people who tweet about any and everything that’s going on through their day. I felt they said too much than “we” needed to know; who cares about their “hurting shoes”, “annoying siblings”, “nosy bosses”, “new clothes” and the various [hitherto deemed] irrelevant talks people bring up on twitter. But right there, I found myself doing what I’d always criticized. I posted a tweet about sleeping at the meeting—and more so, I was eager to get people’s responses. In a few minutes, I got a “mention” notification by a friend of mine—@Shomade, who advised that I chew gum to stay awake. Right after reading and replying to her tweet to let her know I did not have access to chewing gums, I discovered it was important to let her know that the sleepy feeling was gone anyway. And, what did it? #tweetgum did it where there was no chewing-gum?!?!

Puzzled by my recent experience and curious to know what happens within our anatomy when we take certain actions to keep awake at work, I surfed the internet to find how chewing-gum helps us stay awake. This perhaps could lead to the discovery on how the newly-found #tweetgum works. From my mini-research, I learned that “chewing gum stimulates muscles in your face, increasing blood flow to your head, helping you stay alert and awake”-Wikihow.

Could posting a tweet, being in expectation for a reply and then getting the reply have stimulated the muscles in my face [perhaps, the excitement as a result of receiving a response to my tweet] thus increasing the blood flow to my head??!! Can’t answer! Let’s the Doctors worry over that! However, my experience reinforces the increasing impact social networking, and its resulting new ways of conversing, is having on our generation.

A few weeks ago, I was visiting a friend in Manassas, VA, United States. At the dining table, we got into a conversation about an aircraft crash that occurred at a US Air-force base in West Virginia. We had attended an air-show at the same base earlier that day and the crash occurred after we had left. I reached for my blackberry, got on my twitter app in a bid to retrieve the news intending to add cream to our conversation. My friend felt disgusted about my “addiction” to blackberry. Virtually scolding me, he pointed-out the need to detach from “blackberry addiction” as this poses a great threat to time spent with family and friends. 

I hope to dwell on this in a later article while I leave you to droll over my newly discovered #tweetgum [highly recommended for folks that can’t stay awake at work due to night-crawling or night-time insomnia :)]