Interview essay - must make up the 2 people to interview since their isn't much time to do so. *Interview 2 people - leadership interview questions 7 pages double spaced Requirements are attach

A Guide to the Personal Project

Suggestions for Your Interviews

1. Select the right people to interview. Choose two people that you know, trust, and respect for your interviews. If you have a good relationship with your interviewees, they will be more likely to be forthcoming and candid in their responses to your questions. You may not always be able to select ideal candidates, but the more you believe that your interviewees are effective leaders, the more likely you are to have a successful experience in the interviews. I don’t think that it is important what organizational level the leader is at-- whether the leader is an individual contributor, middle manager or executive. The principles of leadership are consistent across the levels of an organization. There is much to be learned from successful leaders at every level of the organization.

1. In person or video call? The Personal Project directions mention that you should conduct your interviews in person, if possible. In this time of working from home and physical distancing, that may not be possible. A Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype, etc. call will certainly work. It is easier to establish rapport, and you will have greater assurance that you have your interview subject's full attention-- they will not be interrupted by text messages, phone calls, emails, etc. in an in-person interview, but an in-person interview is not required. If possible, invest the time to meet face to face or in a video call.

1. Give your questions to your interviewees in advance. If the interviewees get a chance to think about your questions, to sleep on them, you will get better responses, and your interview will be more efficient. Send a copy of your questions at least 48 hours before your meeting.

1. Don't do your interviews over a meal. It sounds more sociable to set up a meeting over a breakfast or a lunch, but my experience is that the logistics—ordering, being served, eating, interruptions-- can easily get in your way. You may find that that your location is noisy, and it is difficult to hear. You may have a difficult time taking notes. You may get only a few minutes of quality time in the time that you have scheduled. Conduct your interview in a place that offers quiet and privacy. And if it is important to you, go have a meal together after you have completed the interview.

1. Take great notes; don't use a recording device. Some people are uncomfortable being recorded. But that is not the only reason you will want to write your own notes. When you write notes you know what you have got. You can look back to see if you have any useable quotes or stories. You can review the answers with your interview subject. And taking notes slows down the process-- but in a good way! When you ask a question and get a reply, you will begin to write it down. Your interview subject will wait for you to make your note. And while they are waiting, other thoughts will occur to them. They will add more to the story. And these additions are often the best part of the answers. Keep in mind that you are after quality, not quantity of replies. You want a few good quotes, and a few good stories, and a few good examples that you can use for your project. It does not matter how many questions you ask; it matters how many good responses you get. You could ask 20 questions and get nothing useable. You could ask one question that gets you as much quality material as you can use. Try this: as the interview is winding down, ask if you can review your notes with the interviewee. Say, “in answer to my first question you said this, is that about right? Anything else you would like to add here?”

1. Plan your questions to get quotes, stories, and examples. If you ask closed ended questions-- questions that can be answered with a few words (yes, no, five years, Cleveland, for example) are not going to get you what you are looking for. Questions that are less directed—more open-- are usually more effective. Look at the questions that are in the Cashman text in your area of mastery. Look for ways to pose these questions in ways that are most likely to get you useable information. Questions like: How did you learn that? What experiences have taught you this lesson? Why was that important? If you had to sum up the lessons that you learned in this area in a single quote, what would it be? Do you have a story or anecdote that supports your feelings in this area?

1. Know what you are looking for. You know what you want from the interview: you want quotes, stories, examples, that you will use in your project that supports the importance of your area of leadership mastery. Don't forget to address some of your questions or lead your interview subject into a discussion of at least one of the New Business Realities and one of the Thinking Habits of Mind, Heart, and Imagination, since you will want to be able to refer to them in your project.

1. Ask the same questions of both of your interviewees. Don't diffuse the focus of your research by asking different questions of each of your interviewees.

1. Don't ask too many questions. Twenty is probably waaaay too many. If you count the time to ask the questions, and the time to set up your interview, your interview subject would have about three minutes per question. If you ask a lot of questions and get a lot of answers, I predict that you will have a lot of notes, but not much depth or quality in your answers. Ten questions are also a lot of questions, but it does not hurt to have a few more questions than you can use. You might only use five of the ten questions. Make sure you prioritize your questions and ask them in an order that makes sense to you and to the information that you need.

1. Get permission to follow up with your interviewees by phone after your first meeting. As you write up your notes you may find that you have a follow-up question to get an example or a story or a quote. If you ask permission to follow up ahead of time, it will be easier to call your subject up and say: when you told me this, I was wondering if you have an example or story that you could share.

