I am sure you have done this before, tried to sum yourself up in words, not sentences, or paragraphs, but single words.
When I was interviewing, I would often ask people to describe themselves in three words. I asked it mainly to see how they handled the question and how they delivered their answer. Did they just blurt out words, or did they take time to think, to structure their answer and to give clear, concise, rationalised thought.
The question I asked was
“At the end of our first round of interviews, we will sit with a whiteboard and our shortlist of candidates. If you could influence the three words that I write under your name, what would those three words be?”
I often got words like ‘Strategist’, ‘Leader’, ‘Motivated’, ‘Thorough’, ‘Organised’, ‘Assertive’, ‘Driven’….. The normal words that you would have read in a Dale Carnegie book back in the day.
Now, the best answer I ever heard was from a guy I flew to Germany to interview. His name was Bodo Schiefer, someone I hired and became a good friend. So consider my questions and compare it to my opening line. I didn’t ask Bodo to describe himself in three words, I asked him what three words he wanted me to write under his name. When I asked the question, Bodo thought for no more than 10 seconds and calmly said.
He's the one!
I loved it, ended the interview there and offered him the job. Bodo was with us for seven years, left to go to Grey and is now Managing Director of Reinsclassen, one of the most awarded B2B agencies in Germany. Good on you Bodo!
I recently retold this story to a Headhunter I was working with. He chatted about how I describe myself. I am sure back then, when I asked the questions, I answered it in my head with something like Driven, Motivator, Communicator. I am sure the words varied but they were certainly of the same theme.
The Head Hunter asked me what my words would be today. I ended up with these three words.
Passionate. I love what I do. I love working with people to build and lead high performing teams. It is my passion that drives me on. If you can find a job that you are passionate about, then it almost stops becoming a job and it is just your passion.
Energetic. A bi-product of my ADHD brain, is that it work at 100mph and as a result I am always on the go. I remember working with a great trainer called Yessica Herrera Fuentes, the founder of Iluminar. We chatted about my leadership style and how sometime I needed to slow down my thinking and allow people to process my ideas more. Yessica came up with the idea of Load, Aim, Fire. A Mantra to help me rationalise my idea so that I did not drown my team with new initiatives.
Caring. I believe that this a word that the me of 15 years ago would never have come up with. Having lead individuals and teams of varying sizes, I realise that the role of a leader is to care for, nurture and protect their people. Not to be blind to people’s weaknesses and mistakes, but to take the parental view that it is your role to help those people to grow and be the best possible versions of themselves that they can be.
In the past I wrote about nature vs nurture. I believe we may be born with certain pre programmed behaviours, however, far more of what we are is a result of how we have been shaped by our family, friends and environment. We are constantly evolving and developing different skills based on our experiences in life.
I am glad that the experiences I have had with family, friends, and work colleagues has helped me evolve and means that caring is a core characteristic of mine.
By Richard Wright
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