He Wants Subjects, Verbs and Objects
Interview of Richard Anderson, chief executive of Delta Air Lines
Vocabulary
squelches
insight
trajectory
Rubik’s cube
intangibles
avocations
adaptability
proliferate
stoic
BlackBerrys
uncollegial
violation
uncollegial
daunting
Moleskine
Questions to ponder:
1. How did the interviewer select the title for this interview?
2. Summarize in three words, the essence of the first answers to the interviewer first three questions.
3. What are the “intangibles” Mr. Anderson is looking for when he interviews a potential vice president?
4. When he asks questions about family, what is he really looking for?
5. Ten years ago, this may not have been as important as it is today, what is it?
6. Explain “operational awareness” in your own words.
7. If you understand what’s right culturally, both in your company and globally, it is called ____________.
8. He gives 6 time management skills, list them and discuss the one most important to you.
9. Could you run a meeting using the 5 points he discusses? What are they?
10. What does he say about PowerPoint and how is his style different?
Moleskine (mol-a-skeen’-a) is a brand of notebook manufactured by Moleskine srl, an Italian company. Although the name implies otherwise, the notebook is not bound in moleskin, but in oilcloth-covered cardboard. Other distinct features include an elastic band to hold the notebook closed, a sewn spine that allows it to lie flat when opened, rounded corners, a ribbon bookmark and an expandable pocket inside the rear cover.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Great Interview with the CEO of Delta Airline
Here is a Great Interview with the CEO of Delta Airline explaining the importance of communication and working with people. Enjoy - Joe
CORNER OFFICE
He Wants Subjects, Verbs and Objects
This interview of Richard Anderson, chief executive of Delta Air Lines, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.
Q. What was the most important leadership lesson you learned?
A. I’ve learned to be patient and not lose my temper. And the reason that’s important is everything you do is an example, and people look at everything you do and take a signal from everything you do. And when you lose your temper, it really squelches debate and sends the wrong signal about how you want your organization to run. And it was a good lesson. It was a long time ago. And I had a C.E.O. who I was very close to, and he just took me aside and gave me a really short instruction about it. And it was a really important instruction.
We have a tendency in these jobs to push really, really hard and want to go really, really fast. Change can’t ever be fast enough. But you do have to be patient enough and make sure that you always remain calm.
Q. Are there other things that you’ve learned to do more of, or less?
A. You’ve got to be thankful to the people who get the work done, and you’ve got to be thankful to your customers. So, I find myself, more and more, writing hand-written notes to people. I must write a half a dozen a day.
Q. Looking back over your career, even to the early years, do you recall an insight that set you on a different trajectory?
A. Yes, and it was actually at my first job while I went to night law school at South Texas College of Law. And I had a good full-time job as the administrative assistant to the D.A. And what you understood was you really needed to be a problem-solver, not a problem-creator. You know, don’t bring a Rubik’s cube to the table, unless you have an idea on how you’re going to try to get an answer. And always try to be a leader that comes up with the creative answers to the hard problems.
Q. And what about advice on your career?
A. If you just focus on getting your job done and being a good colleague and a team player in an organization, and not focused about being overly ambitious and wanting pay raises and promotions and the like, and just doing your job and being a part of a team, the rest of it all takes care of itself.
Q. Did somebody give you that advice, or was that something that you came to understand yourself?
A. My mother and father died from cancer when I was 20, and so I was working full time, and I was pretty fortunate to be around a lot of good people that had that kind of culture and approach to things. It was just by osmosis that I came to those kinds of conclusions.
Q. Let’s talk about hiring. What are you looking for in job candidates?
A. Typically, when you’re hiring a vice president of a company, they already have the résumé and they already have the experience base. And so what you’re trying to find out about are the intangibles of leadership, communication style and the ability to, today, really adapt to change.
And there are a lot of ways to go at that. I like to ask people what they’ve read, what are the last three or four books they’ve read, and what did they enjoy about those. And to really understand them as individuals because, you know, the résumés you get are wonderful résumés. Wonderful education, great work history. So you have to probe a little bit deeper into the human intangibles, because we’ve all seen many instances where people had perfect résumés, but weren’t effective in an organization.
