The whole interview process is done – the candidate has gone home long ago, you’ve debriefed with everyone and gotten written feedback, and you’ve checked references.  It’s time for a decision.  How do you avoid making a mistake?

There’s no guarantee, of course, but there are some guidelines I try to follow.

• Identify impostors

Lots of people are exceptional interviewers, but marginal employees (or worse).  Did you ask for enough specific examples (and probe for additional details) to ensure that you’re hiring someone with the experience she claims to have?  Did you check references to get independent confirmation of that experience?

• Consider ability to handle stress

What are the demands of the position you’re filling?  Is it high pressure?  Are long work hours expected?  Will there be travel commitments?  Is weekend work required?

You know your company and you know what you want this new hire to do.  Make sure you asked the right questions to give you confidence that the candidate is up to the expectations.

• Anticipate company “culture fit”

This is another “you know your company” consideration.  How does your team fit together?  What level of formality is typical?  How do people address each other?  What are your philosophies on spending money (for equipment, for training, for travel, for bonuses)?

Again, did you ask the right questions to gauge how well this new candidate will fit in?  Equally important, did you convey an accurate picture, so he can decide if your position is a good fit for him?

• Be willing to take risks, but know what they are

In the end, there are no certainties in hiring.  Every candidate has shortcomings and risks.  Even if you have a candidate who seems perfect, there are risks – sometimes someone with all the necessary skills and experience is actually overqualified.  If so,   she might be likely to get bored and not be content in this position.

Your job as the hiring manager is to take known risks, rather than to be surprised.  Sometimes, you’ll take a chance on someone who is promising, but will need to grow into the position.  Sometimes, you may choose someone who has had spectacular failure or a run of bad luck in recent positions.

After all of that, go for it!  Extend the offer and welcome your new employee onto the team!

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

The entire hiring process can be tricky and may sometimes seem overwhelming.  Don’t be discouraged.

After you (and your team) have interviewed a candidate, how do you decide whether to make a job offer?

• Debrief with everyone on the interview team

Many times, this takes place in an “official” debrief meeting, bringing everyone together in the same room to share their thoughts.  There are several benefits to this approach.  A comment from one interviewer may trigger a reaction from someone else, allowing patterns to emerge.

“The candidate had trouble recalling details of Project X.”
“You know – I noticed the same thing when she talked about Project Y.”

The converse can happen, too – one impression could be negated by someone else’s feedback.

“I’m concerned about how he might react to pressure, because of Example A.”
“I also wondered about that, so I probed deeper and learned enough to alleviate my doubts.”

One big caveat here: don’t allow the most vocal (or most senior) interviewers to dominate the conversation or intimidate others.  You included everyone in the interview team for a reason (I hope!).  Make sure you obtain everyone’s input.

Getting everyone together in a meeting may not be practical.  If it’s not, make sure you still find a way to get explicit, direct feedback from everyone on the interview team.  Sometimes a hybrid approach works well: get unbiased feedback from each interviewer separately and then get everyone together for a round-table discussion of the candidate.

• Request an explicit “Hire / No Hire” recommendation from each interviewer

Don’t rate the candidate on a scale from 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 or 1 to anything else.  Ask each interviewer for a binary decision: If it were up to you, would you hire or not hire this person?

There is some room for caveats and conditions.  It’s okay, for example, to say “Hire, if Thomas determines that his problem solving skills are strong enough” or “Hire, if a reference check confirms that he has built teams that worked together effectively.”

• Check references

This can be valuable and enlightening, but most people do it poorly.  Candidates will only provide references who will say glowing things about them.  Your job is to cut through this obvious bias and elicit useful information.  Avoid questions where the right answer is obvious.  Don’t ask: “Rate the candidate on a scale of 1 to whatever.”  I promise that the scores will all be high, but you won’t learn anything.  Don’t ask cliché questions like “greatest strength / weakness?”

Instead ask questions that will help determine the candidate’s ability to do the job.

• Describe a situation where the team he was leading encountered a serious problem and explain how he overcame it.
• Give an example of how she managed a difficult employee.
• Explain situations when you think he’s more effective working as an individual versus when he’s more effective as a member of a team.

