I found this interesting sort of case study on BNet about Method, the household supply company with the quirky packaging. When their culture went from fun and wierd to mean and angry, the 30-something founders had to make changes. They did so by creating 5 cards that lay out the values of the company, including collaborate, care, innovate - and "keep method wierd" and "what would MacGyver do?"
They also ask interviewees to answer the question, "How would you keep Method wierd?" - a perfect example of an interview question that ensures new hires fit within the corporate culture. This article ultimately provides some great insight into using culture strategically to keep bullies out.
Here's the article... enjoy
San Francisco-based Method is one of those quirky companies where the halls bustle with smart, opinionated hipsters who, compared to most of us, actually love their jobs. Employees conduct meetings while knitting in the “craft pod,” playing ping pong in the Astroturf room, or just sitting in the middle of an open, office-less floor plan and writing their many ideas on whiteboards that span entire walls. The vibrant atmosphere has helped propel the nine-year-old company to more than $100 million in sales and put its laundry detergent, hand soap, and other products onto the shelves of stores like Target, Lowe’s, and Safeway.
But several years ago, after a period of rapid sales growth and frantic hiring, the free flow of ideas started to get a little too free. Arguments were breaking out in the middle of the very public encampment of cubicles. People were hurling insults at each other, and employees who should have been talking with one another weren’t. For a cleaning products company composed of “people against dirty,” things were getting messy.
Click here to read the rest of the article.
Showing posts with label interviewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interviewing. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Powerful Questions to Ask at a Job Interview (In Order to Avoid a Workplace Bully)
Last month, I received a request from a reader to discuss what to say in a job interview if you left your last job because of a bully.
I came across this article by Kathryn Britton, which is a nice second part to that post. It discusses what questions to ask in an interview in order to avoid another toxic workplace.
Janet is about to interview for a new job. She wants to leave a toxic work environment where her boss stands so close when he yells that she can feel his spit hit her face. Her peers rarely greet her, and she feels vaguely in competition with them for opportunities, advancement, maybe even the job itself. She knows that she and her cubicle partner would both be happier and more productive if they swapped some tasks so that both could do what they do best, but she has gotten the message: that’s not the way work gets done here.Janet took that job with high hopes that were soon dashed, and it wasn’t her first experience with unwelcoming work environments. How does she avoid yet another?
This is the dilemma Alan Foster described to an audience of junior and senior leaders in the Wharton program at the University of Pennsylvania. Janet had asked Alan for advice, after observing his good fortune working at Bain & Company. Alan proposed six questions that she could ask in an interview to see what the job environment would really be like.
These questions were so good that I got Alan’s permission to share them on PPND. If you use them, ask potential employers and peers for specific examples so you can figure out what they mean by words like teamwork and collaboration. Do these terms represent strongly held cultural values, or do people just give them lip service?
1. Who will I learn from and how? Is career development outsourced to training companies that know little about the specific environment? Does the company tell employees “You’re responsible for your own career,” avoiding involvement?
Or does the employer have a mentoring culture where more experienced people gracefully accept the responsibility of helping new people develop? Does it have a peer learning model where people are expected to take time to help each other learn? Do managers share the responsibility for career development with employees? Is mentoring ever tipped upside-down so that senior people learn new skills, such as computer proficiency, from younger people?
Jane Dutton describes a related key strategy, task enablement that can involve teaching, designing tasks effectively, advocating, and accommodating individual differences. Some of the references below explore the value of mentoring to the workplace, mentor, and protegé.
2. Who is held up as a hero here? What for? Bandura’s serial dramas are based on the theory that people learn from role models whose behavior they wish to emulate. In similar fashion, workplace culture is conveyed to new members through the stories of its heroes. What behaviors are valued here? Are those behaviors that you wish to emulate?
Are the heroes people who deliver on very aggressive commitments, no matter what — even if people leave their organizations burned out and demoralized? Or are the heroes people well known for collaborating and bringing opposing sides together?
