If you get interviewed by Kevin Kelly, sensible footwear is a must. No, seriously, the Wired co founder says taking a walk with a potential employee or teammate is essential for any recruitment process. So what does Kevin ask about on this walk? Why is going for a walk so important? And what are the key things that Kevin is listening
out for. My name is doctor Ramantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work, a show about how to help you do your best work. On today is my favorite Tip episode, we go back to an interview from the past and I pick out my favorite tip from the interview. So in today's show, I've got an extract from my chat with Kevin about how he decides who to work with.
I wish it collaborated even more than I do. I'm kind of like more like a solo performer rather than a big band. Wired was a big band and it was really a lot of fun. Wholwarth was a big band. I kind of miss that kind of collaboration with a big band. I've done a couple other projects where there was more than one person involved in I miss that I should be doing more of it. But that's the question I keep asking myself. Okay, you know, now that I'm sixty eight and a half, what do I want
to do when I grow up? And do I want to, you know, still work with a duet, a small solo performers, or do I want to have a band again? And then to answer your question of how do I decide, well, number one for me is do I really enjoy spending a lot of time with these other person or persons because we're going to spend a lot of time with them, and so that you know, compatibility friendy thing is hugely important. And I just simply don't work with people that I
don't like. It's like no amount of talent is enough for me. Life is way too short. So I tend to want to work with people that I want to be around with and hopefully they're smarter than me, and they're always more talented than me, and that makes it fun.
What else did you think about, like when you were recruiting your personal research assistance?
Well, I one of the things I did when I was evaluating them was I gave them and actually paid for real work that would be the type that they would be doing, so we could evaluate their work. And to somebody you said, which is we're hiring for attitude, not for skills. That was a motto at Wired, hire for attitude, training for skills, because like we were inventing the web, there're nobody out of the experience and design your programming the web. Because we were inventing it, it didn't exist.
So the only thing we could really hire for was attitude skill, I mean attitude and character and things like that. And so that's sort of what I really look for. I'd like to go for a long walk with the candidates and you know, two things, to work with him, to do work, have him do something with us for us, and that's work. And then two take a long walk with them and just you know, try to get a beat on their character. And that covers it.
What are you talking about on that walk? What are some of the questions that you're asking.
Well, anything except for work. With their hobbies are how they how they spend the free time, cosmological questions, what's their favorite movie? Just anything except for the work.
That's an interesting thing that I feel like so few people do when they're recruiting new people into a tame Yeah.
I guess the older I get, the more important it is to me for the character. I'm using it loosely of people as we work, because in a certain sense, it's not that hard to make things. It's hard to make things really really great, and there I find that extra ten percent or extra one hundred percent, whatever it is.
It really does come down to character and enjoying the time that you're working with other people, because you're going to be in overtime and having to work hard, and so it wants to be for with people that you respect and admire, and those kind of things are to me crucial. I think money, even lots of money, is way overrated, and making money is sort of actually not difficult, but making something that you're proud of and doing it
better each time is difficult. And so the character, the experience that we have, the human relationships that we have, all we're doing it to me become more and more important than just the achievement of At the end, it's kind of like, you know, the old thing about the journey is more impressive, more important than the destiny. And
you know, like thinking back to Wired or whatever. We're very proud of those issues, but I have to tell you some of those issues I've completely forgotten even what we said, but I have not forgotten the people and the interactions that we had while we were doing it.
How I Work is produced by Inventingum with production support from Dead Set Studios and a big thank you to Martin Nimber, who does the audio mix for every episode. That is it for today's show, and I'll see you next time.