In the end, you (the hiring manager) have the final decision.  I’ve worked with teams where everyone needs to vote “Yes” on the hire / no hire decision, but I don’t recommend that.  Ultimate responsibility lies with the hiring manager.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Consider input from the entire interview team, but don’t give “veto power” to them.

When a hiring manager (or a recruiting manager) brings a candidate in for a round of interviews, one of the most important pre-interview tasks is to decide who will interview the candidate.  In almost all cases, the hiring manager and someone from HR are involved, for reasons that are (I hope) obvious.  Who else?

Remind yourself of what you’re trying to accomplish: Is this candidate the best person to do the job you’re trying to fill?  Who is qualified to help make that judgment?

In addition to assessing the candidate, it’s important to recognize another function of the interview process: the fact that the candidate is making a decision about your company, as well.  You want to consider that as you compose the interview team.  You should expose the candidate to a cross-section of the co-workers she would have.  In addition, you want to present your organization favorably – part of the interview process should be a “recruiting pitch” – not forced or contrived, but legitimately and honestly highlighting the benefits of joining your team.

With those considerations, who should be included on the team (and what are they expected to accomplish)?

• Potential peers, especially senior co-workers

If you’re hiring a software developer, these are senior engineers on the same team.  If you’re hiring a sales rep or a sales consultant, this is one of your best sales reps or sales consultants.

A key objective of potential peers is to assess the relevant skills for the job.  Give the developer candidate a programming task or a problem-solving exercise.  Ask a sales candidate to make a presentation, as he would to a potential customer.  Ask a potential QA engineer to design a test plan or a set of test cases.  Give a writing task to a product marketing candidate or a potential technical writer.  Make the assignment as real possible.  [I cannot stress this enough.  Candidates should have to demonstrate that they can perform the tasks that they’ll need to perform after they are hired.]

These individuals can also serve (possibly unwittingly) in the “recruiting” part of the interview process.  Ideally, they like what they do and are often passionate about the organization.  When they are, that will show through in their demeanor and enthusiasm during the interview.

• Potential subordinates

It can be tricky, when hiring a manager or leader, to include potential subordinates in the hiring process.  I always do, for several reasons.  Most importantly, those future subordinates are likely respected, talented, current employees whose judgment you trust.  [If that’s not true, then you have a much bigger management problem than the hiring process at hand!]  In addition, those people have different (but valid) expectations of what that new manager will need to do.  You need to be realistic when considering the input of these potential subordinates, but it does need to be considered.

• Experienced interviewers from other departments

This is a role that’s often overlooked (or never considered) by hiring managers.  I think that’s especially unfortunate, because it can be very valuable.  [That belief is only partially because I personally play this role very often.  At my company over the past few years, I’ve interviewed candidates for Account Executive, HR manager, IT Director, Territory Manager, Software Engineer, Data Warehouse Consultant, Test Engineer, Sales Consultant, Project Manager, and more.]

This person’s role is sort of a catch-all.  Identify imposters.  Evaluate the ability of the candidate to handle stress.  Distinguish real contributions and real leadership from mere participation.  Uncover potential personality problems or motivational challenges.  Anticipate mismatches with company culture.  [Yes, it really is possible for someone to do all of those things in an interview.  I’ll explore that in a future post.]

• The hiring manager’s boss (and higher levels of management)

This person can often play the role described above, but has a few other important potential duties.  One is to answer questions the candidate might have about the hiring manager and about the organization.  In addition, this person is often the key advocate of the organization in convincing the candidate to join the company.  After all, a higher level manager or executive can (we hope) effectively convey the company direction and strategy, offering a compelling vision of why it’s a great place to work.

Although that’s a lot of different roles, don’t shy away from being thorough.  Hiring decisions are critically important.  Hiring mistakes are extremely expensive.  If you hire an unqualified candidate, it will probably take months to recognize the problem and even longer to correct it.  During those months, you’ll spend money and time training the new employee.  Meanwhile, once you do correct the problem (and replace the failed employee), you’ll be back where you started, but you’ll have missed months of opportunity that would have resulted from a better hiring decision.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

You might be wondering whether you can really include that many people in the interview process.  In my opinion, you can’t afford not to!

You’re interviewing a candidate, looking for aptitude and attitude, but you’re not sure what to ask.  Just like the candidate, you have access to hundreds of thousands of web pages listing “interview questions.”  How do you decide what to ask? 

