Ed Batista

How to Have Better One-on-Ones

One-on-one meetings with employees are seemingly among a leader's most straightforward tasks. Two colleagues have yet another conversation about work--what could be simpler? But a theme in my practice is that a more deliberate approach to one-on-ones can turn them from perfunctory exchanges into much higher sources of leverage. [1] If you're a leader who'd like to hold better one-on-ones, here are some questions to ask yourself and a set of proposals to consider:

If you're not holding formal one-on-ones, why not?

Andy Grove, the late CEO of Intel, noted that managers from other companies viewed formal one-on-ones as unnecessary, telling him, "I don't need scheduled meetings with my supervisor [or subordinate]; I see [them] several times a day." [2] I sometimes work with early-stage CEOs who feel similarly and view formal one-on-ones as superfluous bureaucracy. But this approach has several problems.

Even when you're communicating frequently with employees, it's likely that those interactions are highly tactical, with with little time devoted to more strategic issues, and no time at all to address the quality of your working relationship or anything of similar complexity. And, as Grove continued, "there is an enormous difference between a casual encounter by a supervisor and subordinate, or even a meeting to resolve a specific problem, and a one-on-one." [3]

The absence of formal one-on-ones means that when you do schedule a meeting to address a bigger challenge, you signal to your employees that such events are for "tough conversations," rendering them more stressful and less likely to succeed. (And this may be equally true when an employee schedules a one-on-one with you.)

Alternatively, holding formal one-on-ones on a regular basis normalizes the experience, allowing you and your employees to grow more comfortable addressing complex or difficult topics. Simultaneously, it highlights that this is a particular type of conversation and not just an ordinary meeting, motivating both you and your employees to be more thoughtful about how you prepare and participate.

Who merits a one-on-one?

Having formalized the process, it's important to assess how you're allocating the time you have available for one-on-ones, which is one of your organization's most precious resources. This isn't self-aggrandizing--it's simply a consequence of the fact that your attention is finite. [4] And a one-on-one meeting involves a major "investment" of attention from which you should expect a substantial "return," just as you would with any other limited resource. [5]

In addition to meeting with their direct reports, some of my clients initiate or make themselves available for skip-level one-on-ones with more junior employees. This practice can provide you with a new perspective on the organization, but it comes with potential dilemmas. It doesn't scale, and can leave you spread too thin. It can also short-circuit normal managerial channels--although if you have concerns about one of your direct reports, this may be the point.

I've had clients who levelled an employee and offered ongoing one-on-ones as a way to cushion the blow, but again, this doesn't scale and is generally a short-term fix. The key is recognizing that people want the leader's attention because it's a valuable resource, and beyond a certain point in your career it's unlikely that you'll be able to meet this demand entirely without compromising on other responsibilities.

What's the appropriate cadence? How long should a one-on-one last?

Here Grove offers some useful guidelines:

How often should you have one-on-ones? Or put another way, how do you decide how often somebody needs such a meeting? The answer is in the job- or task-relevant maturity of each of your subordinates. In other words, how much experience does a given subordinate have with the specific task at hand? This is not the same as the experience they have in general...

The subordinate should feel that there is enough time to broach and get into thorny issues... I feel that a one-on-one should last an hour at a minimum. Anything less, in my experience, tends to make the subordinate confine themselves to simple things that can be handled quickly. [6]

Given that your employees' "job- or task-relevant maturity" likely varies, the cadence of regular one-on-ones need not be uniform, nor is there a single best practice. Most of my clients hold weekly one-on-ones with most of their direct reports, but meeting every other week is also common. A longer cadence with direct reports is less typical, but skip-level one-on-ones are often monthly or quarterly. Ultimately it's up to you and each employee to determine what works best.

The key is predictability, so you should only ever cancel or reschedule a one-on-one as a last resort. If you do this repeatedly you send a very clear message that it's a low-priority event, and your employees will act accordingly. And if you have a direct report who's reluctant to hold one-on-ones or who cancels on you, this merits further investigation. It may be a sign of a deeper problem in the relationship [7], or it may simply be that the quality of your one-on-ones needs to be improved. Make clear your desire for one-on-ones to be valuable to them, solicit feedback on your current arrangements, and enlist them in joint problem-solving.

What's on the agenda? How should we prepare?

As with cadence, there's no universal template for agenda-setting or preparation, but there are some general principles to bear in mind. Grove stresses that the employee should feel a sense of ownership:

A key point about a one-on-one: It should be regarded as the subordinate's meeting, with its agenda and tone set by [them]... So the [subordinate] should be asked to prepare an outline, which is very important because it forces them to think through in advance all of the issues and points [they] plan to raise. Moreover, with an outline, the supervisor knows at the outset what is to be covered and can therefore help to set the pace of the meeting according to the "meatiness" of the items on the agenda. An outline also provides a framework for supporting information, which the subordinate should prepare in advance. The subordinate should then walk the supervisor through all the material.

