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I’m fairly sure I have written about Rick Houcek before…I met him while I was a member of a TEC group. I love his passion. He gets fired up about stuff. In his latest email, he talks about changing up the types of questions he asks during an interview. He did this to change things up and root out the stiffs. (My word, not his – although I think he gets a bit more shall we say – aggressive – with his terminology for the video game playing, too much tv watching, beer drinking slackers of the world.

He started off by asking:
“Tell me the names of your five favorite self-improvement authors.”

Which, for the people that I have interviewed, is a very intense question. I would be happy with 2 or 3. But I am not interviewing captains of industry.

Houcek expands his questioning…

(1)  “Tell me the names of five people in your life from whom you learned the most valuable life lessons.”

(2)  “Tell me one life lesson you learned from each one — five in total.”

(3)  “Please give me one recent example — five in total — demonstrating your use or application of each of the five lessons.”

And now I’ll reveal a secret:  Their answer to THAT question — the last one — is the only answer that matters.  Ignore the first two.

These are HIGHLY aggressive questions. I include these because I think there is some value here. I would have trouble naming five people. I would definitely have trouble picking out five life lessons. Especially during an INTERVIEW process when your blood is pumping and palms are sweating.

I DO like the idea of going through an exercise of comparing these against my 5 Strengths”

• Leader
• Strategic Thinker
• Change Leader
• Lifelong Learner
• Analytical and Creative Problem Solver

I will start thinking about these. Already some names are coming to mind. Father Phil Francescini, Martin Schwartz, Ron Knight, my sophomore year high school football coach, etc…