Remind yourself of what you’re trying to accomplish: Is this candidate the best person to do the job you’re trying to fill?  The candidate’s previous experience and skills are only important in relation to that question.  They serve as the foundation for your questions but, by themselves, those skills and that job history aren’t enough.

Here are some guidelines I follow in preparing questions for an interview candidate.

• Avoid the most common cliché questions

I’m not a fan of questions like, “What is your greatest strength (or weakness)?” or “Where do you see yourself in X years?”  Most candidates have rehearsed answers for those questions and rehearsed answers rarely provide much insight into the candidate. 

• Ask for examples
  • “Tell me of a situation where you …”
  • “Describe a manager / subordinate / co-worker who…”
  • “Describe your personal contributions to <some key project>”

By probing for explicit examples, you can avoid trite, rehearsed responses.  Your goal is to see how the candidate thinks and how he has handled various challenges he is likely to face at your company.  In addition, you want to separate “specific responsibilities he had” from “projects where he tenuously contributed.”

• Probe for conceptual understanding and ability to explain

Ask the candidate to explain some core concept that he should understand well.  When listening to the answer, look for two things: does he really understand this concept and is the explanation clear?  Some examples include:

• Describe a perfect sales opportunity (and what characteristics make it perfect).
• Describe the architecture of the last application you developed.
• Tell me what a data warehouse is.

• Push the candidate to say “I don’t know”

I often do this as a follow on to the question above, especially when interviewing a technical candidate.  I probe deeper and deeper for more detail about some topic, expecting to get to a level that the candidate doesn’t know.  That’s the answer I’m looking for: “I don’t know.”  [Or even better, “I don’t know but here’s how I would find out”].  Candidates who are unwilling to ever say “I don’t know” can present risks: they may be reluctant to ask for help or advice; they may try to fake their way through things when they are uncertain; or they may have difficulty collaborating with others on your team. 

• Validate ability to retain information

Ask the candidate something that you know they’ve heard or learned during the interview process.  One of my favorites is “Tell me what our company does.”  If I’m not the first person on the interview loop, they’ve probably gotten this description from someone else.  If I’ve previously phone-screened the candidate, I also sometimes ask them to describe something that I told them on the phone.

• Be original

[For many people, this is easier to say than to do.]

Come up with a question you haven’t read from any list (or from this page).  One of my favorites (which I talked about in a blog post last year) is “In your current job, what was the biggest mistake you made?”  

That question combines several traits of a good question: it’s probably unexpected, it asks the candidate to do some introspection, and it urges the candidate to reveal some vulnerability.  If the candidate says “I can’t think of any” or “I don’t make mistakes” it makes me worry. 

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Ask questions that will get past the candidate’s interview preparation skills to evaluate the skills that are more relevant to your open position.

When you interview a candidate for a job at your company, you ask questions, but do all of your questions have a purpose?  If not, you’re wasting your time (and the candidate’s time as well).

Step back and think about why you’re doing the interview at all.  Your objective is to decide whether this candidate is suitable for the open position that you’re looking to fill.   Do they have the right skills?  Will they be sufficiently motivated to do their best work in this position?

If you boil it down to its simplest form, the interview should be to assess two things about the candidate:  Aptitude and Attitude

• Aptitude 

1. capability; ability; innate or acquired capacity for something; talent
2. readiness or quickness in learning; intelligence

This is a mix of existing knowledge and the ability to learn.  In most cases, ability to learn is more important than what the candidate has already learned.  However, there’s clearly a baseline of existing skills required.  If I’m hiring a software developer, the smartest lawyer in the world (with no programming skills) would be a terrible candidate.

Can this candidate do the job?  Does she have the right skills?  If there are new skills required, do I think she can learn quickly?

• Attitude 

1. manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc., with regard to a person or thing; tendency or orientation, especially of the mind

Will this candidate fit in with our company?  What kind of work ethic does she have?  Will she get discouraged when things get tough?  Will she work independently and be a self-starter?

That’s great, but how do you assess those traits?  Ask the right questions.

In my next post, I’ll discuss some good (and some bad) questions to ask.  

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Before you interview candidates, make sure you understand what you’re looking for.

If you’re interviewing for a job, you probably did some preparation for that interview.  Ideally, you were ready for some of the most commonly asked interview questions.  [If not, you really have no excuse: a Google search for “common interview questions” yields more than 600,000 results.  You ought to take a look.]