Are heroes always individuals, or are particular teams held up as examples because of the ways they’ve pulled together?
3. How do you resolve conflict here?There will be disagreements in any work environment. So how do they get resolved? Are corrosive, threatening behaviors tolerated? Or are there procedures for giving everybody a voice but coming to agreement, either through explained decision-making or consensus?
Dutton, Frost, Glendinning, Sutton, and others write about corrosive workplaces where bullying is tolerated. According to Pearson, Andersson, and Wegner, people who instigated incivility were three times as likely to have more power than their targets than to be peers or subordinates.
This is the question that Janet most wished that she had asked in her last interview.
4. How willing are people to help each other?Are people pitted against each other in job evaluations so that there is a feeling that helping someone else will put a person at a disadvantage? Or is helping others both valued and expected? How is work divided up? Are people given assignments and expected to complete them by themselves? Justin Berg suggests that the Job Crafting Exercise could be used by a team to divide up work so that people spend more time with tasks that line up with their strengths, motivations, and passions. How much flexibility is there for people to divide work and swap tasks?
5. How do you celebrate what’s working?It is so easy for organizations to focus on problems and negative events and then take victories, large and small, for granted. Gable and colleagues have demonstrated that people get much more benefit out of positive events when they take time to talk them over with trusted others who respond actively and constructively. At an organizational level, do people have an opportunity to capitalize on achievements? Are questions asked that highlight what’s working? Alan mentioned that people in his company became much more willing to fill in employee surveys when the first question changed from “What is going wrong on your project?” to “What is going well on your project?
6. What keeps you going when things get stressful? Fear or a sense of purpose? Competition or comradeship?
Conclusion
By this point, many of you are probably thinking, “Jobs are so tight right now, I won’t have any choice.” Even if that is so, you can go into the job with your eyes open and perhaps with your armor on. But the job market won’t be like this forever. I remember the late 90’s when we couldn’t find people to fill jobs, and those times will come again.
These questions are important, not just for people looking for jobs, but for companies that want to be employers of choice when the job market turns up again. Job environments matter to people. Even now, there are people wondering if they’d rather starve than go to work in their toxic work environments. Whetten and Cameron justify the study of management skills by citing a study that revealed that “one factor—the ability to manage people effectively—was three times more powerful than all other factors combined in accounting for firm financial success over a five-year period!” (p. 6). Wouldn’t it be better if employees felt a deep sense of purpose, inclusion, and celebration at work so that they want to stay, even when economic times improve?
This article is © 2009 PositivePsychologyNews.com. The original article was authored by Kathryn Britton on April 7, 2009, and can be seen here. To join the discussion about this article, click here.
References
Aguilera, M. B. (2002). The impact of social capital on labor force participation: Evidence from the 2000 Social Capital Benchmark Survey. Social Science Quarterly, 83(3),, 853-874.Berg, J., Dutton, J., & Wrzesniewski, A. (2008). Job Crafting Exercise.Dutton, J. (2003). Energize Your Workplace: How to Create and Sustain High-Quality Connections at Work. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Feeney, M. & Bozeman, B. (2008). Mentoring and network ties. Human Relations, 61(12), 1651-1676.Fisher-Blando, J. (2008). Workplace bullying: Aggressive behavior and its effect on job satisfaction and productivity. Dissertation, University of Phoenix. Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences Vol 69(4-A), pp. 1283.Gable, S.L., Reis, H.T., Impett, E.A., & Asher, E.R. (2004). What do you do when things go right? The intrapersonal and interpersonal benefits of sharing positive events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87,, 228-245.Gentry, W., Weber, T. J. & Sadri, G. (2008). Examining career-related mentoring and managerial performance across cultures: A multilevel analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior. Vol 72(2), pp. 241-253.Glendinning, P. (2001). Workplace bullying: Curing the cancer of the American workplace. Public Personnel Management, 30(3), 269-286.Horvath, M., Wasko, L. & Bradley, J. (2008). The effect of formal mentoring program characteristics on organizational attraction. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 19(4), 323-349.O’Neill, R. (2005). An examination of organizational predictors of mentoring functions. Journal of Managerial Issues, 17(4), 439-460.Pearson, C., Anderson, L. & Wegner, J. W. (2001). When workers flout convention: A study of workplace incivility. Human Relations, 54, 1387-1419.Smith, D. (2002). The theory heard ’round the world: Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory is the foundation of television and radio shows that have changed the lives of millions.Sutton, R. (2007). The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t. Business Plus.Whetten, D. & Cameron, K. (2007). Developing Management Skills , 7th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, Prentice-Hall.
