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|In: Business Ethics|Last Updated:

One of the most questionable ideas in this year’s presidential campaign is the asserted importance of “standing up to entrenched interests.”

It does, to be sure, have a resonance that stirs the soul. One hears the phrase and imagines an accompanying chorus of angels.

Now imagine you’re interviewing an executive candidate instead. The imaginary angels vanish, replaced by the ghostly visage of Don Quixote.

Last week’s column explored the questions we might ask Senators McCain and Obama if we could give them job interviews (“A conventional approach to executive interviewing,” Keep the Joint Running, 9/8/2008). Let’s continue pushing the metaphor.

Candidates, be they political or business-executive, who claim they’ll stand up to the entrenched (or special) interests are either grandstanding, or … well, about the best that can be said for them is that they are victims of a false dichotomy. The proper response to entrenched interests is neither standing up nor caving in, not least because “the entrenched interests” isn’t singular, or even a small number.

If you look at political history in more than a completely superficial way, you’ll see an inescapable pattern: What those who achieved important results did with special interests was manipulate them, playing them against each other.

And if standing up to one proved necessary, as in the case of Teddy Roosevelt standing up to the trusts, the lesson is clear: Stand up to just one, and have most of the rest lined up on your side when you do or you’ll look like one of those cartoon characters who’s been run over by a steamroller.

In your company, the “entrenched interests” are such individuals and groups as: Accounting, the Marketing Department, Sales, the Board of Directors, shareholders, and whatever regulatory bodies oversee your industry.

If you were to interview an executive candidate who told you he or she would stand up to these constituencies, I trust you’d have the wisdom to choose someone less likely to destroy the company. What you want to hear is that the candidate will listen to them, understand their priorities, and find ways to move the company forward in ways that harmonize their interests — ManagementSpeak for playing them off against each other.

And another thing: Metaphorically speaking, Senators McCain and Obama are internal candidates no matter how much they claim to be “Washington outsiders.” Given the extent to which both are promising change, they had better be internal candidates. If that isn’t clear, think about interviewing an external candidate for an executive position, who says, “I’m going to shake things up, clean house, and make big changes.”

“Oh, really?” you might plausibly ask. “How do you know shaking things up, cleaning house and making big changes is what we need to do?”

Compare that to an internal candidate — one who knows How Things Get Done Around Here — who makes a similar claim. You’d have two questions for this candidate: (1) In their estimation, what most needs shaking and cleaning; and (2) how they would go about it.

“I’d stand up to the special interests,” is, for any internal candidate, a disqualifier, for this reason: Everyone is a special interest and the most successful are the most entrenched. The only way to stand up to the special interests is to stand up to everyone. That’s the opposite of leading.

Politics, whether corporate or national, is first and foremost a game. As with any game it has players, rules, objectives, strategies and tactics.

Those who play this game play it to gain advantages (not to win, since the game never ends), and they do what they do because they think it will help them.

Anyone who is serious about changing things recognizes that to do so they will have to change something about the game.

In business (and, we can wish, in government) the process is called “root cause analysis.” So with internal candidates what you want to hear is clarity about what needs the most attention, what the key leverage points are, and how that candidate would go about using them to achieve planned changes.

For example: One of the most important pieces of legislation passed in the last hundred years was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lyndon Johnson, who got it passed, was not known for being a nice person.

What he was known for was his skill in playing special interests against each other.

He was, that is, a consummate politician. To be the president of this country, or of a corporation of any size, that’s a big part of the job description.

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|In: Leadership|Last Updated:

What were they thinking?

To appear forward-looking, Obama spoke between two Grecian columns. McCain, in contrast, proved he understood advanced technology by speaking in front of a huge digital flag instead of the more traditional cloth one.

Ridiculing the candidates is, of course, the American way. If it isn’t, all four candidates and their surrogates are un-American.

But enough fun. Take out the money, ads, speechwriters, and commentariat, and what we have are two candidates interviewing for an executive job. Think of their VP choices as their succession plans.

Imagine you could interview them. Both candidates have mostly ignored the advice my friend Nick Corcodilos frequently gives. They’re supposed to “Do the job in the interview.” Instead, in varying proportions, they’re giving you vague generalities and attacks on the other candidate.

In a real interview you would, of course, unceremoniously send home any interviewee who acted like this. We can only wish: The only attack ad worth your attention this entire campaign season was provided by Paris Hilton.

It’s your interview. What do you ask each candidate?

“Why are you interested in this job?” is a good question to ask any executive. There’s more than one appropriate answer, and you’ll learn something from their response: Some leaders find their gratification developing people; others in building effective organizations. There are those whose focus is accomplishing something important and those who are turnaround specialists.

And there are some who just want the job for the title, prestige and money, and haven’t, amazingly enough, prepared a decent answer.

“Tell me about the best hire you ever made, and the worst one. What made you decide to hire the best one? What made the person so good? And what did you do about the mistake?”

You … we … are hiring someone to run a huge organization. The most important decisions this person will make will be choosing the executive team. For the best hire you would probably want to hear about competence; also about choosing someone who was stretching but had ability and potential. The habits of success and collaboration belong in the answer as well.

You wouldn’t want to hear about loyalty as an important criterion, nor would you want to hear that a candidate likes to hire people who think the same way he or she does.

For the worst hire you might want to hear about trying the person in a different role; definitely about replacing someone who just didn’t work out.

You’ll want to ask some “how would you handle” questions, too — reality based ones that deal with current challenges. “I think we’re overstaffed right now, and our budget is tight. What would you do about it if I hired you?”

If a candidate talks about experience cutting costs you should send that candidate home. If he/she talks about experience cutting costs while maintaining the ability to deliver … about improving efficiency, performance and effectiveness … you have someone who understands what’s needed to run a real organization.

“Okay … we finish this process, I hire you, you get your ID badge. What do you do first, second and third? How do you get started?”

I’ve never regretted asking this question. Some candidates know how to map out a program, one that starts with listening and building relationships, and building an effective organization. The candidates you don’t want to hire are the ones who will start making changes immediately and unilaterally.

Running for office is a bit different, of course: Presidents have almost three months to do this before taking the oath of office, and are expected to change out the entire executive team. Still, most of the principles are the same.

All through the interviews you’d listen hard to get a sense of how each candidate thinks about the line employees who do all the real work. I’m going to pick on McCain here, because he pushed one of my buttons in his speech when he said that Obama’s healthcare plan would, “… put a bureaucrat between you and your doctor.”

First of all, private health insurance puts a bureaucrat between me and my doctor right now. And second, what is it about running for president that causes candidates to insult the men and women who will be reporting to them and looking to them for leadership?

Here’s something you wouldn’t do: Waste interview time asking about character and integrity. That’s what reference checks are for.

And anyway, what might a candidate say on these subjects that isn’t simple bragging?

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