1 NMA LeaderLab HIRING OPPORTUNITY WHAT CHARACTERISTICS SHOULD A GOOD BOSS HAVE? WHY ARE THESE CHARACTERISTICS IMPORTANT? HOW CAN YOU TELL THAT A CANDIDATE.

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NMA LeaderLab

HIRING OPPORTUNITY

WHAT CHARACTERISTICS SHOULD A GOOD BOSS HAVE?

WHY ARE THESE CHARACTERISTICS IMPORTANT?

HOW CAN YOU TELL THAT A CANDIDATE IS A GOOD BOSS?

See if you have what it takes to successfully select your next boss by exercising your judgment, applying your experience and agreeing on an approach for picking the best candidate…

Hire the boss you need!Copyright © 2006, by National Management Association, Dayton, OH

NMA…

THE Leadership Development Organization

2210 Arbor Blvd.

Dayton, OH 45349

937-294-0421

Web Site: http://www.nma1.org

LeaderLab CEU Code 05003LL .1 CEU

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NMA LeaderLab Scenario

Your group has recently lost its manager who took a higher-level job; and your Human Resource (HR) department has identified five potential replacement candidates who applied for the replacement posting. Under your company HR rules, your team will have the ultimate authority to select or reject (i.e. veto) any candidate. You must do so by coming up with five questions, which each candidate must answer and which will form the sole basis for his or her selection or rejection.

You have 30 minutes to generate the five applicant questions, and the majority of your group must agree on each question. If your group fails to come up with all five questions or if your questions are deemed frivolous and rejected by HR, then your next manager will be appointed by the department director without input from you.

Before beginning, you must unanimously select a LEADER who will later brief HR on your five questions and the associated rationale, and an OBSERVER who will report on your group’s process. To speed things up, you should first select a list of five criteria which best characterize what you value in a boss; and then devise five questions (based on these criteria) which will provide your group members with the information you need to select or veto a particular candidate. Keep in mind that if you don’t finish all your questions in 30 minutes, then your next manager will be selected for you….

Each group will be allocated 5 minutes to report on its results. The group LEADER will use 3 of those minutes to cover the five questions and the group’s rationale (including corresponding criteria) in choosing those questions. The OBSERVER will then use 2 minutes to report on the process the group used to derive its questions. There will be a hard cutoff at the end of 5 minutes.

The facilitator will take the last 5 minutes to comment on each team’s questions, and to reject any questions that fail to meet standard HR criteria or to address meaningful criteria. Teams that survive this review will be authorized to select their next boss, SO DO YOUR BEST!

ThemeLL #3 HIRING OPPORTUNITY “Cover your Criteria”

Scenario:

Challenge:

Operations:

Reports:

Evaluation:

NMA…THE Leadership Development Organization, Dayton, Ohio

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NMA LeaderLab Report Format

Hiring Criteria Reasons for Criteria Selection

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Interview Questions (1 per each criteria)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

NMA…THE Leadership Development Organization, Dayton, Ohio

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NMA LeaderLabPrizes

Runner-up TeamTop Team

NMA…THE Leadership Development Organization, Dayton, Ohio

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NMA LeaderLab Lessons

• SELECT YOUR KEY CRITERIA AND RATIONALE before you formulate any related questions

• MAKE SURE EACH QUESTION ADEQUATELY ADDRESSES ITS CRITERIA and specifies the information you are looking for

• ALLOCATE A TARGET TIME FOR DEVELOPMENT OF CRITERIA AND QUESTION to ensure that you cover all assigned tasks

• COLLECT AND INTEGRATE CRITERIA, RATIONALE AND QUESTIONS as they are developed to generate your final report

“Asking for examples is important to understanding candidate capabilities….”

“Agreeing on what you need is key to defining what you want….”

“Planning the work and working the plan is essential for timely completion….”

“Creating and collecting incremental inputs will save you time….”

Ideas you can apply in your work…NMA…THE Leadership Development Organization, Dayton, Ohio

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NMA LeaderLab Facilitator Hints

Assign each team a number (Team 1-5) by location, then go through the LL instructions and hand out the scenario and prize charts. Make sure all teams (and you) adhere to the designated time allocation for each LL section. While taking reports from each of the teams, use the following suggestions to score the exercise.

Since both the selected criteria and the corresponding questions clearly are subjective, here are some questions you can use to characterize each report:

1. Were all group criteria defined?

2. Was the associated rationale reasonable?

3. Do the questions adequately address the criteria and/or rationale, and did the team complete the five questions?

4. Are the questions likely to solicit the desired candidate information?

5. Was the group process effective?

It will help if you make up a matrix for these five questions and the five groups so that you can enter YES or NO (and any comments) for each question as each team presents their reports. Use this information to guide your feedback. Group reports with at least four YES ratings and no major adverse comments pass the exercise, and can select their next boss. All others will have to take whomever the department head appoints.

To provide feedback, first thank each group for their participation and inputs. Hopefully this exercise helped them formulate specific criteria and to formulate meaningful questions. Next, hand out the LeaderLab Lessons and Evaluation Forms and cover associated points. Finally, comment on and score each group’s performance and announce the winners. Collect completed evaluation forms before the participants leave.

NMA…THE Leadership Development Organization, Dayton, Ohio

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NMA LeaderLab Scoring Matrix

GROUP #

CRITERIADEFINED?(20 points

max.)

RATIONALEREASONABLE

?(20 points

max.)

QUESTIONSADEQUATE

ANDCOMPLETE?

(20 points max.)

QUESTIONSREALISTIC?

(20 points max.)

PROCESSEFFECTIVE?

(20 points max.)

PASS/FAIL?(>80 points)

1            

2            

3            

4            

5            

NMA…THE Leadership Development Organization, Dayton, Ohio

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LeaderLab Evaluation Form

PLEASE CHECK THE APPROPRIATE BOX Excellent Good Fair Poor

1. The overall LeaderLab program

2. Appropriate use of the materials that made learning easy and enjoyable

3. Opportunity to exchange experiences and ideas with others

4. Length of LeaderLab relative to its objectives and meeting your needs

5. Applicability to your responsibilities, needs, and roles at home, work, and elsewhere

6. What is the most important thing you learned during the LeaderLab?

7. Which part of the LeaderLab was of MOST VALUE to you? Why?

8. Which part of the LeaderLab was of LEAST VALUE to you? Why?

9. What suggestions for improvement do you have for future LeaderLabs?

Check one ─

Your comments and suggestions are very important to us. Please take a few moments to reflect on your experiences at the LeaderLab. Your input will help us to continue to provide professional quality services

and maximize learning during the future LeaderLabs.

Yes No Did the facilitator(s)…

Keep the sessions “moving and interesting”?

Speak at a level that could be easily heard and understood by everyone?

Keep the discussions constructive, crisp, and well controlled?

Practice “good facilitation skills”?

NMA…THE Leadership Development Organization, Dayton, Ohio