What should be covered in a one-on-one?... The most important criterion governing matters to be talked about is that they be issues that preoccupy and nag the subordinate. These are often obscure and take time to surface, consider, and resolve. [8]

Claire Hughes Johnson, the former COO of Stripe, expresses similar sentiments:

I generally tell folks, especially more experienced people, that the 1:1 is their time. We set up a mutual doc that we can both edit, and we track action items and link out to goals and career conversation notes. Beyond that, I ask the individual to propose each 1:1 agenda, and I only edit the doc to add in agenda item suggestions when I have them. [9]

When your employees own the agenda, not only is this much more efficient for you, it also ensures that the discussion will focus on issues that are most important to them. But having your employees set the agenda doesn't mean that you have no input, as Grove and Hughes Johnson make clear. You can also give feedback to an employee on the quality of their agenda if you conclude that the time isn't being well-spent. My clients who've asked their employees to take responsibility for agenda-setting typically find it a useful exercise in revealing who's well-prepared and who's not.

A particular form that lack of preparation can take is the employee who treats the one-on-one primarily or even exclusively as a vehicle to report out. If you find yourself listening to extensive updates that should have been written reports or automated dashboards for you to review in advance, you can let them know that it's a missed opportunity to have a more meaningful dialogue.

How should one-on-ones be conducted? What role should I play as leader?

An employee who sets the agenda and provides you with sufficient time to digest any preparatory materials enables you to add value not by directing the conversation or even having answers to all their questions, but by posing questions yourself. While there are limits on the extent to which you can serve as an employee's "coach," you can readily employ coaching as a methodology. [10] This not only scales, it also allows you to add value in one-on-ones even with senior employees who possess specialized expertise that you lack. Grove recommended what he called "dialectic management":

What is the role of the supervisor in a one-on-one? They should facilitate the subordinate's expression of what's going on and what's bothering them. The supervisor is there to learn and to coach... How is this done? By applying Grove's Principle of Dialectic Management, "Ask one more question!" When the supervisor thinks the subordinate has said all they want to say about a subject, [the supervisor] should ask another question. [11]

And your questions should include inquiring about your employee's state of mind and well-being. Hughes Johnson notes that a one-on-one should always begin by "asking how someone is doing--checking in really matters." [12] Grove firmly agrees: "The supervisor should also encourage the discussion of heart-to-heart issues during one-on-ones, because this is the perfect forum for getting at subtle and deep work-related problems." [13]

It's by attending to the logistical details above that you create an environment in which employees are willing to truly tell you how they're doing and be candid with you on "heart-to-heart" issues. Holding formal one-on-ones that are rarely cancelled or rescheduled and for which both of you are fully prepared goes a long way toward creating the psychological safety that's necessary for real openness. This doesn't mean that you should avoid contentious issues, as I've noted previously:

Psychological safety entails candid and direct communication. It requires asking and answering hard questions. It does not mean "being nice." It does not mean avoiding difficult conversations or fraught topics to ensure that no one experiences distress. To the contrary, a setting in which people are reluctant to be candid and direct for fear of triggering any distress in others is psychologically unsafe. [14]

I opened with the idea that better one-on-ones can be a great source of leverage for a leader, and I'll close with Grove's thoughts on the same subject:

What is the leverage of a one-on-one? Let's say you have a one-on-one with your subordinate every two weeks, and it lasts one and a half hours. Ninety minutes of your time can enhance the quality of your subordinate's work for two weeks, or for some eighty-plus hours, and also upgrade your understanding of what [they're] doing. Clearly one-on-ones can exert enormous leverage. [15]

 

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Footnotes

[1] 1x 10x 100x (On Leverage)

[2] High Output Management, page 73 (Andy Grove, 1st edition, 1983)

[3] Ibid.

[4] Beyond Simple Multi-Tasking: Continuous Partial Attention (Linda Stone, 2009)

[5] Growth, Profitability and Return on Attention

[6] Grove, pages 73-74.

[7] Better Working Relationships

[8] Grove, page 75.

[9] Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company-Building, page 399 (Claire Hughes Johnson, 2023)

[10] For more on coaching as a leadership tool (and its limitations), see the following:

• Connect, Reflect, Direct...Then Ask (On Coaching)
• How Great Coaches Ask, Listen and Empathize
• Investment vs. Attachment

[11] Grove, pages 75-76.

[12] Hughes Johnson, page 399.

[13] Grove, page 77.

[14] Safety Is a Resource, Not a Destination

[15] Grove, page 77-78.