So it’s not just education and experience. It’s education, experience and the human factor. The situational awareness that a person has and their ability to fit into an organization and then be successful in the organization. It’s a whole series of intangibles that are almost gut instincts about people.
Q. What other questions do you ask?
A. You want to know about their family. Where they grew up. What their parents did. Where they went to high school. What their avocations were. How many kids they had in their family. You know, what their whole background and history is.
I learned that from a C.E.O. I worked for. The C.E.O. wouldn’t really spend that much time on the résumé, but spent most of the time wanting to know everything about the person’s life, family, what they liked, where they liked to go on vacation, what their kids were like. And it gave you a really good perspective about who they were as people.
You spend more of your waking time with your colleagues at the office than you do with your family and when you bring someone into that family — we have 50 senior leaders at our company and 70,000 employees — you need to make sure that they’re a fit to the culture. And that they’re going to be part of that group of people in a healthy functioning way.
Q. What are you listening for as somebody describes their family, where they’re from, etc.?
A. You’re looking for a really strong set of values. You’re looking for a really good work ethic. Really good communication skills. More and more, the ability to speak well and write is important. You know, writing is not something that is taught as strongly as it should be in the educational curriculum. So you’re looking for communication skills.
You’re looking for adaptability to change. You’re looking at, do you get along well with people? And are you the sort of person that can be a part of a team and motivate people? You know, do you have the emotional I.Q.?
It’s not just enough to be able to just do a nice PowerPoint presentation. You’ve got to have the ability to pick people. You’ve got to have the ability to communicate. When you find really capable people, it’s amazing how they proliferate capable people all through your organization. So that’s what you’re hunting for.
Q. And is there any change in the kind of qualities you’re looking for compared with 5, 10 years ago?
A. I think this communication point is getting more and more important. People really have to be able to handle the written and spoken word. And when I say written word, I don’t mean PowerPoints. I don’t think PowerPoints help people think as clearly as they should because you don’t have to put a complete thought in place. You can just put a phrase with a bullet in front of it. And it doesn’t have a subject, a verb and an object, so you aren’t expressing complete thoughts.
And a lot of what we do in communication, when you write e-mail, you need to express yourself very clearly so people understand whether we’re going to L.A. today or we’re going to Boston today.
The second thing is, I think you’ve got to have what our pilots call operational awareness. You’ve got to have your head up. You know, when you’re flying an airplane, you’ve got to have your head up and you’ve got to have situational awareness of everything that’s going on around you. There is so much going on in the world today, you’ve got to know what’s going on globally, what’s going on around you, particularly today with what’s going on in this economy.
And, third, you’ve got to have not just the business skills, you’ve got to have the emotional intelligence. It’s not just enough to be the best person operating an H.P. calculator. You have to have the emotional intelligence to understand what’s right culturally, both in your company and outside your company.
Q. Any good management or leadership books that you’ve read?
A. I think good history books are the best books on management. And particularly autobiographies and biographies. Right now, I’m reading “Theodore Rex.”
Q. What about time management?
A. Only touch paper once. No. 2, always have your homework done. No. 3, return your calls very promptly. No. 4, stick to your schedule. I keep my watch about 10 minutes ahead. It’s important to run on time, particularly at an airline. And use your time wisely. And then, once a month, take the rest of the calendar year, or the next six months and re-review how you are using your time and reprioritize what you’re doing.
Q. How do you run meetings?
A. One, get the materials out ahead of time and make sure they are succinct and to the point. Second, start the meeting on time. Third, I tend to be a stoic going into the meeting. I want the debate. I want to hear everybody’s perspective, so you want to try to ask more questions than make statements.
I don’t think it’s appropriate to use BlackBerrys in meetings. You might as well have the newspaper and open the newspaper up in the middle of the meeting. So let’s stay focused on what we’re doing. Let’s have a really good debate, but it can’t get uncollegial. If it gets uncollegial, we actually have a bell you can ring, in the conference room.