1. The best advice to someone who is going to conduct an interview is: Listen. If you really listen, you will know what follow up questions to ask. You will better understand what your leader is telling you. Ask a question and be still. Don't worry about what you are going to say or ask next. Invest yourself fully in the answer. Your interview subject will quickly catch on that this is not just a series of questions you are there to ask for a classroom exercise, but that you are sincerely interested in learning from this meeting with this valued person-- that you are there to learn a lesson that only this person can give you, because the experiences that he or she will relate are uniquely their own. Too many of us pretend to listen when what we are really doing is waiting for our turn to speak. If your interview subject tells you a great story, and that reminds you of a similar experience that you have had, resist the temptation to tell your story! You are there to listen and learn. There is an 80/20 rule for interviewers: make sure that you do not talk more than 20% of the time. My suggestion is that you see if you can do better than that-- may be 85/15, or 90/10.

1. Write up your notes as soon as you can after your interview. Notes that make sense an hour after the interview might not make sense two days later. Include these word for word notes--

The five main deliverables of the Personal Project

At the heart of the Personal Project are five main deliverables of the paper. Let's first take a look at the five core elements that will be in your draft and final version:

1. Summarize findings from the interviews.

Write a summary of your findings about the area of mastery you selected. You should include the important findings and results of your interviews and the quotes, examples or anecdotes that support those main findings in the main body of your assignment. (You will include the verbatim (word for word) of your interviews in the appendix of your draft and final version.)

2. Analyze how the data from the interviews supports leadership theories.

The project description reads: Summarize the leadership theory that you used to develop your questions. Analyze how the questions and the data support your chosen leadership theories. You might use Servant Leadership, Kevin Cashman, Margaret Wheatley, or articles from the Center for Creative Leadership, Leadership stage theory from Novations, and other sources. Demonstrate your understanding of your chosen Mastery (Personal, Purpose, Interpersonal, Change, Resilience, Being, or Action). Use examples from your interviews to demonstrate your mastery topic. Remember that your interviews are your primary source to support your assertions, theories, and conclusions. It is important to remember that your interviews are the center of your project.

3. Discuss the relevance of the concepts from New Business Realities and Thinking Habits to the interview experience.

The project description states: Reread the New Business Realities and The Thinking Habits of Mind, Heart, and Imagination. Select one topic from each and discuss its relevance to your experience interviewing leaders.

Here are some examples:

• New Business Reality: Did the interview reflect the dynamics of transformational change in complex systems in the change mastery questions?

• Thinking Habits: Did the interview encourage professional self development through conversational reflection in the questions on Personal Mastery?

I’ve included the New Business Realities and the Thinking Habits as appendices to this paper.

Since you know that you are going to write a section of your paper on the relevance of these two factors (The Thinking Habits and the New Business Realities) it makes sense to include interview questions that would provide you with support material in these two areas.

For example, if your interviews focus on Change Mastery you might develop a couple of questions that brought out your interview subjects' experiences that were relevant to Connected Seeing (one of the Thinking Habits) and System Dynamics (one of the New Business Realities. You would then have material from your interviews that you can use in this area of your paper. It seems to me that is a lot easier to include questions for your interview subjects to answer than to try to figure out after the fact how to fit what your interview subjects said into these categories.

4. Reflect on the experience as an interviewer.

The project description states: What did you learn as an interviewer? Write a section on your learning as an interviewer. What seemed to work? What did not work? And what would you do differently next time? How would you change your contract or your explanation of your leadership topic, the medium you chose, or your behavior during the interview, to enhance the quality of your data? These questions are very similar to the questions that you will answer in u04a1. You could combine your answers to the questions from u04a1 and write a thorough response to these questions that will do double duty-- you can use them once in u04a1 and again in the Personal Project draft and final version.

5. Recommend leadership development initiatives for leaders at a specific level.

In this section of your paper, you will make specific recommendations that will help to develop leaders based on what you learned from your interviews. Your recommendations should include action steps, ideas for implementation, expected results, and ways to measure the results of your recommendations. Include at least one question for your interview subjects on the topic of leadership development since you need quotes and stories here.

Let's again take Change Mastery as an example. You could ask your interview subjects about ways they developed their abilities to lead and direct change. You can then use the answers as the basis for this part of your paper. If you write “leaders should be impressed with the importance of being open to change,” or write “leaders should be given a class in change management.” You would need to support those suggestions with the specifics of how this would be implemented, what results would you expect--how would leaders be more effective in specific, measurable way.

These are the five main deliverables-- I recommend that you outline your paper to align with these requirements. Make them the section headings within your paper.