 

Photo by World Bank Photo Collective.

Defensiveness Is in the Eye of the Beholder

A theme in my practice is defensiveness, which I define as an unwillingness to accept responsibility for setbacks, characterized by a disproportionately hostile, anxious or evasive response to critical feedback. When it arises as a topic I'm usually working with a client who's figuring out how to deal with a defensive employee or colleague, but occasionally I have a client who's been accused of defensiveness and is wondering what to do in response.

The key word in the definition above is "disproportionate." When someone is slightly hostile, anxious or evasive in response to critical feedback, we don't think of them as "defensive." Critical feedback is stressful under the best of circumstances. [1] So when someone responds with curiosity and calm we view that as a sign of maturity and professionalism, but a moderately negative response is normal and expected.

And yet we also expect this negative response to be temperate and short-lived. It's only when the other person's hostility, anxiety or evasion seem excessively emotional or unduly persistent that we label them as "defensive." This is highly contextual, determined by the surrounding cultural norms, our relationship with the other person, and our individual standards. What qualifies as defensiveness is truly in the eye of the beholder. So what are the implications of all this, and what can we do about it?

When You're Dealing with a Defensive Person

Don't call them "defensive."

Don't even use the word, as it will only make the situation worse. Bear in mind that they don't think of themselves as "defensive"--no one ever does--so being labeled as such will feel to them like an unjustified accusation and amplify the negative emotions they're already having difficulty managing. You may be perfectly justified in thinking of them as defensive, but keep it to yourself, at least for the moment.

In the present moment, de-escalate.

Defensiveness emerges in response to unexpected bad news, and you and your counterpart may be facing an immediate crisis. In this moment your task is to help them de-escalate their threat response and regain the ability to regulate their emotions. [2] Slow down--choose your words thoughtfully, make decisions judiciously, be mindful of how you might be contributing to their sense of threat. [3] In some circumstances, encouraging the other person to discuss what they're feeling can help them down-regulate those feelings. [4]

As soon as possible, make it a learning opportunity.

When the sense of urgency has abated--but before so much time has passed that the details have grown hazy--make use of this situation as a learning opportunity for the other person. At this point it may be useful to acknowledge that you perceived their response as defensive, but don't stop there. Offer behaviorally-specific feedback that allows the other person to gain a new perspective on their response and understand why you experienced it as counter-productive. [5]

In the meantime, clarify your own lessons.

There's undoubtedly ample learning here for you as well. Why did this bad news come as such a surprise to the other person? How did you share it with them? If you hired them, why did you fail to identify their defensiveness in the process? [6] How successful were you at de-escalating their defensiveness? Did you inadvertently make it worse, and if so, how? And if you're repeatedly encountering defensiveness over time, that merits a look in the mirror. Just because defensiveness is in the eye of the beholder doesn't mean it's always a fair or reasonable perception.

When You've Been Accused of Defensiveness

Don't make it worse by rejecting the label.

You almost certainly don't feel defensive, nor is that how you would describe your behavior, and it's unfortunate that the other person has chosen to label you this way. But reflexively responding, "I'm NOT defensive!" will only be perceived as further evidence of your defensiveness. Remember that defensiveness is in the eye of the beholder, and the fact that you feel unfairly maligned has no bearing on the other person's belief in the validity of their perspective.

If you haven't heard this very often, it's a learning opportunity.

It's likely that the behaviors being perceived as "defensive" are the result of your surprise and disappointment at encountering an unexpected setback. If you've enjoyed sustained success in your career, this may be the first time that you've experienced a meaningful failure. And if you've rarely (or never) been called defensive before, you're learning that your responses to setbacks are perceived as problematic by this person at this moment. As challenging as it may seem, this presents you not only with an opportunity to transform setbacks into fruitful experiences [7], but also to accelerate your overall growth and development. [8]

If you've heard this repeatedly, take it very seriously.

Learning opportunities sometimes come at a cost, and being called defensive can be career-limiting if the label sticks. When I'm working with a client who's hiring to fill a role, I encourage them to test for defensiveness in the interview process because defensive people can have such a corrosive effect on company culture, and it's difficult if not impossible to get them to change. [9] If this person has perceived you as defensive multiple times, it's a signal to invest in your working relationship. [10] And if you've been called defensive at multiple points in your career, consider whether a failure to take responsibility is holding you back professionally. [11]

No matter what, it's feedback, and feedback is data.

