The Freak Factory - David Rendall

Responding to the interview question about your biggest weakness

How should you respond when an interviewer asks you about your biggest weakness?

I've discussed this question before in InterviewFreak and a post on Side Effects.

But now you have a chance to learn from a true expert as Michael Scott reminds us that our weaknesses are our strengths in this clip from The Office.

* Special thanks to my friend, Joel Rodell, for finding and editing the video

An Imperfect Combination of Personalities

Last year I downloaded the new Pearl Jam album, Backspacer, via iTunes and it included a short video about the band. The following quote caught my attention. . .

"We sort of have our own thing and its raw and it's an imperfect combination of personalities and we put a lot of faith in Ed (Eddie Vedder) as the artistic director to take bits and pieces from everybody and, in the end, he ties us together."

Too many of us believe that success requires a perfect combination of personalities but the enduring success of Pearl Jam demonstrates that our imperfections can be combined to create something incredible.

That is our challenge as leaders and managers. We need to acknowledge and accept people's imperfections and then tie them all together in a unique way.

Are you ready to accept your role as artistic director?

Freak of the Week: Chris Ferdinandi

I found Chris Ferdinandi's blog, Renegade HR, while doing research for my Freak Factory book. Chris is a human resource and social media professional at EMC in Boston. He's a beach bum, weekend warrior, musician and clean hippie, which means that he loves recycling AND taking showers.

I'm glad he took a break from writing his new book to share his freak factor story, which mirrors many of my own experiences.

1. Do you have any apparent weaknesses that are actually strengths?

I'm really energetic. If I was a kid today, I'd probably be diagnosed with ADHD. In school, it was a bit of a problem, because you're expected to sit still, pay attention, and think inside the box. Memorize and recite. Do it just like you were taught to.

My brain doesn't work that way. I need to question and push boundaries and take things apart. I can be a bit easily distracted when dealing with rote, repetitive types of tasks. But if I'm working on a unique and complex problem, I have laser focus on it. My boss recently told me that when I throw myself at a problem, there's no stopping me.

I think strength and weakness are really two sides of one coin. In order to be great at some things, you have to suck at others.

2. How have you capitalized on your weaknesses to succeed in your life and career?

When you first hit the business world, most of the jobs involve a lot of rote and repetitive work - the kind of stuff a trained monkey could do. You kind of have to suck it up and deal for a while.

But I always made it a point to seek out work - in addition to my day job - that played to my strengths. I identified problems, offered solutions, and then played a key role in implementing them. It's opened up a lot of doors for me professionally, and allowed me to meet a lot of great people I wouldn't have otherwise.

3. Have  you ever had a manager that allowed you to flaunt your weaknesses?

I had a boss who really understood what I rocked at. He made it a point to seek out opportunities for me to do things I was naturally good at. It made grinding through the stuff I wasn't as good at - but was just part of the job - a lot easier.

4. Are you secretly the twin of actor Chris O'Donnell?

That's hilarious! I just did a comparison. You're right!

Freak of the Week: Lance Haun

I met Lance Haun, author of the Rehaul blog, through Twitter last year and I recently featured him in my post about the Top 7  Human Resources Blogs. We started a conversation and he was kind enough to share his own freak factor story, which reminds me of a slogan from Outward Bound. "If you can't get out of it, get into it."

"I get very little sleep which sparks creativity during the weirdest times and places. I've become much better at capturing it than my peers because I've had so many nights where I've stayed up with an idea and I figured it out. I've had some that I've completely lost in the more insomniac phases of my life but, generally speaking, my smartphone, laptop and notebook keep me plugged in with my ideas.

 

For my blog, Rehaul.com, most of my best work comes from an idea driven to paper after midnight. As you can imagine, sleeping infrequently requires coffee which forces me (as a person who works primarily from home) to interact with people. I've got my coffee shop people and my sandwich shop people that I can socialize with on a daily basis.

At MeritBuilder, our organization was built around people flaunting their weaknesses. Manic episodes of coding, writing and creative work followed by downtime of administrivia suited everyone and gained more productivity. I believe that embracing weaknesses is at the crux of smart talent management. It is overlooked consistently in the face of strengths but can be just (if not more) powerful."

Next time you have trouble sleeping, don't take an Ambien. Remeber Lance's story and ask yourself how you could take advantage of the late night hours while everyone else is wasting their time on sleep.  

More than half of Americans work for failure factories

According to a CNN Money report, job satisfaction in the United States just hit a 22-year low. More than half of American employees are frustrated by their work.

"The Conference Board's survey polled 5,000 households, and found that only 45% were satisfied in their jobs. That's down from 61.1% in 1987, the first year the survey was conducted. Even though one in 10 Americans is out of a job, those who are employed are increasingly dissatisfied.

'Through both economic boom and bust during the past two decades, our job satisfaction numbers have shown a consistent downward trend,' said Lynn Franco, director of the Consumer Research Center of The Conference Board.

'[That] could spell trouble for the overall engagement of U.S. employees and ultimately employee productivity,' she added."

