Have You Ever Made a Mistake?
Gretchen is discussing the famous ?what’s your biggest weakness? interview question. I noticed the same thing she noticed about Bill on The Apprentice. It was transparent, but you can’t blame him for trying. Maybe he should have tried the old, ?I’m sometimes too busy to help out my less competent peers?. I think the problem is really with the interview question — it’s a lame question. Better to ask something like ?describe a challenging situation where you feel you learned a valuable lesson about how to do things differently?. This allows the candidate to frame weakness in terms of growth, and gives you more details by which to assess the honesty of the answer.
In fact, it always seemed strange to me that someone would have a weakness that they would passively discuss. Why would someone have a weakness and not fix it? Do I want a candidate who is fully aware of a weakness and has not addressed it?? Either they are unaware of the weakness, in which case they couldn’t well tell you about it; or else they would be fixing it. The best answer, then, would be ?I’ve fixed all of the weaknesses I’m aware of, and I’ll address any future ones that I encounter? (hint: don’t take my advice and give this answer in an interview; it probably would not be smart)
Regardless of whether people actually admit it, I’m convinced that most people feel this way. Weaknesses are something you had in the past. As you get older, you are able to admit weaknesses that you had in your formerly perfect past, but in the present you are always perfect. This isthe old tradition of British sea captains writing their travel logs. The captain is well aware that the logs might be used to write a history one day, so he makes sure to come across as the picture of perfection — while writing extensively about the mistakes he made in his youth. The same is true of officers in the military. There is an old saying about ?Captains are expected to attempt to leap tall buildings and sometimes fall; Majors leap tall buildings in a single bound, and sometimes fall; and Colonels never fall?. (Not the exact wording, but something like that). The point is that perfection is something that is gradually acquired; and only by putting weaknesses behind you in history; not by wallowing in them in the present.
Curiously, President Bush was asked essentially this same question six different times in the most recent press conference. It was surreal. ?What was your biggest mistake??, ?Do you admit any failure for letting 9/11 happen??, ?Have you ever had an impure thought??The very idea, that a person who far outranks a Colonel couldever acknowledge a mistake,was absurd. It violates the laws of the universe. Normally the cabin boys couldn’t be so disrespectful toship’s captain without being forced to walk the plank so apparently the king was being magnanimous (BTW, don’t feign offense and tell the interviewer to go walk a plank either).