Interviews for strategic work are odd. I mean, it’s never actually an ‘interview’ in the sense of asking a series of questions and awaiting a response. Not only would that be contrived and boring, it probably wouldn’t bring up anything worth noting down.
A conversation, on the other hand, is looser. It allows for meandering, sidesteps and backtracks, and for things to arise that you wouldn’t ever think to ask. You spend most of the time listening and watching. As Phil Adams put it, it’s like being a detective.
I think the watching part is as important as the listening. When people look away they are thinking, trying to capture their thoughts and regugitate them in a way that makes sense. Or sometimes when they wave their hands it’s because they’re excited but can’t jump up and down. Occasionally, they’ll frown and repudiate their own previous thoughts, decide on a better way to articulate what it is they want to say.
I’ve never had anyone get angry. Yet. Perhaps it will come.
I did an interview today for some strategic work I’ve decided to take on. I found the whole exercise really illuminating. Just to chat to someone who does something different to me. We create this Venn diagram whereby the central overlap is the client’s service or product. I got them to relax and talk freely, swearing and all, to go the long way round to an answer. I interrupted once only during the hour we conversed.
And just like Phil, something that was said right at the end of our conversation unlocked a door to an idea that I don’t think I would have considered had he not spoken the words. It’s an idea I can test with other people I speak to as part of this work. Not, perhaps, directly. But I will talk to them about it. They may not even recognise what I’m up to. Or they may provide a new perspective on the idea, shape it in new and interesting ways. They may add nothing – and in doing so strengthen or weaken the idea.
Who knows?
Not I.
Not yet.