I came across this article by Kathryn Britton, which is a nice second part to that post. It discusses what questions to ask in an interview in order to avoid another toxic workplace.
Janet is about to interview for a new job. She wants to leave a toxic work environment where her boss stands so close when he yells that she can feel his spit hit her face. Her peers rarely greet her, and she feels vaguely in competition with them for opportunities, advancement, maybe even the job itself. She knows that she and her cubicle partner would both be happier and more productive if they swapped some tasks so that both could do what they do best, but she has gotten the message: that’s not the way work gets done here.Janet took that job with high hopes that were soon dashed, and it wasn’t her first experience with unwelcoming work environments. How does she avoid yet another?
This is the dilemma Alan Foster described to an audience of junior and senior leaders in the Wharton program at the University of Pennsylvania. Janet had asked Alan for advice, after observing his good fortune working at Bain & Company. Alan proposed six questions that she could ask in an interview to see what the job environment would really be like.
These questions were so good that I got Alan’s permission to share them on PPND. If you use them, ask potential employers and peers for specific examples so you can figure out what they mean by words like teamwork and collaboration. Do these terms represent strongly held cultural values, or do people just give them lip service?
1. Who will I learn from and how? Is career development outsourced to training companies that know little about the specific environment? Does the company tell employees “You’re responsible for your own career,” avoiding involvement?
Or does the employer have a mentoring culture where more experienced people gracefully accept the responsibility of helping new people develop? Does it have a peer learning model where people are expected to take time to help each other learn? Do managers share the responsibility for career development with employees? Is mentoring ever tipped upside-down so that senior people learn new skills, such as computer proficiency, from younger people?
Jane Dutton describes a related key strategy, task enablement that can involve teaching, designing tasks effectively, advocating, and accommodating individual differences. Some of the references below explore the value of mentoring to the workplace, mentor, and protegé.
2. Who is held up as a hero here? What for? Bandura’s serial dramas are based on the theory that people learn from role models whose behavior they wish to emulate. In similar fashion, workplace culture is conveyed to new members through the stories of its heroes. What behaviors are valued here? Are those behaviors that you wish to emulate?
Are the heroes people who deliver on very aggressive commitments, no matter what — even if people leave their organizations burned out and demoralized? Or are the heroes people well known for collaborating and bringing opposing sides together?
Are heroes always individuals, or are particular teams held up as examples because of the ways they’ve pulled together?
3. How do you resolve conflict here?There will be disagreements in any work environment. So how do they get resolved? Are corrosive, threatening behaviors tolerated? Or are there procedures for giving everybody a voice but coming to agreement, either through explained decision-making or consensus?
Dutton, Frost, Glendinning, Sutton, and others write about corrosive workplaces where bullying is tolerated. According to Pearson, Andersson, and Wegner, people who instigated incivility were three times as likely to have more power than their targets than to be peers or subordinates.
This is the question that Janet most wished that she had asked in her last interview.
4. How willing are people to help each other?Are people pitted against each other in job evaluations so that there is a feeling that helping someone else will put a person at a disadvantage? Or is helping others both valued and expected? How is work divided up? Are people given assignments and expected to complete them by themselves? Justin Berg suggests that the Job Crafting Exercise could be used by a team to divide up work so that people spend more time with tasks that line up with their strengths, motivations, and passions. How much flexibility is there for people to divide work and swap tasks?