Being called defensive is a form of feedback, and like much feedback, it can be stressful, confusing and unwelcome. As I've noted before, feedback isn't a "gift" that we should automatically express appreciation for, but it is potentially valuable data that merits investigation to assess its utility. [12] You're not obligated to agree with this feedback, nor are you required to take any particular action in response, but consider the extent to which you trust this person's judgment and value their opinion of you. Should you conclude that they're trustworthy and acting in good faith, thank them for taking the risk to speak up, and ask them to tell you more. [13]

 

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Footnotes

[1] For more on feedback and stress, see the following:

• Make Getting Feedback Less Stressful
• Why Some Feedback Hurts (and What to Do About It)

[2] The Tyranny of Feelings

[3] How Leaders Create Safety (and Danger)

[4] Talking About Feelings

[5] How to Deliver Critical Feedback

[6] Surfacing Defensiveness (Three Questions for Candidates)

[7] The Ruling Out of Possibilities (On Failure)

[8] Learning How to Learn

[9] Surfacing Defensiveness (Three Questions for Candidates)

[10] Better Working Relationships

[11] The Trium Group on Responsibility

[12] Feedback Is Not a Gift

[13] Risk Management (The Importance of Speaking Up)

 

Photo by West Point.

Currencies (On Motivating Different People)

A theme in my practice is the leader who's seeking to increase employee motivation. In this context it's important to bear in mind the work of Frederick Herzberg, a 20th century psychologist who had a profound influence on our understanding of motivation in organizational life. Herzberg offers a sharp critique of the conventional approaches to motivation, which he refers to as "kicks in the ass" or KITA. These aren't only negative, in the form of criticism or threats--they can also be positive, in the form of desirable rewards:

Let us consider motivation. If I say to you, "Do this for me or the company, and in return I will give you a reward, an incentive, more status, a promotion, all the quid pro quos that exist in the industrial organization," am I motivating you? The overwhelming opinion I receive from management people is, "Yes, this is motivation." I have a year-old schnauzer. When it was a small puppy and I wanted it to move, I kicked it in the rear and it moved. Now that I have finished its obedience training, I hold up a dog biscuit when I want the schnauzer to move. In this instance, who is motivated--I or the dog? The dog wants the biscuit, but it is I who want it to move. Again, I am the one who is motivated, and the dog is the one who moves. In this instance all I did was apply KITA frontally; I exerted a pull instead of a push. When industry wishes to use such positive KITAs, it has available an incredible number and variety of dog biscuits (jelly beans for humans) to wave in front of employees to get them to jump. [1]

Herzberg is exaggerating for comic effect here--I don't think he ever kicked his dog. [2] But his larger point holds: rewards like dog biscuits and jelly beans may result in movement, but that's not the same thing as motivation. This doesn't mean rewards are irrelevant as incentives, but a key in deploying them effectively is understanding that there are two different types of motivation, intrinsic (deriving from the work itself) and extrinsic (deriving from by-products of the work or aspects of the environment in which work occurs). As I've written before,

Herzberg's research suggests that job satisfaction and dissatisfaction aren't endpoints on a single spectrum, but two distinct scales. Satisfaction is derived from sources of intrinsic motivation such as a sense of achievement, recognition, responsibility, and opportunities for growth. In contrast, sources of extrinsic motivation (also known as "hygiene factors") such as working conditions, compensation, status, and security generate dissatisfaction if they're perceived as inadequate. [3]

But this understanding only gets a leader so far. Intrinsic motivators increase job satisfaction, and a sufficiency of extrinsic motivators prevent job dissatisfaction--but what does this look like in practice? If you're a leader seeking to increase employees' motivation, what can you do? Leadership experts Allan Cohen and David Bradford offer some suggestions. [4] In Influence Without Authority they articulate a set of principles and frameworks to support the development of stronger working relationships and more effective collaboration. [5] Although the title indicates that they're writing for people who lack directive control, I find their ideas highly relevant in my work with leaders. My clients are typically in senior positions, but their employees expect a high degree of latitude and autonomy, and leadership in these settings rarely involves "giving orders." [6]

One of Cohen and Bradford's most useful concepts related to motivation is what they call currencies: "resources that can be exchanged [as] the basis for acquiring influence." The list below is adapted from Chapter 3 in Influence Without Authority, "Goods and Services: The Currencies of Exchange." I've followed Cohen and Bradford's general schema, while modifying some of their terminology.

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Inspiration-Related

1. Vision: A compelling view of the company's future and a description of how someone could contribute to its accomplishment.

2. Excellence: Opportunities to work at the highest standards of achievement.

3. Values: Opportunities to pursue moral or ethical virtues through work.

Task-Related

4. Resources: Additional budget, personnel, technology, space, etc.

5. Challenge: Opportunities to pursue difficult goals and develop enhanced skills and capabilities.

6. Assistance: The ability to delegate unwanted duties or obtain support in facing difficulties.

7. "Air Cover": Public or private help in influencing decision-makers and overcoming resistance.

