While Human Resources Manager at a Home Depot store in Thousand Oaks in the decade of the 90’s I would conduct mass orientations: we would hire people by the bushel-full and they would spend their first day filling out forms and learning the values and policies of the rapidly growing organization. There was also the opportunity to bond with your other newbies, and I always enjoyed this more creative part of the day.
My favorite question for new employees is one that was asked of President Obama last month – much to my surprise. I knew I hadn’t been the first or only person to think of the question as an effective way to get insight about a person, but I was still surprised to hear it, these 15 years later. I once asked it of renaissance man Steve Allen while interviewing him on my radio show, thinking he would probably pull the most amazing answer from his incredibly fertile mind. Nope, he replied: “I hate questions like that”. I think I had to go to commercial to recover from the embarrassment.
“If you could have lunch with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?” And I usually added: “and what would you talk about?” I added this last part after an employee years before had answered: “Adolf Hitler”. Stunned – and re-thinking my hiring criteria – I stuttered “why?” Calmly she replied, ”So I could ask him ‘What the #!^@ were you thinking?’”
Anyway, it is a great question for getting to know people. And over the years as I asked it of 100’s of new employees, I came up with many different people myself. Mary Martin (the original Maria von Trapp in Sound of Music and Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, and Peter Pan), because I had wanted to grow up to be her. Vincent Van Gogh, because his letters to his brother Theo were as colorful as his paintings and I wanted to hear him talk. John F. Kennedy, a childhood icon struck down when I was in 8th grade science class. (One new employee answered Lee Harvey Oswald to this question and I thought that was brilliant: “Did you act alone?”). Hands down, the best answer I ever heard came from my brother, Phil, who immediately responded “Pete and Kobe Bryant”. Tears rolled as I imagined my developmentally delayed nephew -- who dresses in a Lakers uniform before watching every game on TV -- and his basketball hero happily chatting away.
I was pleased to hear that the President chose to lunch with Mahatma Gandhi. Not pleased that he made the same lame joke I did about his lunch date not eating much, but pleased with the choice. I would ask Gandhi things like “how do you keep from getting discouraged?” and I wondered if the President would ask him that, too.
What has this all got to do with employment? Well, I was just thinking about the importance of having a connection with your employees and co-workers that goes beyond the daily grind. And then I remembered my favorite question. Today, I think I’ll lunch with my grandmother. That has always been the #1 answer.
Who would I lunch with?
ReplyDeleteMilton Friedman, Aung San Suu Kyi and Mr. Bean.
Friedman was the pure logic machine. He understood human behavior and hence markets better than anyone. Answers to problems were simple because he knew human frailty and our selfish limitations and understood that we must guard against the oppression of one group over another. And we do that by dispersing power via free markets and limited government.
Ms. Kyi has had the opportunity to leave Burma at any time but she refuses to do so because she knows she would not be able to return as long as the current military regime remains in power. She has not seen her two children nor husband since the coup and her husband recently died. She remains under house arrest and has given all for her country and people.
Mr. Bean would be the perfect entertaining lunch companion- as long as you plan never to return to the restaurant.
Gordon Mullin