5. How do you celebrate what’s working?It is so easy for organizations to focus on problems and negative events and then take victories, large and small, for granted. Gable and colleagues have demonstrated that people get much more benefit out of positive events when they take time to talk them over with trusted others who respond actively and constructively. At an organizational level, do people have an opportunity to capitalize on achievements? Are questions asked that highlight what’s working? Alan mentioned that people in his company became much more willing to fill in employee surveys when the first question changed from “What is going wrong on your project?” to “What is going well on your project?
6. What keeps you going when things get stressful? Fear or a sense of purpose? Competition or comradeship?
Conclusion
By this point, many of you are probably thinking, “Jobs are so tight right now, I won’t have any choice.” Even if that is so, you can go into the job with your eyes open and perhaps with your armor on. But the job market won’t be like this forever. I remember the late 90’s when we couldn’t find people to fill jobs, and those times will come again.
These questions are important, not just for people looking for jobs, but for companies that want to be employers of choice when the job market turns up again. Job environments matter to people. Even now, there are people wondering if they’d rather starve than go to work in their toxic work environments. Whetten and Cameron justify the study of management skills by citing a study that revealed that “one factor—the ability to manage people effectively—was three times more powerful than all other factors combined in accounting for firm financial success over a five-year period!” (p. 6). Wouldn’t it be better if employees felt a deep sense of purpose, inclusion, and celebration at work so that they want to stay, even when economic times improve?
This article is © 2009 PositivePsychologyNews.com. The original article was authored by Kathryn Britton on April 7, 2009, and can be seen here. To join the discussion about this article, click here.
References
Aguilera, M. B. (2002). The impact of social capital on labor force participation: Evidence from the 2000 Social Capital Benchmark Survey. Social Science Quarterly, 83(3),, 853-874.Berg, J., Dutton, J., & Wrzesniewski, A. (2008). Job Crafting Exercise.Dutton, J. (2003). Energize Your Workplace: How to Create and Sustain High-Quality Connections at Work. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Feeney, M. & Bozeman, B. (2008). Mentoring and network ties. Human Relations, 61(12), 1651-1676.Fisher-Blando, J. (2008). Workplace bullying: Aggressive behavior and its effect on job satisfaction and productivity. Dissertation, University of Phoenix. Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences Vol 69(4-A), pp. 1283.Gable, S.L., Reis, H.T., Impett, E.A., & Asher, E.R. (2004). What do you do when things go right? The intrapersonal and interpersonal benefits of sharing positive events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87,, 228-245.Gentry, W., Weber, T. J. & Sadri, G. (2008). Examining career-related mentoring and managerial performance across cultures: A multilevel analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior. Vol 72(2), pp. 241-253.Glendinning, P. (2001). Workplace bullying: Curing the cancer of the American workplace. Public Personnel Management, 30(3), 269-286.Horvath, M., Wasko, L. & Bradley, J. (2008). The effect of formal mentoring program characteristics on organizational attraction. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 19(4), 323-349.O’Neill, R. (2005). An examination of organizational predictors of mentoring functions. Journal of Managerial Issues, 17(4), 439-460.Pearson, C., Anderson, L. & Wegner, J. W. (2001). When workers flout convention: A study of workplace incivility. Human Relations, 54, 1387-1419.Smith, D. (2002). The theory heard ’round the world: Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory is the foundation of television and radio shows that have changed the lives of millions.Sutton, R. (2007). The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t. Business Plus.Whetten, D. & Cameron, K. (2007). Developing Management Skills , 7th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, Prentice-Hall.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
What to say in an interview when you left your last job because of a bully
I received the following question from one of my readers. I thought it was a great question so I'm sharing it with you.
I quit my job because I was bullied. Before I did though, I wrote the owners a letter describing my experience with my supervisor and they put her on warning. There is some satisfaction there, but I still could no longer work for her. I need to know what to say in a interview about the experience. Can you help?