You also ought to be prepared for the question that turns the tables, when the interviewer asks you “What questions do you have for me?”

The worst possible response is “I think you’ve covered everything, so I don’t have any questions.”  That’s a huge red flag: it shows that you have no curiosity, no initiative, and no business thinking that you’re going to get the job.  If that’s your answer, it’s over: I’m not going to hire you.

Here are a few cautions:

• Don’t ask things that you ought to already know (like anything you could have gleaned from the company website). 
• Don’t ask things that aren’t relevant to the position you’re interviewing for.
• Don’t pick from some list you found online (not even mine!) or in a book.
• Don’t make it appear that you’re already looking to leave the job for which you’re interviewing.

Obviously, you ought to ask about something that you actually want to know.  You want to ask questions that reinforce the positive impression you’re hoping to make.  Here are a few examples to consider:

When you think about other people who have been in this role, what separates the great ones from the merely good ones?

This indicates that you want (and expect) to do a great job, not just a good job.  It also creates a bit of a partnership between you and the interviewer – it’s almost like you’re getting him to be invested in your success.

What is the organization’s plan for the next few years, and how does this department or division fit in?

What types of people seem to excel here?

What makes this company a great place to work?

If you’re talking to the hiring manager who will be your boss:

What are the success factors you’ll use (after 3 months or 6 or 12 or whatever) to determine if hiring me was a good decision?

This is similar to the “great vs. good” question above.  You’re demonstrating that you have high expectations of yourself and you’re asking the hiring manager to help you identify how to meet those high expectations.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

If I interview you, don’t use all of these questions when you talk to me.  While you’ll get extra credit for reading my blog, you’ll get a zero for creativity.

I’ve interviewed more than a thousand people over the past fifteen years and I’ve probably reviewed more than five thousand resumes (which are called CVs in some parts of the world).  One fact has been frustratingly consistent: Most resumes are bad.

When you prepare your resume, remember why you’re doing it.  The purpose is not to give a chronological history of your work experience (although that’s an important part).  It’s also not to list every skill you have (or pretend to have).

The goal of your resume is to convince me that I should consider hiring you for this job.  It won’t land you the job, of course: even if your resume is perfect, you’ll still need to go through the interview process.  Still, your resume is your foot in the door; the first opportunity you have to convince me that I should care.

Here are four simple tips:

• Make It Relevant

Ideally, if you know you’re applying for a specific position, you should submit a resume that is tailored for that position.  Even if you don’t know the details of the position, if you are submitting to my company, make sure you consider what’s relevant to us.

This doesn’t mean you should exclude experience or skills from other industries or unrelated jobs.  Sometimes that’s important – it could show versatility, diligence, or determination. 

Consider every entry on your resume and ask yourself: why would a potential hiring manager care?   Does your education matter to me?  Much of it does, but I don’t need to know what middle school you went to or the fact that you got first prize in the fifth grade science fair.   Do I want to know about your hobbies?  Maybe a little, since they might show that you’re well-rounded or creative or compassionate, but don’t tell me that you were second assistant secretary of your scrapbooking club for six months in 2002.

• Keep It Interesting

No, I don’t mean create something outlandish or eye-popping or crazy.  At least for me, hiring in the technology industry, a relatively conventional structure is still appropriate.  Still, you don’t have to bore me.  Use some color.  Highlight important things – guide my eyes to the items you want me to notice.  Here are some examples that might trigger some creative ideas.

• Be Concise

If your resume is more than two or three pages, it’s pretty safe to assume that I’m not going to read the whole thing.  In fact, the longer it is, the less I’m likely to read.  If you can’t take the trouble to prioritize what’s important, why should I invest my time trying to figure it out?

Don’t make the mistake of “I better list these technologies just in case one of them is applicable” or “I spent a lot of years at this job so I better include a lot of detail.”  If there’s something important that you want to make sure I read, it ought to be on the first page.

• Tell the Truth

Although this is last, it’s the most important.  Don’t lie.  Don’t claim responsibility for things you didn’t do.  Don’t list skills you don’t have.  Don’t stretch the dates of your employment to eliminate inconvenient gaps.