The recent recession, layoffs, pay cuts and outsourcing promise to make this problem even worse in 2010. In this environment, managers and workers need to discover a new approach to performance improvement.

If we want people to get re-engaged, we need to stop trying to find and fix their flaws. This approach didn't work in the past and it won't work in these troubled times.

Instead of perpetuating failure factories with ineffective conventional strategies, we need to create freak factories, organizations that help people to amplify their unique qualities and contribute the best of themselves each day. We need to stop forcing people to fit in and start helping them freak out.

Find out more about how to improve employee engagement, motivation and productivity in my free e-book The Freak Factory: Making Employees Better by Helping Them Get Worse.

Are you building a freak factory? Take the assessment to find out.

I want to thank you all for your enthusiastic responses to The Freak Factory eBook, which was published by ChangeThis last week.

As a follow-up, I've created a short Freak Factory assessment.

This ten-question quiz evaluates your application of the freak factory principles.

Are you making your employees better by helping them get worse?

Are you an Entry-Level Supervisor at the Freak Factory or the Chairman of the Board?

Take the quiz to find out.

P.S. I just recorded the audio from a recent Freak Factory speech. I'll post it soon.

New eBook: The Freak Factory - Making Employees Better by Helping Them Get Worse

Excerpt from the new eBook . . .

If conventional approaches to employee motivation aren’t working, then what should we do?

Instead of attacking people’s weaknesses, we need to find the strength that is hidden inside their apparently negative characteristics. It is time to stop trying to create well-rounded and balanced employees.

We need employees that are unbalanced. We need employees that are freaks. It is time to build a freak factory.

If you want to learn how to create a freak factory at your organization, click here to download the free eBook from ChangeThis.com 

Conduct a Better Interview: Ask About Candidate's Side Effects

“Strong people always have strong weaknesses too. Where there are peaks, there are valleys.”
- Peter Drucker
 
Would you take a drug that causes an uncontrollable gambling addiction? It doesn’t sound very tempting but thousands of people who suffer from restless leg syndrome take Requip because the benefits outweigh the side effects.
 
The concept of side effects has implications for the way we interview. Most interviewers ask candidates about their biggest weakness and job seekers have been taught that there are three good responses:
 
1. Admit a weakness that seems beneficial to the company.
“I work too hard.”
 
2. Discuss a weakness that you’ve almost fixed.
“I used to be unorganized but I’ve really improved.”
 
3. Pick a weakness that isn’t relevant to the job.
“I’ll be a good cross-country truck driver, but I’m not a good team player.”
 
These responses aren’t very helpful. So instead of asking candidates about their weaknesses, we should start asking them about their benefits and side effects.
 
1. What are your benefits? What problems can you help us to solve?
 ”If your company is struggling with innovation, I can help.”
 
2. What are your side effects?
“I often break the rules and reject the status quo.”
 
3. How are your side effects related to your benefits?
“Innovation cannot happen without making difficult changes to current organizational norms.”
 
4. In what areas are you average?
“I’m competent when making presentations but don’t really inspire people with my rhetorical skills.”
 
These questions require more from the candidate than do the current set of questions and offer better information to the interviewer.
 
How do you respond to the candidate’s side effects?
Some drugs are not for “women who are pregnant or might become pregnant.” Just like not every drug is right for you, not every candidate is right for you. If the candidate’s benefits don’t address a specific problem that your organization has, then there is no reason to deal with their side effects.
 
If we choose employees who seem to lack major side effects, we will get only mediocre work. Where there are no side effects, there are no benefits.
 
Similarly, the better the employee is, the bigger their side effects will be. Steve Jobs is widely recognized as a tremendously successful CEO and very influential figure in the business world but he is not without side effects. He is legendary for being conceited, critical and volatile.
 
What side effects are you willing to accept?
When Vioxx was taken off the market because of the risk of heart attacks and strokes, I discussed the case with my ethics class. One student had taken Vioxx for chronic pain and wanted the FDA to allow Merck to make it available again. She was aware of the side effects but was willing to take the risk if it would reduce the pain that she lived with each day.
 
A good way to determine what side effects you are comfortable with is to fill in the blanks for the following sentence. “ I don’t care if you ____ , as long as you _____.”
“I don’t care if you are unorganized, as long as you are creative.”
“I don’t care if you are explosive, as long as you are passionate.”
“I don’t care if you break the rules, as long as you get results.”
 
Cheryl was obsessive about germs. For example, she refused to sit on the chairs in our classroom without first putting down a blanket. But she was the perfect director of health/safety for her organization.
 
Dwayne lacked empathy and had constant conflicts with his co-workers and managers. But none of this was a problem when he worked in the repossession business.
 
Every employee has side effects. It is an illusion to believe that we will find candidates with all strengths and no weaknesses. The goal is to find someone with the right combination of benefits and side effects for the condition that your organization is suffering from.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For advice on how to respond to the weaknesses question as an interviewee, check out my interview freak post.