A Lesson For Future Debates: Borrow Some Questions From Workplace Interviews

Wondering why the debates are less than satisfying? It’s because the participants — candidates, moderators and TV producers — have completely different objectives going-in, and the questions aren’t designed to elicit the information we want to know.

The Participants

The candidates. A person who runs for President often proceeds from a conviction that they are special, and that destiny has marked them for greatness, often from an early age. They believe that if enough people hear about their “journey” they will see that too. It’s natural for them to share pieces of their “life’s story,” all variations of a familiar theme: “Born into humble circumstances and, while my parents worked multiple jobs to make ends meet, I had to scramble to be able to go to college and, defying all odds, made something of myself.” And then, “Here are some success stories that show how effective I have been in the past.”

The media. Journalists — who also serve as the moderators — feel their mission is to get at “the truth” and to do that, they try to get the candidates to recite events from their past they can fact-check for falsehoods and inconsistencies. Their overriding focus is on comparing what these candidates have promised to what they’ve done, and they assume the best candidate is the one who always does exactly what he or she says, no matter what.

The TV Producers. They want to get people to tune-in and stay tuned-in. After years of producing shows that feature competitors — MMA, cooking, singing and the rest — they’ve settled on a format that features flashy sets and tough-talking lead-up announcements. Success for them will be a telecast where there are lots of square-offs, “hits” and snarky rejoinders.

The Rest Of Us

While we may be entertained by, and even interested in, what the participants are out to show us, what we really want to know is which one of these people is most likely to do the best job of making important decisions that will affect our lives — heading off as many problems as possible, solving the others in the best way that can be reasonably expected of any person.

Whoever gets elected — no matter what they promised or what they’ve delivered before — is going to be walking into a rapidly changing world where nobody can predict the challenges he or she will face. Some will be familiar holdover issues, some will resemble harbingers we see now and others will be brand new!

Why don’t the rest of us — the voters — get what we need, which is a predictor of good leadership — from the folks who bring us these extravaganzas?

Because the candidates, media/moderators and producers aren’t on the same page as we are.

Everyone — every candidate and you and me — has a life story to tell. And a candidate’s taking time to put forth the circumstances of his or her childhood as evidence of superior suitability is kind of condescending to the other candidates and insulting to the rest of us. That’s why our eyes eventually begin to either roll or glaze over when a candidate goes on about where he or she “came from.” It’s just not that helpful to our inquiry.

Similarly beside the point are moderators’ questions about a candidate’s stated “position” on some issue that seemed important at the time, or even in the present. Despite the journalists’ delight in catching some inaccuracy or inconsistency, that doesn’t really help the rest of us decide what kind of leader they would make.

And “What would you do” questions are of no value at all because nobody really knows what he or she would do unless and until he or she is actually in the situation. We know deep down that life can be chaotic and unpredictable and things come up unexpectedly that challenge and frustrate our best intentions.

And, while it might make “good TV,” watching one candidate get in a “good shot” on another doesn’t help us much either.

The best we can hope to learn from a debate is this: What values does this candidate hold most dear and which are most likely to most-strongly influence his or her decisions?

So What Questions Should Be Asked?

Why not borrow from the behavior-based interview questions that have been used pretty regularly in workplace hiring since the early 90s.

Here are a few I’d ask:

• Tell us about a time you were proud of something you accomplished and the reason you’re proud of it.
• Tell us about a time you made a decision/took an action and later realized it was a mistake and wished you could do it over.
• Describe a time you were on your way to completing something and had to completely reverse or radically change course based on new information or circumstances.
• Say how you responded when you had a plan that nobody else would support.
• Tell us about a situation where there were no good options and you had to make a decision about the “lesser of two evils.”
• Describe a situation where someone you trusted let you down, or you were otherwise completely blindsided, and how you handled it.
• Describe a decision you made that would affect two people or groups — one positively and the other negatively — both of whom you had pledged to support and help.

I’m sure there are many others, but you get the idea. These candidates really are interviewing for a job working for us, aren’t they? What we need is a window into how the candidates might approach the difficult and unforeseeable situations they’re sure to face while in our employ. This is particularly important in a dynamic and collaborative work environment like a coworking space Sydney.