Q. Tell me more about this.
A. If you are in a really hard debate and somebody veers off the subject and goes after you in a way that isn’t fair, you get to ring the bell. It’s a violation of the rules of the road. So you ring the bell if something wasn’t a fair shot, and we all laugh.
Q. If you had to choose another profession, what would it be?
A. Probably a public defender. I enjoyed doing criminal trial work. Teach law school or go back into health care. You know, I spent three years at UnitedHealth Group, and the health care problems we face as a country are so daunting that it would be interesting, particularly given the focus on our government today, on trying to solve that set of problems.
Q. Are you a list keeper?
A. I use Moleskines. It’s just lists of things. Sometimes I’ll just sit down and write what I’m thinking about things, because I’m not a PowerPoint person. I’ll start at the upper left corner of the page and start writing, in complete thoughts, what I think. I have a long paper that I’m writing about our marketing strategy.
Q. What would you like to see business schools teach more?
A. When you’re managing as much change as corporations globally must deal with today, the ability to communicate and communicate effectively is so important that it ought to be a core capability in a business school curriculum. We measure, study, quantify, analyze every single piece of our business. Business schools in the United States have done a phenomenal job of creating that capability. But then you’ve got to be able to take all that data and information and transform it into change in the organization and improvement in the organization and the formulation of the business strategy.
You’ve got to execute, and that human factor part is important. I know it’s intangible and it’s not like finance where 2 plus 2 is 4. I don’t know whether it can be taught, but it can certainly be studied.
CORNER OFFICE
He Wants Subjects, Verbs and Objects
This interview of Richard Anderson, chief executive of Delta Air Lines, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.
Q. What was the most important leadership lesson you learned?
A. I’ve learned to be patient and not lose my temper. And the reason that’s important is everything you do is an example, and people look at everything you do and take a signal from everything you do. And when you lose your temper, it really squelches debate and sends the wrong signal about how you want your organization to run. And it was a good lesson. It was a long time ago. And I had a C.E.O. who I was very close to, and he just took me aside and gave me a really short instruction about it. And it was a really important instruction.
We have a tendency in these jobs to push really, really hard and want to go really, really fast. Change can’t ever be fast enough. But you do have to be patient enough and make sure that you always remain calm.
Q. Are there other things that you’ve learned to do more of, or less?
A. You’ve got to be thankful to the people who get the work done, and you’ve got to be thankful to your customers. So, I find myself, more and more, writing hand-written notes to people. I must write a half a dozen a day.
Q. Looking back over your career, even to the early years, do you recall an insight that set you on a different trajectory?
A. Yes, and it was actually at my first job while I went to night law school at South Texas College of Law. And I had a good full-time job as the administrative assistant to the D.A. And what you understood was you really needed to be a problem-solver, not a problem-creator. You know, don’t bring a Rubik’s cube to the table, unless you have an idea on how you’re going to try to get an answer. And always try to be a leader that comes up with the creative answers to the hard problems.
Q. And what about advice on your career?
A. If you just focus on getting your job done and being a good colleague and a team player in an organization, and not focused about being overly ambitious and wanting pay raises and promotions and the like, and just doing your job and being a part of a team, the rest of it all takes care of itself.
Q. Did somebody give you that advice, or was that something that you came to understand yourself?
A. My mother and father died from cancer when I was 20, and so I was working full time, and I was pretty fortunate to be around a lot of good people that had that kind of culture and approach to things. It was just by osmosis that I came to those kinds of conclusions.
Q. Let’s talk about hiring. What are you looking for in job candidates?
A. Typically, when you’re hiring a vice president of a company, they already have the résumé and they already have the experience base. And so what you’re trying to find out about are the intangibles of leadership, communication style and the ability to, today, really adapt to change.
And there are a lot of ways to go at that. I like to ask people what they’ve read, what are the last three or four books they’ve read, and what did they enjoy about those. And to really understand them as individuals because, you know, the résumés you get are wonderful résumés. Wonderful education, great work history. So you have to probe a little bit deeper into the human intangibles, because we’ve all seen many instances where people had perfect résumés, but weren’t effective in an organization.
