Limitations of Behavioural Interviewing
I’ve long been a proponent of behaviour based interviewing, not on its own but in conjunction with doing specific tests in interviews that get people to think on their feet.
Today I wanted to highlight the limitations of relying only on behavioural interviewing.
There are in fact very few places that behaviour is the result, acting being the one that comes to mind the most.
In any case let’s play with the acting comparison: How many of you would trust one of these folks to practice medicine on you in the real world (from the TV Show scrubs):
Me neither, but they sure do a good job of behaving like a doctor on screen. One irony of this example is the TV-doctor below who behaves in a most undoctorly fashion, and does a lot more non-algorithmic critical thinking to get to better patient outcomes, and is known for horrible bedside manner (from the TV show House):
In any case would we rather have an actually competent doctor that is a total jerk, or a really nice guy who is not as good of a doctor? I’ll take the jerk any day when my life is at stake, for a traumatic injury or heart attack etc. There is going to be some kind of intersection depending on the level of urgency of treatment, access to second opinions etc, where the behaviour starts to matter. If the doctor is a therapist, the behaviour is part of the therapy, so now part of the competency may be behavioural, and the disguising of the actual base competency could be even more insidious. Can you tell I’m skeptical of the therapy industry?
Would we prefer the supremely competent and well-behaved doctor? Of course we would, but we are all human including doctors. Nobody is perfect.
OK, enough picking on doctors, and besides I’m not actually a fan of the medical drama genre…when is there going to be an engineering drama?!
How does this relate to leadership? There are a ton of books, including mine 😉(Grounded Service), that go into detail on how leaders should behave. But ultimately what is at the core of leadership?
“Fortune truly helps those who are of good judgment.”
Euripides
I argue that it is discernment and judgement, combined with executing them in a way that people will voluntarily not only accept but follow enthusiastically. There are two things happening here, the first is decision making, the second is largely about the behaviours that come after for the execution. Yes, we want to be consultative when making decisions, but in a lot of cases the decision come down to the leader, whatever level they happen to be at. Those decisions often come in exigent circumstances and stress tolerance is also must.
If we have a stress tolerant leader that makes horrible decisions and is great at getting people to follow them…well, then we have truly entered perilous territory. As I argue in the foreword to Grounded Service if the leader is insulated from the real-world feedback of their terrible decisions, then as history bears out, we have entered the realm of catastrophe.
When we look at this decision-making component of leadership we can realize that, as is the case with a doctor, it is foundationally important, and can not be simply algorithmic. Someone in a leadership position without decision making ability is not a real leader and is at best a figurehead. A leader without decision making ability should not be in their position, full stop.
So, what goes into decision making ability?
Experience (crystalized intelligence), enabled by humility, perseverance and emotional intelligence to recognize one’s contribution to failure and adapt accordingly
Epistemic humility
Stress tolerance
Fluid intelligence
Fluid intelligence is the ability to process novel, complex situations, make sense of them and chart a successful path through.
Since we are done picking on doctors, lets talk about another high impact profession: the airline pilot. The recruitment process and on-going recertification for pilots requires neurophysiological testing to ensure fitness for service. Essentially testing for a part of fluid intelligence, and other health related parameters. It has been this way for a long time and with good reason.
Is leadership mission critical in our organizations? As important as a pilot on an airplane? I think so.
So, when we are interviewing candidates, especially for roles with a leadership element, we need to pay attention not only to behavioural elements, but also, and in at least equal measure, to indicators of fluid intelligence and decision-making ability. We are at an age where the cost of conducting these neurological tests has come way down and we should consider their application in our recruitment process. To promote someone past their level of competency for decision making is not doing them any favours, but I’ll expand another time on those perils.
Back to the start of this piece: limitations of behavioural interviewing. A well prepared candidate can go on line, anticipate most behavioural interview questions, and practice their answers. While this is good for testing the behavioural elements and crystalized intelligence it is inadequate for testing fluid intelligence which is an essential part of discernment and judgement. Not including evaluation of fluid intelligence in the recruiting process means you are engaging in a form gambling, with the stakes ever higher for the larger leadership responsibilities.
What I’ve observed over time is that there are some people involved in the recruitment process that do this evaluation of fluid intelligence without even knowing that they are doing it and have a superior track record of identifying stellar candidates.
To sum up: I’m not saying behavioural interviewing is useless…it IS useful. Character as reflected by behaviour is VERY important, but on its own totally inadequate, especially for leadership positions. Character alone is not enough, it needs to be combined with ability, especially adaptability.
I’d love to hear from you about what your experiences are on testing fluid intelligence, either by observation, or using a software approach.
I’ve had some really interesting back and forth in response to previous newsletters. I love geeking out with you!
Looking forward to more interesting discussions.
Gratefully,
Nik