Around 2004 to 2005 McKesson Health Solutions (MHS) offered “Behavioral Interviewing” for its managers.  They even went so far as to bring in contractors for the day to pretend to be interviewing for roles on your team.  We had class time, followed by practical time.  Really cemented the practice into my brain.  I learned so much over my almost 10 years at MHS.  Thank you MHS!

Over the years I’ve collected more materials to add to the BH model offered in the McKesson training.  It’s a model I’ve been using now for 15 years.  I’ve done a ton of hiring in product management in particular, and been on hiring panels for QA, engineering, customer success, marketing, sales, etc.  A behavioral approach works.  Here’s how to set it up for yourself.

A little background first.  To be a strong product leader, at any level of the organization, there are behaviors I believe make you more successful.  Behaviors that improve the success in hiring the right person.  Within these behaviors are traits that fill out the behavior and make it observable to the interviewer.

The behaviors I interview for are:

• Motivations – what motivates the candidate?  I believe there are specific motivations that separate a great product leader from an average product leader.
• Thinking – how does the candidate think?  How does the candidate gather information and then sort, parse, problem-solve, and analyze?  I believe there are proclivities that separate great from good.
• Acting – how does the candidate act?  Here we interview about skills like time management, prioritization of time, work focus, mental stamina.
• Interacting – how does the candidate interact with people?  I believe how the candidate interacts is a critical behavior pattern to delve into.  What the product team gets done is usually through influence, and not direct ownership.  Call it high EQ vs. high IQ.  High IQ is nice, but not without EQ in a product role.

There may be more behaviors you want to add like Learning, Training, Selling, etc.  These behaviors are a starting point for you to build your own model.  These four are a good starting point.

Think about the traits that exemplify the MOTIVATIONS, THINKING, ACTING, and INTERACTING you want in a product leader.  What motivations do you want in a product leader?  Make a list.  Then ask yourself the same question for each behavior you’ve identified. 

So, my model for motivations are Servant Leader, Achiever, and Accountability.  No doubt there are few other we could list.  We have limited time, say 30-60 minutes, to interview the candidate.  So we prioritize.  I pick two or three of the more important, to me, motivations. 

• A Servant Leader is a team player, and service oriented.  We can build questions that test for those traits.

• An Achiever shows confidence and self-assuredness, seeks independence, and wants to accomplish goals.  We can build questions for this trait.

• Accountability refers keeping a high Say/Do ratio.  They stay committed to delivery of tasks.  And take ownership of the good and bad in their products.  Again, we can build questions for this trait.

Think about how you want a product leader to “think, act, and interact,” or whatever behavior you added/replaced.  Pick one or two traits for each.  Build your list of traits.  Create your questions to test for that trait.  Next, jot down what answers you think would demonstrate evidence that the candidate has this trait.

Let’s click into Servant Leader and build out the model as an example.  The order of execution on the model is:  Motivation > Servant Leader > Service Oriented > Question > Evidence.

Servant Leader	Question	Evidence
Service Oriented	What do you enjoy most about working for your current or most recent company?	They mention creating a quality product, or a product that people really need.  My product is/was meaningful to me and my customers.
	What are some of the things that motivate you and make a job fulfilling?	They mention creating a quality product, or a product that people really need.  My product is/was meaningful to me and my customers.
	You must choose between two job offers.  One for a product you believe in, but the pay is below average.  The other offer for a product you aren’t passionate about, but the pay is better then average.  Which do you pick, why?	They would want to work for the product they like, admire over better pay.

Does this make sense?  You want a candidate that is motivated to be a servant leader so you ask them prepared questions while looking for evidence in their answer which you’ve thought about in advance.

In another post I’ll share what I believe are the behaviors and traits we want in product leaders Interactions between peers, org leadership, teams, and customers.  As I mentioned, I think it’s a critical behavior that deserves more attention, and more detail then we have room here.

Any thoughts or comments?  Does this model make sense to you?