Interviewing......

I received an email this week from a firm I had applied to for a marketing communications position. The position sounded interesting – MarCom is an area I am interested in - and the industry was one I had targeted for interest. I was even more intrigued in the company when I received the list of essay questions they sent to me to fill out as the first round of interviews.

The questions ran the gauntlet from MarCom-specific questions to philosophical questions on leadership and management. The essay-type format provides the firm with a better insight to the prospective interviewee – not just in terms of their writing ability but also in terms of their thought process. And as a individual interested in the firm, this shows me the firm is interested in the thought process of the individual walking in the door.

Here are a sample of the questions and my responses…..

What kind of experience do you have with the Internet?

From a professional perspective, I have experience working with the internet teams at Sprint supporting eSales and eService applications. Specifically, I have worked with these teams to design the applications to deliver eService functions such as mobile phone account changes, invoice delivery, service plan changes. I have also worked with the teams to design eSales applications to deliver product and service plans via the internet.

From a personal perspective, I am an experienced user of the internet for business and recreational purposes. I participate on a number of web boards dedicated to hunting and the shooting sports as well as other sports web boards. I am an active subscriber to a number of RSS feeds for marketing and branding blogs. A 2005 personal objective was to design a new personal webpage. While this effort is still in the development stages, you can see my current blog web page draft at www.ideastream.blogspot.com.

Lastly, I am familiar with most standard browsers, including Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari.

Do you have experience with both Macintosh and IBMs?

Absolutely. At work, I use a Toshiba laptop running Windows 2000 and the standard Microsoft Office applications. I am an experienced, near-expert user of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. I am also very familiar with mobile billing system software and have a basic understanding of database packages.

At home, I use an Apple iMac G5 running the Apple OS X operating system. I am also a very experienced user of the standard Apple applications and familiar with graphics production programs such as Adobe Photoshop.

Have you been involved in the design of product packaging?

I understand the general concepts of package design from working with our Marketing Communications team, who designs the packaging for Sprint’s mobile phones, but I have little direct experience myself. However, I do have experience in the design and setup of things such as trade show booths, which I have direct experience supporting in the past.

What is the difference between Management and Leadership?

Good question. According to Jim Collins, management can be defined as the “maximization of the output of the organization through administrative implementation.” A manager would tend to be very tactical in terms of scope, use a formal, rational approach and possess direct line authority over those who follow.

Leadership, on the other hand, is generally viewed as the maximization of the output of the organization by leveraging the power of the human resource. Stephen Covey defined leadership as “communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves.” A leader would tend to be very strategic, use an emotional approach and may or may not command line authority over those who follow.

Do you aspire to be a Manager or a Leader?

I aspire to be both a competent manager and a great leader. I do not necessarily accept the premise that one must decide between management and leadership. I believe leadership skills are critical for any true manager to excel (versus simply attain competence) and management skills are helpful for any leader to attain greatness. Said another way, management skills are an entrance criteria and leadership skills are a key differentiator – an opportunity for individuals to distinguish themselves from competitors.

Take Jack Welch for example. Welch did not build GE – GE was already a success when Welch took over from Reg Jones in the late 1970’s. Welch continued to build on GE’s successes through two primary actions. Especially in the early days of leading GE, Welch focused on managing the company – eliminating poor-performing business units and replacing management where needed – these were distinctly manager-type actions. However, Welch’s legacy was founded on an intense focus on developing the next generation of leaders in the company – a distinct leader-type action.

In my position today, I manage a team and, as such, I am a manager. However, I am also responsible for working with other teams that I do not directly manage. My focus is not on having employees do what I say because I am the individual who may deliver a performance review on a quarterly basis. Rather, my focus is on leading this team, some members who may or may not report directly to me, to deliver excellence in terms of well-thought out marketing programs that exceed customer expectations. Management skills are necessary, but an autocratic management style is not.

What is the single most important Key Measure of any Company?

In my opinion, the single most important measure of a company is profitability. A company without profits will not remain a stand-alone entity for long. This is even more critical to a public company with shareholders demanding results. For a publicly traded company, the profitability measure is even more important – not only must a firm make money, but the firm must be able to exceed the cost of capital to ensure shareholders are rewarded for investing in the company.

However, a focus on profitability cannot be single-minded. That is to say, a focus on simple profits at the expense of other factors, such as customer satisfaction, is a short-term strategy, at best. The leader of a company must maintain a focus on three primary stakeholders of any publicly-traded business – customers, employees and shareholders.

Customers generally look for great products at a fair value. A focus on delivering great products can ensure customers stay with a firm, and keep providing the firm with a revenue source. Employees are frequently one of any firm’s highest cost factors. However, a focus on simply paying employees the least amount possible can lead to higher costs in terms of turnover and the level of service delivered to customers. A firm must balance controlling costs with maintaining the talent level of the organization. Shareholders are looking for a return on their invested capital. A balance must be struck between delivering great products or services to loyal customers and controlling internal costs in order to deliver long-term value to shareholders in terms of profits.

What are the two ways to create profit?

Generally, profit is viewed as the difference between top-line revenues and bottom-line costs. In this view, the first opportunity to create profit would be to increase the top-line revenues by expanding the customer base or expanding the product line. In short, a firm would look to maximize the revenue stream. Generally, growing top-line revenues is seen as the optimal way to generate increased profits.

The second way to create profits is to decrease bottom-line costs by a focus on cost control. Lowering real costs by reducing fixed costs, outsourcing non-core competency variable costs or improving productivity are key opportunities for reducing a cost structure. Generally, the cost reduction is a valuable tool for a firm’s management teams, but not the optimal method for achieving profits.