8. Speed: Confidence that requests and inquiries will be met with a rapid response.

9. Information: Access to restricted or private organizational knowledge.

Position-Related

10. Recognition: Public or private acknowledgment of effort, accomplishments or abilities.

11. Visibility: Opportunities to be known by and interact with senior figures.

12. Reputation: A positive image that opens doors to additional opportunities.

13. Status: Participation in select groups or events.

14. Contacts: The ability to join or build a larger or more valuable network.

Relationship-Related

15. Inclusion: Feelings of closeness and emotional intimacy with specific individuals or groups.

16. Understanding: Opportunities to voice concerns and feel heard.

17. Kindness: Thoughtful and timely expressions of support during difficulties.

Personal

18. Gratitude: Expressions of appreciation in the form of thanks, deference, or a recognition of indebtedness.

19. Ownership: An intrinsically fulfilling sense of control and responsibility.

20. Affirmation: Reinforcement of a person's values, beliefs, sense of identity or self-worth.

21. Comfort: The minimization of headaches, hassles, interruptions or embarrassment.

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If you're seeking to increase employee motivation, Cohen and Bradford's inventory offers a wide range of potential interventions--and here's where it's important to apply Herzberg's insights. Any number of the currencies above can be dispensed like "dog biscuits or jelly beans," but will the result be motivation or merely movement? When people move in response to a promised reward, that's a form of compliance, but motivation springs from a deeper level of commitment. And as I've written before,

Compliant people remain so only as long as they aren't too dissatisfied, but the absence of punishment and the promise of rewards doesn't generate sustained motivation. Committed people are motivated, and the fulfillment they find in the pursuit of their aims makes them more likely to persist in the face of difficulties. [7]

Herzberg indicates that the most significant intrinsic motivators are "[a sense of] achievement, recognition for achievement, the work itself, responsibility, and growth or advancement," while the most significant extrinsic motivators are "company policy and administration, supervision, interpersonal relationships, working conditions, salary, status, and security." [8] Some of Cohen and Bradford's currencies fall readily into one category or the other, but in many cases the distinction is unclear or may be highly contextual.

None of this is to suggest that intrinsic motivators are somehow superior, but recall that Herzberg originally dubbed extrinsic motivators "hygiene factors" to express his finding that sufficiency prevented dissatisfaction, but a surplus didn't necessarily yield more satisfaction. This is where I see many leaders make a category error--they're surprised when increases in compensation or status don't result in sustained motivation, and yet that's common with extrinsic factors that are subject to the process of hedonic adaptation. [9]

But all of this guidance needs to be assessed in light of the needs and preferences of the specific individuals you're seeking to motivate. Herzberg's work can be viewed as a map to help you navigate these issues, and yet, as with all findings from social psychology, "the map is not the territory." [10] Hopefully Cohen and Bradford's inventory expands the possibilities under your consideration, but what ultimately matters isn't whether a given currency is intrinsic or extrinsic in an abstract sense, but the value it holds for a particular employee.

 

This is a companion piece to the following:

• Compliance vs. Commitment (On Behavior Change)
• Mind the Gap (On Leading Senior Executives)

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Footnotes

[1] One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees? (Frederick Herzberg, Harvard Business Review, originally published 1968, republished 2003)

[2] I don't really know anything about how Herzberg felt about dogs. But he helped liberate Dachau as 22-year-old U.S. Army sergeant, an undoubtedly searing experience that influenced his interest in motivation, and I'd like to think that such a man would only be kind to animals.

[3] Compliance vs. Commitment (On Behavior Change)

[4] David Bradford has been an important mentor to me.

[5] Influence Without Authority (Allan Cohen and David Bradford, 2nd edition, 2005)

[6] Force Isn't Power

[7] Compliance vs. Commitment (On Behavior Change)

[8] Herzberg, 1968/2003

[9] Stop Trying to Be "Good Enough" by "Getting Better"

[10] The Map Is Not the Territory

 

Photo by Philip Brewer.

We Don't Get What We Deserve...

We don't like to acknowledge this. It feels unfair, an injustice. I talk with clients every day about perceived injustices, some grievous, even outrageous. But in my capacity as coach I don't do my clients much good by merely validating their grievances or affirming their outrage.

Sometimes that's a starting point. Leaders need to vent like anyone else, and their colleagues may be unsympathetic (or implicated in the injustice), and their family and friends may not really understand the problem. But empathetic listening has its limitations, and when we reach those limits in a given conversation, I'll remind my client of this fundamental truth:

We don't get what we deserve. We get what we negotiate.

This isn't to deny the injustice, or to dismiss my client's feelings of grievance and outrage, or to excuse the actions of others that may have caused or contributed to the situation. Nor do I lack empathy--this isn't code for "Tough shit. Try harder."