Julie,
As a former HR professional I can tell you that interviewers are always looking for a few things, no matter what position and no matter what industry. Those things are:
* that you can demonstrate you have initiative and company loyalty
* you are solution-oriented and forward thinking (that means when you have a problem, you attempt to find a solution before bringing the problem to your manager)
* you have a long list of accomplishments, rather than job tasks, to share during the interview and on your resume
* you can work in a team
During the entire interview you should be focusing on these four things. Every answer you give should provide proof that you hold these credentials. This is important because if you can prove you have initiative, are solution-oriented, are goal oriented (can achieve things), and can work in a team, what happened at your last employer won't really matter to the prospective employer because you'll make a good looking candidate.
Now comes the part during the interview where they ask about why you left your previous employer. There are a few ways you can handle it.
The first is to simply say that you weren’t receiving growth opportunities and needed to move on. This is not a very informative answer and may lead to more probing from the interviewer. It could also communicate that you are hiding something or holding back. Not good.
The second option is to provide some other reason un-related to the bully. This is unethical however, and therefore not a desired response either.
The third choice is a bit more intricate, but it demonstrates you meet the four universal criteria for a potential employee, and above all shows that you are honest. You didn't provide details of your own abuse at your previous employer, so I don't know your particular situation, but here's an example of how you might answer the question: Can you tell me why you left your previous organization?
I am a go-getter. I really like opportunities to do new projects and learn new things, and unfortunately my previous employer wasn't offering those types of opportunities to me anymore (demonstrates initiative).
For example, during my first year at the organization I developed a new procedure for handling, documenting and tracking customer complaints; conceived and was responsible for the internal company newsletter; and created and managed a file clerk position (demonstrates accomplishments). After awhile, however, these opportunities to contribute positively to the organization seemed to get taken away by one manager in particular.
I really believe I put effort into resolving this manager’s and my differences directly. I enjoyed my job and working for the company, and of course I wanted to be sure I was getting along with my manager (demonstrates you are a team player). When talking with the manager about our relationship didn’t seem to work I spoke to the company owners about it (demonstrates initiative and that you are solution-oriented). I suggested to them that I move teams so our relationship didn't get in the way of production and customer service (demonstrates company loyalty).
Unfortunately, the owners didn't seem to think this person's behavior was all that bad and only put her on warning for her behavior once I’d left the company. But, ultimately, while I got along with everyone else at the organization (demonstrates you are a team player) this particular individual really made working for that organization difficult and I decided leaving was my best option.
In my current job search I am really looking for an organization that appreciates and even praises initiative and hard work, because those are two of my best qualities (demonstrates initiative).
There are a few other things I’d like to add here.
It is ALWAYS a good idea to avoid bad mouthing your previous employer. Your response to the question about why you left must be polite, eloquent and honest. Talk around any negative feelings you have about the company and the bully, the new employer doesn’t need to hear it. And, they’ll wonder what will happen if they rub you the wrong way and you leave – are you going to bad mouth them too?
Second, always, always, always make a point of building rapport with the interviewer from the time you meet and shake hands. The interview should flow more like a conversation than an interview, and if it does, then you know you have built rapport. You can do this by being relaxed and conversational, and by asking the interviewer questions about themselves. If you spot a picture on his or her desk from Lake Tahoe, for example, mention that you’ve always wanted to go there and ask him or her how the trip was.
Also, mirror the interviewer’s body language slightly. This builds a subconscious liking for you because you seem similar to the interviewer – something we look for in everyone we meet. If he takes a sip of water, you take a sip of water. If she crosses her legs, you cross yours. Don’t be a copy cat, obviously, but follow along every once in a while.
If you build rapport with interviewers then they will find you to be a positive person that they like, and one that couldn’t possibly be responsible for what happened at the last company.