So it’s not just education and experience. It’s education, experience and the human factor. The situational awareness that a person has and their ability to fit into an organization and then be successful in the organization. It’s a whole series of intangibles that are almost gut instincts about people.
Q. What other questions do you ask?
A. You want to know about their family. Where they grew up. What their parents did. Where they went to high school. What their avocations were. How many kids they had in their family. You know, what their whole background and history is.
I learned that from a C.E.O. I worked for. The C.E.O. wouldn’t really spend that much time on the résumé, but spent most of the time wanting to know everything about the person’s life, family, what they liked, where they liked to go on vacation, what their kids were like. And it gave you a really good perspective about who they were as people.
You spend more of your waking time with your colleagues at the office than you do with your family and when you bring someone into that family — we have 50 senior leaders at our company and 70,000 employees — you need to make sure that they’re a fit to the culture. And that they’re going to be part of that group of people in a healthy functioning way.
Q. What are you listening for as somebody describes their family, where they’re from, etc.?
A. You’re looking for a really strong set of values. You’re looking for a really good work ethic. Really good communication skills. More and more, the ability to speak well and write is important. You know, writing is not something that is taught as strongly as it should be in the educational curriculum. So you’re looking for communication skills.
You’re looking for adaptability to change. You’re looking at, do you get along well with people? And are you the sort of person that can be a part of a team and motivate people? You know, do you have the emotional I.Q.?
It’s not just enough to be able to just do a nice PowerPoint presentation. You’ve got to have the ability to pick people. You’ve got to have the ability to communicate. When you find really capable people, it’s amazing how they proliferate capable people all through your organization. So that’s what you’re hunting for.
Q. And is there any change in the kind of qualities you’re looking for compared with 5, 10 years ago?
A. I think this communication point is getting more and more important. People really have to be able to handle the written and spoken word. And when I say written word, I don’t mean PowerPoints. I don’t think PowerPoints help people think as clearly as they should because you don’t have to put a complete thought in place. You can just put a phrase with a bullet in front of it. And it doesn’t have a subject, a verb and an object, so you aren’t expressing complete thoughts.
And a lot of what we do in communication, when you write e-mail, you need to express yourself very clearly so people understand whether we’re going to L.A. today or we’re going to Boston today.
The second thing is, I think you’ve got to have what our pilots call operational awareness. You’ve got to have your head up. You know, when you’re flying an airplane, you’ve got to have your head up and you’ve got to have situational awareness of everything that’s going on around you. There is so much going on in the world today, you’ve got to know what’s going on globally, what’s going on around you, particularly today with what’s going on in this economy.
And, third, you’ve got to have not just the business skills, you’ve got to have the emotional intelligence. It’s not just enough to be the best person operating an H.P. calculator. You have to have the emotional intelligence to understand what’s right culturally, both in your company and outside your company.
Q. Any good management or leadership books that you’ve read?
A. I think good history books are the best books on management. And particularly autobiographies and biographies. Right now, I’m reading “Theodore Rex.”
Q. What about time management?
A. Only touch paper once. No. 2, always have your homework done. No. 3, return your calls very promptly. No. 4, stick to your schedule. I keep my watch about 10 minutes ahead. It’s important to run on time, particularly at an airline. And use your time wisely. And then, once a month, take the rest of the calendar year, or the next six months and re-review how you are using your time and reprioritize what you’re doing.
Q. How do you run meetings?
A. One, get the materials out ahead of time and make sure they are succinct and to the point. Second, start the meeting on time. Third, I tend to be a stoic going into the meeting. I want the debate. I want to hear everybody’s perspective, so you want to try to ask more questions than make statements.
I don’t think it’s appropriate to use BlackBerrys in meetings. You might as well have the newspaper and open the newspaper up in the middle of the meeting. So let’s stay focused on what we’re doing. Let’s have a really good debate, but it can’t get uncollegial. If it gets uncollegial, we actually have a bell you can ring, in the conference room.
Q. Tell me more about this.
A. If you are in a really hard debate and somebody veers off the subject and goes after you in a way that isn’t fair, you get to ring the bell. It’s a violation of the rules of the road. So you ring the bell if something wasn’t a fair shot, and we all laugh.