To the contrary, empathy plays an essential role here. I must empathize with my clients' sense of injustice to be an effective coach to them. More importantly, my clients must empathize with their presumptive adversaries--but here's another fundamental truth: Empathy isn't agreement.

Empathizing with adversaries does not mean agreeing with them or abandoning our efforts to change the situation. It means getting out of our self-centered mindset and fully inhabiting an alternative view in order to be a more effective agent of change.

Because whenever we think, "I'm not getting what I want, but I deserve it," we diminish our agency and make it less likely that we'll achieve that desired outcome. We make ourselves victims of circumstance, and if the world has anything to teach us it is that victims may deserve justice, but that has very little bearing on whether justice will be done.

Empathizing with adversaries does mean seeing the world as they see it, understanding their emotions in response, and suspending our judgment about the accuracy of their view or the validity of their feelings. And the intent is to make use of this data in negotiating with them.

To be clear, we should think of "negotiations" more broadly than we usually do. Negotiations don't occur only in rare or special circumstances, such as compensation discussions or peace treaties. Life is an endless series of negotiations, particularly in our professional relationships.

Many people are uncomfortable with negotiating--they view it as unseemly or grasping--so they don't engage in deliberate practice, and they never improve their skills. And when they inevitably run into a savvy negotiator, they lose--which makes them feel uncomfortable, and the cycle continues.

But we need not assume that negotiations require a zero-sum, winner-take-all attitude, or that they're characterized by distrust or rancor. This is a caricature, one that enables people who are uncomfortable with negotiating to justify their discomfort. And yet in my experience very few negotiations benefit from this approach. (Some do, of course, but not many.)

So if you find yourself unhappy with a situation, feeling that an injustice has been done, and yet unclear on how to move forward, what can you do?

Consider your beliefs about yourself and how you respond to adversity.

• Learning How to Learn
• The Tyranny of Feelings
• The Value of a Good Fight

Consider your beliefs about power, influence and negotiation.

• Power Struggles Among Nice People
• Force Isn't Power
• Culture, Compensation and Negotiation

Engage in deliberate efforts to develop your skills and learn from experience.

• Conscious Competence in Practice
• Comfort with Discomfort

 

This piece is perhaps another way of saying Make It Better.

Photo by Jernej Furman.

Fear of the Empty Chair, Part 2 (On Hiring)

In Fear of the Empty Chair, Part 1, I discuss the factors that cause leaders to delay a necessary termination. A mirror image of this fear can affect leaders during a hiring process, one that causes them to rush. They're so concerned about a role going unfilled that they make missteps or discount potential red flags along the way. Sometimes this is the result of inexperience, but even long-tenured leaders can be affected. What do leaders driven by a "fear of the empty chair" overlook or ignore when hiring? And if you're a leader preparing to make a hire, what can you do about it?

Cognitive Biases

There's ample research on the limitations of job interviews in predicting performance. [1] A particular problem is the unstructured interview, in which the interviewer lacks specific questions designed to elicit responses about the candidate's real-life experiences to test for a desired set of characteristics. The unstructured interview moves randomly from one topic to the next, with the candidate guessing what the interviewer wants to hear and eagerly seizing on any points in common. And the results are readily subject to cognitive biases, the mental shortcuts that preserve our limited capacity for logical reasoning at the cost of systematic errors:

• Confirmation bias: Searching for and promoting data consistent with pre-existing hypotheses about a candidate, while rejecting disconfirming data.
• Halo effect: Viewing a candidate's attributes more positively (or negatively) than is merited on the basis of positive (or negative) impressions of other attributes.
• Stereotypes: Assumptions about a candidate's fitness based on similarities to (or differences from) the interviewer's often vague assumptions about an "ideal candidate." [2]

Leaders will obviously continue to rely on interviews, despite their drawbacks. This isn't irrational behavior--even unstructured interviews have benefits [3], and structured interviews can be difficult to implement. [4] However, as organizational psychologist Robert Dipboye has noted, "The evidence is compelling that the inclusion of formal job analyses, standardized questioning of applicants, and behavioral rating scales improve the validity and reliability of interviewer judgments." [5]

If you're a leader who's feeling a sense of urgency about making a hire, it will likely be worth the effort to slow down and take the advice of Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman: 1) Create a structured set of questions to prevent you from simply pursuing the questions that you find most interesting, 2) Use the time available in an interview to obtain as much information as possible about the candidate's life in their normal environment, 3) Do not make decisions solely on the basis of your global evaluations, and 4) Rely upon statistical summaries of separately evaluated attributes. [6]