Here’s the deal: if, during the course of the interview process, I discover that you lied on your resume, it’s over.  I will never hire you.  Integrity matters.  If I hire you and then find out that you lied, I won’t want to keep you around. 

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Your resume provides your first impression to a hiring manager: make it count.

As I write this, it’s clear that spring is here.  From the calendar it may appear that spring started a few weeks ago.   For me, since the Major League Baseball season opened last Thursday, I can now officially celebrate the arrival of spring.  [It opened on a good note, with a Seattle Mariners victory!]

In January, I wrote about a number of random things that I’d be tracking and watching throughout the year.  Since the first quarter of the year is over, let’s take a look at what has happened so far.

BI Industry

There haven’t been any earth-shattering changes here.  The new BI platform releases from Oracle and IBM Cognos are in the market.  SAP BusinessObjects is expected to release theirs in May.  Meanwhile, QlikTech, Tableau, and others continue to advance.  Stay tuned here.

Oracle

Oracle announced its fiscal Q3 financials and the results were impressive.  Revenue increased by 37%, profit was $2.1 billion (41 cents per share), up from $1.19 billion (23 cents per share) a year ago.  Most significantly, sales of new software licenses rose 29% to $2.2 billion.  Although Oracle’s hardware sales increased (mostly selling products they got when they acquired Sun Microsystems), many analysts found those results disappointing.  Still, overall, the quarter was a good one for Oracle.

On the acquisition front, Oracle has been uncharacteristically quiet.  There was just one acquisition in Q1: Oracle announced that it was buying the assets of NDevr, a small Australian company that does environmental reporting.  

Musical Theatre

Catch Me If You Can (the musical my son is working on) is currently in previews, with opening night scheduled for April 10.

Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark continues to be plagued by delays.  There’s been a big shake-up in the creative team.  The show’s director (and visionary), Julie Taymor, has been fired.  [Oops, I’m sorry – she left because of “previous commitments” that were unavoidable because of all the delays.]  Here is a funny tongue-in-cheek (and totally irreverent) view of why she was removed from the show.

Speaking of irreverent, one of the surprise new hits of the Broadway season is The Book of Mormon, written by the creators of South Park.  The show follows a pair of Mormon missionaries who travel to Uganda.  Sounds like a fun topic for a musical, doesn’t it?  It’s satirical, cynical, and mocking, taking aim at the Mormon religion, AIDS, The Lion King, and more.  Still, Broadway’s most respected theatre critic, Ben Brantley of The New York Times, gave it a rave review.

Sports

Back in January, the Seattle Seahawks, the worst team ever to qualify for the NFL post season, didn’t embarrass themselves – in fact they won their first round playoff game before losing to the Chicago Bears.

The big sports questions for 2011 are still unanswered: Will the threatened labor disputes in professional football and basketball result in cancelled games (or even entire cancelled seasons)?  Things look grim for the NFL, where the players union has decertified (as a negotiating tactic) and the owners have locked out the players.  The NBA dispute won’t really begin to simmer until after the playoffs end in June.

Finally, part of the reason I didn’t make any real predictions in January is that, when they don’t come true, I end up looking silly.  As a perfect example, a few weeks ago I did make predictions about the NCAA Final Four:

My picks for the Final Four: Ohio State, Duke, Kansas, and Florida with Ohio State defeating Kansas in the championship game.

That sure went well – a perfect zero for four!  In my defense, very few prognosticators saw Kentucky, Connecticut, Butler, and Virginia Commonwealth.  Still, in the future, I would probably be wise to avoid going public with my predictions!

On Monday night, Connecticut defeated Butler, 53-39, to win the tournament.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Enjoy the baseball season!

The NCAA “March Madness” basketball tournament begins this week.  For those outside the U.S., this annual tournament is a competition to determine the champion of college basketball.  There are 68 teams competing, with games spread across 3 weeks (mostly in March, with the final few games in early April).  The NCAA tournament has a 30 year history with CBS and the network’s broadcast coverage has helped make the tournament one of the biggest sporting events in the U.S.  The CBS broadcast provides the NCAA with over 500 million dollars annually.

Beginning in 2004, CBS began to offer March Madness On Demand, streaming the broadcast of games live over the internet.  Although CBS initially charged for the streaming video, since 2006 the service has been free to all online users.  This on demand service has been incredibly successful.  On the first day of the 2010 tournament, CBS streamed 3.4 million hours of game video to 3 million unique visitors, setting a record for a single day of internet traffic for a sporting event.