Q. If you had to choose another profession, what would it be?
A. Probably a public defender. I enjoyed doing criminal trial work. Teach law school or go back into health care. You know, I spent three years at UnitedHealth Group, and the health care problems we face as a country are so daunting that it would be interesting, particularly given the focus on our government today, on trying to solve that set of problems.
Q. Are you a list keeper?
A. I use Moleskines. It’s just lists of things. Sometimes I’ll just sit down and write what I’m thinking about things, because I’m not a PowerPoint person. I’ll start at the upper left corner of the page and start writing, in complete thoughts, what I think. I have a long paper that I’m writing about our marketing strategy.
Q. What would you like to see business schools teach more?
A. When you’re managing as much change as corporations globally must deal with today, the ability to communicate and communicate effectively is so important that it ought to be a core capability in a business school curriculum. We measure, study, quantify, analyze every single piece of our business. Business schools in the United States have done a phenomenal job of creating that capability. But then you’ve got to be able to take all that data and information and transform it into change in the organization and improvement in the organization and the formulation of the business strategy.
You’ve got to execute, and that human factor part is important. I know it’s intangible and it’s not like finance where 2 plus 2 is 4. I don’t know whether it can be taught, but it can certainly be studied.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Team Teaching of a Job Hunting Skill – Final Exam
Team Teaching of a Job Hunting Skill – Final Exam
You will be graded on the following:
1.Group involvement (each team member is to have and active part)
2.Class participation and involvement (involve everyone in active learning through activities and ease to understand instructions)
3.Preparation (No Reading of Presentation – May use PowerPoint and note cards)
4.Time (Keep within the assigned time – 20 to 30 minutes)
You will be graded on the following:
1.Group involvement (each team member is to have and active part)
2.Class participation and involvement (involve everyone in active learning through activities and ease to understand instructions)
3.Preparation (No Reading of Presentation – May use PowerPoint and note cards)
4.Time (Keep within the assigned time – 20 to 30 minutes)
Team Teaching of Idioms
Team Teaching of Idioms
You will be graded on the following:
1.Group involvement (each team member is to have and active part)
2.Class participation and involvement (involve everyone in active learning through activities with your instructions being easy to understand)
3.Teach at least one idiom per team member.
4.Preparation (No Reading of presentation – May use PowerPoint or note cards)
5.Time (Keep within the assigned time – 20 to 30 minutes)
You will be graded on the following:
1.Group involvement (each team member is to have and active part)
2.Class participation and involvement (involve everyone in active learning through activities with your instructions being easy to understand)
3.Teach at least one idiom per team member.
4.Preparation (No Reading of presentation – May use PowerPoint or note cards)
5.Time (Keep within the assigned time – 20 to 30 minutes)
Monday, April 13, 2009
Idiom Presentation Assignments By Group #
Idiom Presentation Assignment – Group 1
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link
2. A picture is worth a thousand words
3. Bet your bottom dollar
4. Butterflies in your stomach
5. Could eat a horse
6. Diamond in the rough
7. Early bird catches the worm
8. Feel like a million
9. Garbage in, garbage out
10. Healthy as a horse
11. Just for the heck of it
12. Kiss something goodbye
*********************************************************
Idiom Presentation Assignment – Group 2
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. All your eggs in one basket
2. A fool and his money are soon parted
3. Beggars can't be choosers
4. Bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
5. Calm before the storm
6. Dead wrong
7. Don't bite the hand that feeds
8. Every trick in the book
9. Fly by the seat of one's pants
10. Frog in my throat
11. Jungle out there
12. Know which side one's bread is buttered on
*********************************************************
Idiom Presentation Assignment – Group 3
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. A penny saved is a penny earned
2. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
3. Can of worms
4. Clean bill of health
5. Don't count your chickens before they're hatched
6. Fair and square
7. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me
8. Give someone a piece of your mind
9. Hold your horses
10. If it ain't broke, don't fix it
11. Just for the record
12. Kick the bucket
*********************************************************
Idiom Presentation Assignment – Group 4
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. Don't cry over spilt milk
2. Change horses in midstream
3. Absence makes the heart grow fonder
4. Blow your own horn
5. Face only a mother could love
6. Head over heels in love
7. Keep your head above water
8. Know which way the wind blows
9. It's your funeral
10. Just in the nick of time
11. Kill the goose that lays the golden egg
12. Give me a hand
*********************************************************
Idiom Presentation Assignment – Group 5
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. Blow the whistle
2. Cat got your tongue?
3. A little bird told me
4. A day late and a dollar short
5. Clean as a whistle
6. Draw the line
7. Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise
8. Egg on your face
9. Eyes are bigger than one's stomach
10. Fly off the handle
11. Go fly a kite
12. Jury's out
*********************************************************
Idiom Presentation Assignment – Group 6
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. Food for thought
2. Between a rock and a hard place
3. Ducks in a row
4. Actions speak louder than words
5. Beating a dead horse
6. Call on the carpet
7. Dead to the world
8. Face the music
9. Fat chance!
10. Full of hot air
11. Hook, line, and sinker
12. Keep your nose clean
*********************************************************
Idiom Presentation Assignment – Group 7
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. A little learning is a dangerous thing
2. Bite off more than you can chew
3. All the tea in China
4. Change of heart
5. Do their dirty work
6. Every cloud has a silver lining
7. Good fences make good neighbors
8. Icing on the cake
9. Keep your options open
10. Kill two birds with one stone
11. Brownie points
12. Bite someone's head off
*********************************************************
Idiom Presentation Assignment – Group 8
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. A rolling stone gathers no moss
2. Behind someone's back
3. Call it a day
4. Class act
5. Draw the line
6. Eleventh hour
7. Go for broke
8. Green light
9. Head south
10. Just around the corner
11. Foot in mouth
12. Count sheep
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link
2. A picture is worth a thousand words
3. Bet your bottom dollar
4. Butterflies in your stomach
5. Could eat a horse
6. Diamond in the rough
7. Early bird catches the worm
8. Feel like a million
9. Garbage in, garbage out
10. Healthy as a horse
11. Just for the heck of it
12. Kiss something goodbye
*********************************************************
Idiom Presentation Assignment – Group 2
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. All your eggs in one basket
2. A fool and his money are soon parted
3. Beggars can't be choosers
4. Bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
5. Calm before the storm
6. Dead wrong
7. Don't bite the hand that feeds
8. Every trick in the book
9. Fly by the seat of one's pants
10. Frog in my throat
11. Jungle out there
12. Know which side one's bread is buttered on
*********************************************************
Idiom Presentation Assignment – Group 3
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. A penny saved is a penny earned
2. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
3. Can of worms
4. Clean bill of health
5. Don't count your chickens before they're hatched
6. Fair and square
7. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me
8. Give someone a piece of your mind
9. Hold your horses
10. If it ain't broke, don't fix it
11. Just for the record
12. Kick the bucket
*********************************************************
Idiom Presentation Assignment – Group 4
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. Don't cry over spilt milk
2. Change horses in midstream
3. Absence makes the heart grow fonder
4. Blow your own horn
5. Face only a mother could love
6. Head over heels in love
7. Keep your head above water
8. Know which way the wind blows
9. It's your funeral
10. Just in the nick of time
11. Kill the goose that lays the golden egg
12. Give me a hand
*********************************************************
Idiom Presentation Assignment – Group 5
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. Blow the whistle
2. Cat got your tongue?
3. A little bird told me
4. A day late and a dollar short
5. Clean as a whistle
6. Draw the line
7. Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise
8. Egg on your face
9. Eyes are bigger than one's stomach
10. Fly off the handle
11. Go fly a kite
12. Jury's out
*********************************************************
Idiom Presentation Assignment – Group 6
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. Food for thought
2. Between a rock and a hard place
3. Ducks in a row
4. Actions speak louder than words
5. Beating a dead horse
6. Call on the carpet
7. Dead to the world
8. Face the music
9. Fat chance!
10. Full of hot air
11. Hook, line, and sinker
12. Keep your nose clean
*********************************************************
Idiom Presentation Assignment – Group 7
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. A little learning is a dangerous thing
2. Bite off more than you can chew
3. All the tea in China
4. Change of heart
5. Do their dirty work
6. Every cloud has a silver lining
7. Good fences make good neighbors
8. Icing on the cake
9. Keep your options open
10. Kill two birds with one stone
11. Brownie points
12. Bite someone's head off
*********************************************************
Idiom Presentation Assignment – Group 8
Team Name:___________________ Class # ___________
1. A rolling stone gathers no moss
2. Behind someone's back
3. Call it a day
4. Class act
5. Draw the line
6. Eleventh hour
7. Go for broke
8. Green light
9. Head south
10. Just around the corner
11. Foot in mouth
12. Count sheep
Team Presentations For Week of Apr. 20 - 24
Team Presentations For Week of Apr. 20 - 24
Please review the following four questions/statements and prepare to discuss at least one with your team next week.
1. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Parents are the best teachers. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
2. It has been said, "Not everything that is learned is contained in books." Compare knowledge gained from experience with knowledge gained from books. In your opinion, which source is more important? Why?
3. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Television has destroyed communication among friends and family. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
4. Neighbors are the people who live near us. In your opinion, what are the qualities of a good neighbor? Use specific details and examples in your answer.
Please review the following four questions/statements and prepare to discuss at least one with your team next week.
1. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Parents are the best teachers. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
2. It has been said, "Not everything that is learned is contained in books." Compare knowledge gained from experience with knowledge gained from books. In your opinion, which source is more important? Why?
3. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Television has destroyed communication among friends and family. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
4. Neighbors are the people who live near us. In your opinion, what are the qualities of a good neighbor? Use specific details and examples in your answer.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
S U C C E S S F U L I N T E R V I E W
S U C C E S S I N I N T E R V I E W I N G A N D N E T W O R K I N G
INTERVIEW
TECHNIQUES
K E Y T O A S U C C E S S F U L I N T E R V I E W
The key to a successful interview is adequate preparation. Most employers ask the same basic questions, so prepare answers before an interview. Below is a list of questions frequently asked by employers, with some ideas on how you might answer. Avoid memorizing answers, but become confident about what you will say so that you can leave a positive first impression. Find someone to coach you through the questions—a friend, someone at the employment resource center, or your ward or stake employment specialist.
C O M M O N Q U E S T I O N S A N D A N S W E R S
Tell me something about yourself.
Develop a brief summary (two minutes or less) that includes positive work and volunteer habits. Use your “Me in 30 Seconds” statement along with “Power Statements” to answer.
What are some of your strengths? or
Why should we hire you?
Know your strengths, and use your Power Statements to prove them. Tell how you can add value to the company and how you can help make or save money.
Why do you want to work for us? or
What do you know about our company?
Do research before the interview in order to give an appropriate answer. Discuss how your skills would fill the needs of that company. Use a Power Statement.
What are some of your weaknesses?
Explain how you have turned perceived weaknesses into strengths. For example: “Some people say that I am too nice. But I have found that by being nice I am able to serve 14 percent more customers per shift, and I have 40 percent fewer complaints than my average co-worker.”
What do you think of your present [or past] employer?
Never criticize your last company or boss. Always use positive terms. Try using a Power Statement for your previous employer.
What do you hope to be doing in five years?
Indicate how you hope to make a positive contribution to the employer’s company. For example: “I’d like to be working for you in a position of responsibility.” Use a Power Statement to describe how you plan to benefit the company.
What do you expect as a salary or compensation?
Avoid mentioning a specific salary. You may respond with:
• What do you normally pay someone with my experience?
• What does your budget allow for this type of position?
• I know that I have to make you more money than it costs you to employ me. Let me first explain how I can do that.
[Use a Power Statement.]
Or you can ask to not discuss money until you find that you and the employer are a good match. Suggest that if you both find that you want to work together, then you can agree on a salary arrangement later.
Do you have any questions for me?
