May 27; Why Do You Care?;
MANAGEMENT BY THE BOOK:
365 Daily Bible Verse &
One-Minute Management Lessons For The Busy Faithful

Chapter Five: May Hiring; May 27

These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

Matthew 15:8

Why?

“I desperately need a job and will say anything to get on anyone’s payroll.” That’s not exactly what the job supplicant said, as he lay prostrate begging in front of my desk. But it’s what was communicated.

This was not what I wanted to hear. Because I was the desperate one. I was more than anxious about getting the slot filled—so I didn’t have to do that work too. And I didn’t need to see desperation in others.

I was looking for new talent to add to my team. Someone with smarts to save me from myself; to prevent or rescue me from my own actions. Yes, I have an eternal Savior who has taken my sin. I am also in search of another kind of savior, so to say, to protect me from my own stupid decisions. I need a victor; not a victim.

This requirement is vital for every manager, but is never listed on the Knowledge, Skills, Abilities checklist. I must know why the candidate is motivated (so I can harness this drive to move my agenda). Advancing the organization goals would be a plus.

So the interview continued as they all do. The candidate tells me what school he went to; what his GPA was; what clubs he joined; what-this, what-that.

What-ever.

If we didn’t run out of time, then maybe I’d get some of the ‘how.’ How he came to Big University; how he’d earned that GPA; how he’d come to join Big Fraternity; how he’d performed his duties. How’d-duty.

Nice and conventional. But I needed to learn more if I was going to select the right candidate for the right position. And I was getting bored. So I would ask the job applicant to tell me a story of a problem he overcame.

But I didn’t given enough direction to my would-be story-teller. What I really wanted to know was the ‘why’ he did what he did.

I should have started my job interviewing the same way the late Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, did. “Why do you want to work here?” Steve Jobs would ask, “Why?”

After he understood the individual’s motivation, then he got to the ‘how’ and finally to the ‘what.’

Steve Jobs was moving through a ‘why-how-what’ template. Where I was doing the reverse in a ‘what-how-why’ Manner. Jobs assuredly made better hires than Your Business Professor.

We now understand the ‘why-how-what’ better through the work of Simon Sinek. Born in England, Sinek teaches at Columbia University in the City of New York, and runs a consulting firm on getting to everyone’s ‘why.’

Simon Sinek says, “If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.” Watch his TED Talk here.

These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Matthew 15:8

In 1979, CBS reporter Roger Mudd interviewed multimillionaire Ted Kennedy, senator from Massachusetts. Mudd asked a simple question, “Why do you want to be president?” Kennedy could not answer. His response can still be watched on YouTube and can only be seen as “incoherent and repetitive” and “vague, unprepared.”

He could not answer the “why” he wanted the job. His heart wasn’t in it. Or maybe he was desperate.

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