In my opinion, this free service (which differs markedly from the approach taken by other major sports in the U.S.) has helped fuel the continued growth of the popularity of March Madness.  Fans across the country can follow whatever game they want, switching between games easily and seamlessly.  The availability of the on demand option doesn’t seem to dissuade viewers from watching the CBS television broadcasts, whose ratings continue to be very strong.  In short, the model is working well.  CBS and the NCAA have used on demand streaming to maximize the popularity of (and revenue from) this showcase event.

The CBS / NCAA approach contrasts sharply with the approach taken by the National Football League and Major League Baseball.  Major League Baseball charges $69 per year for its Extra Innings package.  For that price, customers still are impacted by blackout restrictions that prevent Extra Innings from showing games that are broadcast on other networks.  The NFL has a special network option – NFL Network – owned and operated by the league.  NFL Network is available through many cable TV and satellite TV providers.  A number of other options are also available: NFL RedZone, DirecTV Sunday Ticket, and NFL Game Access (which allows viewing of previously played games rather than live broadcasts).  Each of these has a price; many come with a confusing array of options and restrictions.

I recognize the objective the leagues have to generate revenue.  Obviously, they are businesses whose objectives are primarily financial. However, I think the NFL and MLB could learn a lesson from CBS and the NCAA – increasing total viewership (with an accompanying increase in advertising revenue) can be more effective than squeezing every dollar out of your core fan base.

Pay attention to the NCAA tournament – not just for the games (though they’ll be exciting).  Pay attention to the way in which CBS and the NCAA are getting benefits from new media delivery options.  Watch for a new record of on demand streaming video viewership later this week. 

 For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

My picks for the Final Four: Ohio State, Duke, Kansas, and Florida, with Ohio State defeating Kansas in the championship game.

Leaders and managers, simply because of their position in an organization, can exert significant influence over discussions and decisions.  When there’s a debate (or just an open discussion) about some important decision, chiming in with an opinion as “the boss” carries a weight of its own.  It’s natural for people to be influenced by the attitude or views or perceived direction provided by their management.

I’ve worked hard through my years as a leader to be explicitly aware of that power.  I don’t avoid it, but I’m careful to use it consciously and intentionally.  Frequently (and sometimes to the amusement of colleagues and subordinates), I explicitly and overtly work to avoid this situation.  I will often preface my comments with “I’m not the expert on this…” or “Maybe I’m being naïve here but…” or even “This might be a bad idea, but…”  With each of those openings (and countless variations), I’m silently telling people “You have my permission to disagree with me and say so.”  This is an important lesson for leaders to learn (and an important skill to possess as a leader).

There is a strong foundation necessary for this approach to work.  Most importantly, the leader needs to feel that he (or she) has the respect and confidence of his subordinates.  Weak leaders who demonstrate weakness just become weaker.  [Make no mistake - leading with “maybe I’m wrong” isn’t a show of strength!]  This style will only be successful for individuals who feel secure in their relationships with co-workers and comfortable in their own knowledge and ability to make sound decisions. 

In addition, a leader needs to feel secure in the relationship with other leadership (including his superiors) in the organization.  Again, if I feel that my boss is looking for reasons to criticize me or squeeze me out, I’m unlikely to be open to solicit criticism and disagreement.

Finally, for this approach to work, the individuals being empowered must be skilled enough for it to matter.  A manager isn’t going to tell someone “it’s OK to disagree with me” if the manager doesn’t think that person has any basis for being right in the first place.  A strong organization needs strong individuals, not just strong leaders.  A good leader needs to build a team that includes people who can be trusted with “I need you to share your ideas too, even if they differ from mine.”

In a well-run organization (i.e., one that doesn’t reflect the insecurities described in the previous paragraphs), this style can be particularly effective.  Strong organizations have exceptional employees at every level.  Those employees have good ideas and have a solid understanding of the problems they confront in their daily work.  When looking for solutions to problems, those employees often have the best, the most effective, and the most practical ideas.  Stifling those ideas means stifling the value of the most skilled employees and ultimately can harm the company.

 For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Actively seek out ideas from others, even when it means giving them permission to disagree with you.