Ask questions such as:
Where do you see this company in five years?
What have been your experiences with this company?
Why is this position open?
Do you have any concerns about my abilities to do this job?
Would you share them with me?
What is your time frame for making a decision?
B E H A V I O R A L Q U E S T I O N S
Employers often ask questions to see how you react or behave in certain situations. Try to understand why the employer might be asking the question. As you give your answer, provide specific examples that show the employer your thought process. The following is a list of typical behavioral questions and what an employer might be evaluating:
• Describe the most recent situation you faced under pressure. How did you react?
Evaluation: Does the candidate explode? Walk away?
Give up? React in a mature way?
• Describe your last major mistake. Why did it happen? What did you do about it?
Evaluation: Does the candidate understand the seriousness of the situation? Is the reason he or she gives for the mistake logical?
• Tell me about a time when your ideas were rejected by your boss. How did you work through the situation?
Evaluation: Does the candidate bow down to management? Does he or she go back and do homework for another try? Is he or she persistent when right?
INTERVIEW
TECHNIQUES
K E Y T O A S U C C E S S F U L I N T E R V I E W
The key to a successful interview is adequate preparation. Most employers ask the same basic questions, so prepare answers before an interview. Below is a list of questions frequently asked by employers, with some ideas on how you might answer. Avoid memorizing answers, but become confident about what you will say so that you can leave a positive first impression. Find someone to coach you through the questions—a friend, someone at the employment resource center, or your ward or stake employment specialist.
C O M M O N Q U E S T I O N S A N D A N S W E R S
Tell me something about yourself.
Develop a brief summary (two minutes or less) that includes positive work and volunteer habits. Use your “Me in 30 Seconds” statement along with “Power Statements” to answer.
What are some of your strengths? or
Why should we hire you?
Know your strengths, and use your Power Statements to prove them. Tell how you can add value to the company and how you can help make or save money.
Why do you want to work for us? or
What do you know about our company?
Do research before the interview in order to give an appropriate answer. Discuss how your skills would fill the needs of that company. Use a Power Statement.
What are some of your weaknesses?
Explain how you have turned perceived weaknesses into strengths. For example: “Some people say that I am too nice. But I have found that by being nice I am able to serve 14 percent more customers per shift, and I have 40 percent fewer complaints than my average co-worker.”
What do you think of your present [or past] employer?
Never criticize your last company or boss. Always use positive terms. Try using a Power Statement for your previous employer.
What do you hope to be doing in five years?
Indicate how you hope to make a positive contribution to the employer’s company. For example: “I’d like to be working for you in a position of responsibility.” Use a Power Statement to describe how you plan to benefit the company.
What do you expect as a salary or compensation?
Avoid mentioning a specific salary. You may respond with:
• What do you normally pay someone with my experience?
• What does your budget allow for this type of position?
• I know that I have to make you more money than it costs you to employ me. Let me first explain how I can do that.
[Use a Power Statement.]
Or you can ask to not discuss money until you find that you and the employer are a good match. Suggest that if you both find that you want to work together, then you can agree on a salary arrangement later.
Do you have any questions for me?
Ask questions such as:
Where do you see this company in five years?
What have been your experiences with this company?
Why is this position open?
Do you have any concerns about my abilities to do this job?
Would you share them with me?
What is your time frame for making a decision?
B E H A V I O R A L Q U E S T I O N S
Employers often ask questions to see how you react or behave in certain situations. Try to understand why the employer might be asking the question. As you give your answer, provide specific examples that show the employer your thought process. The following is a list of typical behavioral questions and what an employer might be evaluating:
• Describe the most recent situation you faced under pressure. How did you react?
Evaluation: Does the candidate explode? Walk away?
Give up? React in a mature way?
• Describe your last major mistake. Why did it happen? What did you do about it?
Evaluation: Does the candidate understand the seriousness of the situation? Is the reason he or she gives for the mistake logical?
• Tell me about a time when your ideas were rejected by your boss. How did you work through the situation?
Evaluation: Does the candidate bow down to management? Does he or she go back and do homework for another try? Is he or she persistent when right?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)