Defensiveness

More specifically, hiring processes should screen for defensiveness, which I define as an unwillingness to accept responsibility for setbacks, characterized by a disproportionately hostile, anxious or evasive response to critical feedback. When one of my clients has an under-performing employee, defensiveness is almost always an issue. Jean Leslie and Ellen Van Velsor of the Center for Creative Leadership studied "derailed" executives who left their organizations non-voluntarily or were plateaued at a level short of expectations. The two leading factors in such cases were "inability to develop or adapt" (61 percent) and "poor working relations" (57 percent), and in my experience defensiveness is a primary contributor to both. [7]

But a candidate is unlikely to show signs of defensiveness during hiring, when they're striving to be their best selves, so if you're a leader making a hire it's up to you to test for it. Here are three questions to ask candidates during the process, and in this order (although not all three may be necessary):

1. Tell me about a time when things went wrong.

If the candidate can't answer this question thoughtfully, that's an initial red flag, suggesting that they're unwilling to be forthright about their setbacks or unable to observe and interpret such situations without experiencing distress. But some candidates will provide an adequate answer while leaving themselves out of the story, blaming the setback on the failings of others or inescapable misfortune. In these cases, proceed to the next question:

2. Tell me about a time when you made a mistake.

The wording here is deliberate, providing the candidate with an opportunity to take responsibility for a setback without using unduly fraught language. We all "make mistakes," and only the most defensive among us will refuse to admit it. Still, some candidates will respond with an example in which the consequences of their mistake were relatively trivial, providing little data on their capacity to acknowledge and learn from serious missteps. In these cases, proceed to the final question:

3. Tell me about a time when you failed.

The wording here is also deliberate, inviting the candidate to identify a situation in which they bore personal responsibility for a meaningful setback. Some candidates who were less forthcoming in response to the first two questions will finally avail themselves of this opportunity--and others will not, providing examples of inconsequential "failures," or evading the idea that they failed, finding others to take the blame.

If a candidate's unable to provide a satisfactory response to any of these questions, consider that a likely sign of defensiveness. And if you're still bullish on their candidacy, ask whether your eagerness to fill the role might be distorting your judgment. [8]

Leverage

Once the top candidate has been identified, the leader has to close them, sometimes requiring multiple rounds of negotiation across a range of issues. The leader's goal shouldn't be to extract the most concessions possible from the candidate. By adopting such an aggressive stance, not only do they run the risk of losing the best candidates over relatively minor differences, they also increase the likelihood that a qualified candidate will accept the role begrudgingly, or that only less-qualified candidates will remain available, in either case sowing the seeds of future difficulties.

But it can be equally problematic when a leader is so anxious to fill a role that they give up their leverage in the negotiation, making concessions that they later regret. When the dust settles after the hire's completed, the result is an employee who's one of the following:

• Over-compensated: This can take the form of excessive base pay or equity grants, but it may also reflect unsound management practices, such as poorly-structured variable or bonus plans. Even confidential information about compensation rarely remains so indefinitely, and any arrangements that are outside the company's norms have the potential to wreak havoc should other employees come to feel that they're now under-compensated or have been treated unfairly.
• Over-titled: They candidate is really a Director, but they held out for VP. Or they're really a VP, but they held out for C-level. Or the role shouldn't even have a hierarchical title, but the leader felt obligated to award one to close the candidate. As I've written before, "at first...titles may seem cheap--I've even had clients call them 'free.' But not only are those hidden costs eventually revealed, they also tend to escalate--so supposedly 'free' titles ultimately become very expensive." [9]
• Over-scoped: This isn't to say that the candidate is unqualified per se, but, rather, that their ambitions extend beyond their current capabilities, and they negotiated for a set of duties that will stretch them to the point of failure.

Again, the solution isn't to adopt a bare-knuckles negotiation style and pick a fight over every single issue. But if you're a leader in the midst of making a hire, pay close attention to how you feel about the prospect of losing the candidate and the extent to which such feelings might be causing you to underplay the leverage you hold in the negotiations. In this context it can be helpful to better understand your strengths and weaknesses as a negotiator. There's no one right approach, but in my experience there are two distinct negotiating "cultures":

In a list-price culture, there's a high degree of transparency and very little flexibility. An opening offer may not be take-it-or-leave it, but there's relatively little gamesmanship... In a haggling culture, the opposite is true. There's very little transparency and a great deal of flexibility. Opening offers are never take-it-or-leave-it, and gamesmanship abounds. [10]

A challenge in hiring is that you and the candidate probably haven't negotiated before, so you may come from opposing cultures without realizing it, which is a recipe for miscommunication:

When a list-price leader meets a haggling candidate, the leader may be surprised by a seemingly outrageous counter-offer, and the candidate may be surprised by the leader's rigid inflexibility. And when a haggling leader meets a list-price candidate, the leader may be surprised by the candidate's apparent lack of responsiveness, and the candidate may be surprised by the insultingly low opening offer. [11]

Short-Term Pain vs. Long-Term Pain

As I noted in Part 1, a theme here is the belief that the short-term pain will be greater than the long-term pain. When filling an empty role, the short-term pain is evident: Important work is going undone. This includes not only the work that is the purview of the role, but also the work that the leader must defer or forego in order to dedicate time and energy to the hiring process.

