Remember earlier in the chapter when I distinguished between problem bringers and problem solvers? One thing you probably noticed about the sample responses to this Brown Shorts question is that the wrong attitude answers generally described a problem but never referenced how the issue was ultimately solved. It either remained unresolved or became somebody else’s problem. In contrast, the right attitude answers talked about an initial failure but then went on to describe how the person overcame the failure to eventually solve the problem.
When you ask a question like “Could you tell me about a time you tried to fix or improve something, but it just didn’t work?”
some people assume that you want to hear about a situation that was never fixed. But that’s not what the question actually asked. What you really asked was for the candidate to describe a time he tried to fix something, but it just didn’t work. That could easily be interpreted to mean that a solution he tried didn’t work, which leaves open the possibility that he tried a different solution that did work. It all depends on how you look at this question, and I wrote the question specifically to allow for multiple interpretations.
Problem-solver personalities simply can’t bring themselves to think about a situation as a total failure. They need to keep trying and eventually solve it or at least salvage some useful lesson. And you will generally hear that underlying
interpretation in the responses problem solvers provide, just as you’ll hear the opposite in the answers from the problem bringers.
Your Brown Shorts Discovery has already uncovered all the information you need to create your Brown Shorts Interview Questions. The more you repeat the process by creating a
Brown Shorts question for each of the attitudes that reflect your positive and negative Brown Shorts, the easier it will become.
Just remember the four steps and you’ll get it right every time.
Step 1: Pick one of your Brown Shorts characteristics.
Step 2: Identify a Differential Situation to elicit Brown Shorts characteristics.
Step 3: Begin the question by asking, “Could you tell me about a time you …” and then insert the situation you just identified.
Step 4: Leave the question hanging.
More Examples of Brown Shorts Interview Questions Step 1: If you go back to the Brown Shorts Discovery findings for Company X, you’ll find that high performers take personal responsibility for the quality and timeliness of their work without blame or excuses. By contrast, low performers usually blame others, including customers.
Step 2: A Differential Situation that’s likely to distinguish between high and low performers in Company X is the challenge faced when dealing with a difficult customer.
Step 3: Ask the question “Could you tell me about a customer you found particularly difficult to work with?”
Step 4: Always make sure that nothing in your Brown Shorts question will lead the candidate to give the “right” answer.
Here again are some actual snippets of “wrong attitude”
answers to the Brown Shorts question “Could you tell me about a customer you found particularly difficult to work with?”
“Some customers act like you really have nothing better to do than spend all day solving their issues. There’s no way to have a good relationship with someone like that.”
“This one client basically knew nothing about his
industry and kept blaming our products for his failures. I finally had to tell him that he was not as smart as he thought he was. Big egos are always a challenge to work with.”
And here are some snippets from actual “right attitude”
answers.
“A customer called and as soon as I answered the phone, he let loose a string of obscenities. Hidden among the cursing was the very real situation that they were going to miss an important meeting because of a problem with one of our products. It wasn’t hard for me to see that the pressure was breaking him and he wasn’t anywhere close to his normal self. So I didn’t take any of the anger personally. We hopped on a web conference together and worked into the night to solve the issue.
Out of gratitude (and perhaps a bit of embarrassment at snapping so ferociously) he’s now one of my best
customers.”
“I made a mistake and gave a customer the wrong reports. They fired us as their vendor on the spot, seemingly giving us no chance to make things right. I went to their office the next day, met with the CEO and the team, and said “I’m sorry.” I didn’t offer any
excuses or blame anybody else, I took full accountability for the mistake. They were surprised, and appreciative, and we saved the business relationship. We’re their vendor again, and they’re a very good customer.”
The difficult customer question is a great one to ask, but you’re not going to know the value of the answers you get in response to it unless you know your Brown Shorts. What constitutes resolving difficult customer issues in one company might be a total failure in another company. Southwest Airlines and The Ritz-Carlton, for example, are both great companies, but their
approaches to solving customer issues are different, as are their cultures and business models.
Here’s another example:
Step 1: Imagine your Brown Shorts Discovery identified that high performers consistently maintain a positive and cheerful affect even in the face of failure and other difficult situations. In contrast, low performers maintain a negative disposition, and when faced with tough situations, they find reasons why something will not work rather than try to figure out ways to make it succeed.
Step 2: There are many potential Differential Situations that could be used to assess this characteristic. If I think about episodes when negative people loudly displayed their negativity, I might list someone getting an assignment she didn’t think would succeed, or that she didn’t agree with.
Perhaps she was asked to participate in a change effort, was given a tough deadline, worked on a team with someone she didn’t particularly like, or she faced competing priorities.
Step 3: Any of these Differential Situations could work well for a Brown Shorts question. So depending on the exact situations your people face on the job, you could ask questions such as:
Could you tell me about a time when your boss gave you an assignment that didn’t seem to make much sense?
Could you tell me about a time when you were given an assignment that you were sure wasn’t going to succeed?
Could you tell me about a time when you were struggling to meet a commitment you had made to a customer or colleague?
I’ll show you some actual answers to questions like these in an upcoming chapter. But like the other examples I’ve shared, they really do differentiate between people with the right and wrong attitudes.
Here are a few more examples of some Brown Shorts Interview Questions.
Example 1: If your Brown Shorts Discovery reveals that high performers never say “That’s not my job,” but low performers utter that phrase regularly, you could ask “Could you tell me about a time when you were given an assignment that really didn’t fall within your role?” This is a Differential Situation that everyone who’s ever held a job has faced.
Example 2: If your Brown Shorts Discovery reveals that high performers are highly adept at overcoming impediments to working across functional and geographic boundaries, whereas low performers hit a roadblock and give up, you could ask
“Could you tell me about a time when working across departmental, divisional, or regional lines was challenging?”
Example 3: If your Brown Shorts Discovery reveals that high performers generate ideas that are unique and out of the box, while low performers recycle the same thoughts as everyone else, you could ask “Could you tell me about a time when you had to think outside the box?”