When a manager or director answers every question with yes, no, I don’t know, it is tempting to decide they are difficult. I don’t. The problem is not the person, the problem is always the interviewer. So me. If I get closed answers, I came into that interview with the wrong approach, and it is my job to fix it before the customer pays for my mistake.
Two hours costs the customer €600
I always calculate the time I spend with another person, because in a strategy process the customer pays twice. One hour of my work is about €150. If I spend two hours with a manager in a workshop or an interview, the customer pays me €300. Then there is the time his worker spends with me, which is more or less another €200 or €300. So two hours of conversation costs around €600.
I can’t waste that. The conversation has to bring high value for the customer. If most of it goes into pushing against a wall, the customer is paying €600 to watch me argue with his own employee.
Why people build the wall
The biggest problem with interviewing people during a strategy process is the moment when they don’t know why you are interviewing them and for what purpose. They are angry, frustrated, worried, afraid, and they build a barrier between you and them. Somebody from outside is asking how their part of the business works, and nobody has told them what the answers will be used for. In their place I would give short answers too.
That is why I never fight with the person. I never go there. Fighting only makes the wall higher.
The restart
When I can’t see partnership in the conversation, I say stop. I say I think I wasn’t clear enough. Then I explain once again, very clearly, where the conversation is going and what I want to diagnose.
The explanation is always built on what I already know about them: who you are, what you are doing, which part of the process you are responsible for, and how you create the margin or create the cost. I am asking you these questions because I want to understand how we can build the margin better, where the optimisation potential is, or where we can add value in your work.
Then I ask whether I have understood their position correctly, their impact on the main value stream in the company, and how they are responsible for the margin. If they agree, that is the moment I have a partner in the conversation. They know I know what I’m doing and why I’m asking the question. I think this is the biggest barrier in expert interviews: consultants don’t explain it.
The CEO who was the biggest cost
One case I remember well was a CEO of a Polish space tech company. Around 30 people, working for the space industry, sending their own satellites to orbit. We were running a strategic evaluation of the margin, looking for a way to upgrade it by creating new business lines in the company.
One of the biggest issues I saw was the CEO himself. He generated the biggest cost, and his process of generating value and adding margin took a very, very long time. So I wanted him to focus on where exactly he generates the margin, and to calculate his own costs on his own actions.
He didn’t want to go with those questions, and he couldn’t answer me directly about how he built the margin and created value for the company. He didn’t understand why I was asking. So I had to stop and tell him. I wanted to find a way to use his potential, to take this resource and put it in the right context, so it would decrease the cost and create margin.
For a founder, questions about his own cost land very differently depending on whether he hears the reason first. Without it, he heard questions he didn’t want to answer. With it, the questions were about where the most expensive resource in the company should be used.
Preparation is what makes the restart possible
I’m not fucking around in these interviews. I’m very strict, I go to the point, and I have to know what I’m doing. Knowing what I’m doing means knowing what to ask this specific person, and for that I have to know what the process is about.
Most of the processes we run right now are strategy processes that have to protect or build the margin for the customer. So when I jump into an interview, I know who I’m talking to and I always have a scenario of the conversation. I ask only about that person’s specific area, and only the part related to building the margin or creating the cost of that margin. Then I look for the holes, the problems, the obstacles.
This is also what makes the restart work. I can only tell someone how they create margin or cost if I worked it out before I walked in.
When I end it
Sometimes the restart doesn’t help. If there is still no understanding on both sides and he still doesn’t want to help me, I finish the conversation. Then I think about when and where the problem was. At €600 for two hours, carrying on with an interview that isn’t working is the worse option.
If you run interviews inside a client’s business, test yourself before the first question: can you say out loud how this person touches margin or cost? If you can’t, you are not ready for the interview, and the closed answers you get will be yours to fix.