I quit my job because I was bullied. Before I did though, I wrote the owners a letter describing my experience with my supervisor and they put her on warning. There is some satisfaction there, but I still could no longer work for her. I need to know what to say in a interview about the experience. Can you help?
Julie,
As a former HR professional I can tell you that interviewers are always looking for a few things, no matter what position and no matter what industry. Those things are:
* that you can demonstrate you have initiative and company loyalty
* you are solution-oriented and forward thinking (that means when you have a problem, you attempt to find a solution before bringing the problem to your manager)
* you have a long list of accomplishments, rather than job tasks, to share during the interview and on your resume
* you can work in a team
During the entire interview you should be focusing on these four things. Every answer you give should provide proof that you hold these credentials. This is important because if you can prove you have initiative, are solution-oriented, are goal oriented (can achieve things), and can work in a team, what happened at your last employer won't really matter to the prospective employer because you'll make a good looking candidate.
Now comes the part during the interview where they ask about why you left your previous employer. There are a few ways you can handle it.
The first is to simply say that you weren’t receiving growth opportunities and needed to move on. This is not a very informative answer and may lead to more probing from the interviewer. It could also communicate that you are hiding something or holding back. Not good.
The second option is to provide some other reason un-related to the bully. This is unethical however, and therefore not a desired response either.
The third choice is a bit more intricate, but it demonstrates you meet the four universal criteria for a potential employee, and above all shows that you are honest. You didn't provide details of your own abuse at your previous employer, so I don't know your particular situation, but here's an example of how you might answer the question: Can you tell me why you left your previous organization?
I am a go-getter. I really like opportunities to do new projects and learn new things, and unfortunately my previous employer wasn't offering those types of opportunities to me anymore (demonstrates initiative).
For example, during my first year at the organization I developed a new procedure for handling, documenting and tracking customer complaints; conceived and was responsible for the internal company newsletter; and created and managed a file clerk position (demonstrates accomplishments). After awhile, however, these opportunities to contribute positively to the organization seemed to get taken away by one manager in particular.
I really believe I put effort into resolving this manager’s and my differences directly. I enjoyed my job and working for the company, and of course I wanted to be sure I was getting along with my manager (demonstrates you are a team player). When talking with the manager about our relationship didn’t seem to work I spoke to the company owners about it (demonstrates initiative and that you are solution-oriented). I suggested to them that I move teams so our relationship didn't get in the way of production and customer service (demonstrates company loyalty).
Unfortunately, the owners didn't seem to think this person's behavior was all that bad and only put her on warning for her behavior once I’d left the company. But, ultimately, while I got along with everyone else at the organization (demonstrates you are a team player) this particular individual really made working for that organization difficult and I decided leaving was my best option.
In my current job search I am really looking for an organization that appreciates and even praises initiative and hard work, because those are two of my best qualities (demonstrates initiative).
There are a few other things I’d like to add here.
It is ALWAYS a good idea to avoid bad mouthing your previous employer. Your response to the question about why you left must be polite, eloquent and honest. Talk around any negative feelings you have about the company and the bully, the new employer doesn’t need to hear it. And, they’ll wonder what will happen if they rub you the wrong way and you leave – are you going to bad mouth them too?
Second, always, always, always make a point of building rapport with the interviewer from the time you meet and shake hands. The interview should flow more like a conversation than an interview, and if it does, then you know you have built rapport. You can do this by being relaxed and conversational, and by asking the interviewer questions about themselves. If you spot a picture on his or her desk from Lake Tahoe, for example, mention that you’ve always wanted to go there and ask him or her how the trip was.
Also, mirror the interviewer’s body language slightly. This builds a subconscious liking for you because you seem similar to the interviewer – something we look for in everyone we meet. If he takes a sip of water, you take a sip of water. If she crosses her legs, you cross yours. Don’t be a copy cat, obviously, but follow along every once in a while.
If you build rapport with interviewers then they will find you to be a positive person that they like, and one that couldn’t possibly be responsible for what happened at the last company.
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