Each week I’m going to share with you the favorite interview questions of some folks I admire. 

Last week we took a look at the interviewing insight of Buzzoodle Ron.

This week Lisa Haneberg is kind enough to share her wisdom with us.  In case you don’t know Lisa, here is some information on her terrific career:

Lisa’s professional career has been devoted to development and success. She has held leadership and internal consulting roles, and is now on her own as a solopreneur. She loves working on projects in organization development and HR, connecting with customers (branding and marketing), and interim leadership projects.

During the past 20 years, Lisa has taught personal success, management and leadership techniques to hotel managers, power tool manufacturing department leaders, paper mill union presidents, microchip fabrication shift managers, distribution center leaders, ship captains, division vice presidents, and corporate presidents. She is an expert in the areas of one-on-one coaching, management training, facilitation and organization development.

She has written six books – the latest one is titled Focus Like a Laser Beam : 10 Ways to Do What Matters Most (Jossey-Bass 2006).  It is a must read for people interested in becoming more productive and efficient.

She lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her husband, four dogs and two cats. She enjoys travel, reading, writing and driving her convertible down winding roads.

Below are Lisa’s five favorite interview questions and a few bonus items that she threw in for added value. 

• Each member of a leadership team brings unique strengths and weaknesses. For the last/current leadership team you belonged to: What unique skills and talents did you bring to the team BEYOND your functional knowledge? In what ways did you rely on other team members for coaching and advice? 
• What do you think is the ideal makeup and function of a senior leadership team? How often should they meet? What should the focus of their meetings be? How else should they work together? What authority/ownership should they assert with each other? 
• Describe the two contributions you made in the last year that you are most proud of. How have these contributions helped the company?
• Beyond your functional projects and tasks, in what ways have you helped the company improve it’s ability to manage, execute and react to change?
• Over the next two years, how would you like to grow as a leader?
• Describe your leadership and management style. How do you approach ensuring everyone on your team is working on the right stuff? How do you communicate? What is your belief about what makes people perform their best?
• What’s one thing you do better than most human beings on the face of this Earth?

I really like Lisa’s style of interviewing.  She is asking for specific information from the candidate.  The specificity forces the candidate to give examples of past behavior.  This can help the hiring manager understand how the candidate may behave in the future. 

This style also reveals a good deal about the character of the candidate.  The individual must think on his/her feet – access examples from the past.  It is more difficult to prepare these answers ahead of time so the interviewer will likely get an unrehearsed (and potentially more reveling) response.

What are your favorite interview questions?  Send them to me in an e-mail and you could be profiled on The Career Intensity Blog.  davidvlorenzo@gamil.com

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1. My Favorite Interview Questions

   It is funny how these post topics tend to cluster….I just did a post about resumes and now this one. David Lorenzo, over at Career Intensity, just did a post that shared some of my favorite interview questions. Curious? Check

   Trackback by Management Craft — July 11, 2006 @ 13:00

2. […] Career Intensity Blog - David V. Lorenzo Five Favorite Interview Questions - Lisa Haneberg (tags: Management work interview) […]

   Pingback by Gary Slinger » links for 2006-07-18 — July 18, 2006 @ 09:24

Comments

1. Nice. I really look forward to reading these every week. Hiring the right team is one of the biggest challenges I have faced as an entrepreneur.

   Comment by buzzoodle — July 13, 2006 @ 01:00

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