It's also not uncommon for leaders to find hiring itself a somewhat painful experience. Even when recruiters or other employees are available to source a pool of candidates and conduct the initial screens, the leader must ultimately spend a substantial amount of time in later rounds with candidates who won't work out--and in many early stage companies the leader is doing all this work on their own. And some leaders enjoy negotiating, but many find it onerous at best. In most cases, the leader is driven to seek relief and put an end to the short-term pain by selecting a candidate and closing them quickly.

However, as I also wrote in Part 1, what gets left out of this equation is the possibility that the long-term pain might outweigh the short-term pain, and perhaps by a substantial margin. Candidates who breezed through a series of unstructured interviews might look the part but be woefully underqualified. Candidates whose defensiveness wasn't surfaced during the process (or, worse, was ignored) will almost certainly fail to fulfill their potential. Candidates who extracted outsized concessions in their negotiation may be overmatched by the role or create perceptions of unfairness, undermining trust in management.  And someone who fits any of these criteria may well need to be managed out or terminated abruptly. The long-term pain of a poor hire is nearly limitless.

If you're a leader preparing for or in the middle of an important hire, you're undoubtedly feeling some pressure to fill the role. But managing your "fear of the empty chair" and tolerating some short-term pain in order to create a more structured interview process, test deliberately for defensiveness, and carefully assess your leverage as you conduct negotiations may well spare you from much more pain in the long run.

 

This is a companion piece to the following:

Daniel Kahneman on Conducting Better Interviews

Fear of the Empty Chair, Part 1 (On Termination)

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Footnotes

[1] For more on the shortcomings of interviews, see the following:

• Stubborn Reliance on Intuition and Subjectivity in Employee Selection (Scott Highhouse, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2008)
• Belief in the unstructured interview: The persistence of an illusion (Jason Dana, Robyn Dawes and Nathanial Peterson, Judgment and Decision Making, 2013)
• Overconfidence in personnel selection: When and why unstructured interview information can hurt hiring decisions (Edgar Kausel, Satoris Culbertson and Hector Madrid, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2016)
• The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews (Jason Dana, The New York Times, 2017)

[2] For more on cognitive biases in interviewing, see Structured and Unstructured Selection Interviews: Beyond the Job-Fit Model (Robert Dipboye, Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, 1994) and How Cognitive Biases Make Interviews Unreliable (Huy Tran, TRG International, 2016).

[3] Dipboye, page 112:

Unstructured approaches allow for richer communication among interviewers and between interviewer and the applicant (Daft & Lengel, 1986); as a consequence, those involved in the selection process can achieve greater reductions in the equivocality associated with hiring decisions (Weick, 1979). Second, the political behavior that can emerge with an unstructured procedure can prove valuable in resolving conflict over underlying objectives and alternative job candidates. Third, when knowledge of cause-effect is incomplete and there is no consensus on standards, fairness becomes more of an issue, and the interactional quality of an unstructured interview can provide for greater procedural justice. Fourth, the overall fit of the individual to the job context becomes more important in these situations and as discussed earlier, unstructured procedures seem to provide a better basis for achieving a good fit to this broader context. Finally, it is in these ambiguous situations that the personal commitment of those conducting the interviews is especially important to the ultimate success of the decision, and through providing autonomy, an unstructured procedure may help build this commitment...

[4] Ibid, page 113:

There are several ways that a structured selection process can conflict with the existing system, and as a consequence can be rejected or destructured. In the search for personal satisfaction, interviewers deviate from guidelines by incorporating task characteristics such as variety and autonomy. In the attempt to achieve a good fit to the organization, interviewers stray from the job-related attributes to consider the personality, values, and goals and to allow recruiting, socialization, rind self-selection. Other deviations occur as a consequence of power tactics, such as building coalitions or controlling the decision process. In the attempt to be fair, interviewers deviate from the one-way interrogation."

[5] Ibid, page 94.

[6] Daniel Kahneman on Conducting Better Interviews

[7] A Look at Derailment Today: North America and Europe, page 11 (Jean Leslie and Ellen Van Velsor, Center for Creative Leadership, 1996)

[8] Adapted from Surfacing Defensiveness (Three Questions for Candidates).

[9] Very Cheap, Then Very Expensive (On Job Titles)

[10] Culture, Compensation and Negotiation

[11] Ibid.