Month: December 2008

What I Read in 2008

Reading is part of my job. But I enjoy the so-called busman’s holiday of reading on my own time. As I did at the end of 2007, I am listing the books I finished on my own time (in the order I read them) during the past twelve months.

The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell
Sex and Dating, Mindy Meier
All the Ideas Living in My Head, Don Everts
Children of God, Mary Doria Russell
The Holy Longing, Ronald Rolheiser
The Last European War, John Lukacs
Culture Making, Andy Crouch
Friday Night Lights, H. G. Bissinger
Rethinking Christ and Culture, Craig A. Carter
Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, Kenneth E. Bailey
Faith in the Halls of Power, Michael Lindsay
The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
The Merchant of Death, D. J. MacHale
No Future Without Forgiveness, Desmond Tutu
Motivating the “What’s In It For Me?” Workforce, Cam Marston
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Renni Browne and Dave King
Story, Robert McKee
The Shack, William P. Young
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
Publishing for Profit, Thomas Woll
Daring to Draw Near, John White
Gilead, Marilyn Robinson
Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott
A Promise Kept, Robertson McQuilkin
The Soul Tells a Story, Vinita Hampton Wright
Fire Sale , Sara Paretsky
The Lost History of Christianity, Philip Jenkins
Making Room for Leadership, MaryKate Morse
Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen

After the new year, I’ll offer some general comments on the list and which were the best.

Why I Almost Didn’t Get Hired

I interviewed for an opening in the editorial department at InterVarsity Press over thirty years ago. My prospective boss, Jim Sire, was sick and couldn’t make it to work that day. So I interviewed instead with the publisher, Jim Nyquist, and Linda Doll, who was the only other employee in the editorial department at that time (and part-time at that). I don’t remember much about the interviews except that I had a general sense that they went pretty well.
Continue reading “Why I Almost Didn’t Get Hired”

Text Patterns

Alan Jacobs, purveyor of things literary, probably best known for his book The Narnian, has started a new blog called “Text Patterns.” He describes it as “commentary on technologies of reading, writing, research, and, well, knowledge. As these technologies change and develop, what do we lose, what do we gain, what is (fundamentally or trivially) altered? And, not least, what’s fun?”

My colleague Jeff Reimer thought his two blogs on Kindle (here and here) were especially worth a look. They offer some fresh perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of the device.

Get Them Talking

Senator Joe Biden famously monopolized the time allotted to him in the 2006 confirmation hearings for Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. In the fifty minutes allotted to Biden, he spoke about 5,600 words to Alito’s 2,000.

Biden was not alone. Of the fifteen senators questioning Alito at the hearing, only two (both Democrats) let Alito talk more than they did. When there is a desire to get as much information about Supreme Court nominees as possible, what the majority of senators did is certainly a counterintuitive approach. No doubt Alito was happy to let the minutes tick by without having to say anything that could potentially get him into trouble.

There are lots of wrong ways to interview a prospective employee and a few right ways. One wrong way is to talk too much. The goal of an interview is to get candidates to talk and talk and talk.

So here’s point number one: The point of a job interview is to get a window into what kind of person this is you are thinking about hiring. Within limits (some of them legal), I think it’s fine to get candidates talking about almost anything. Resist the temptation to talk about the company, the nature of the job, your own pet peeves or anything else. Your job is to get the candidate to talk.

On to point number two: Focus the discussion. Obviously, at some point in the conversation you want to zero in on the job. Since not all questions are created equal, how can we stay on task?

Assuming customer interaction would be an important part of the job, “How would you handle a customer complaint?” is pretty good. But a better approach is, “Tell me about a time you received a customer complaint and how you handled it.” With the first question, candidates can imagine ideal scenarios. But the second request is more revealing. What did they actually do? What strategies did they use? What attitudes did they show?

What people say they actually did in the past is a better predictor of the future than what they imagine they will do in the future.

If you want to hire the best person to fill a position in your department, let the candidates do the talking. If you want to talk, maybe you could go into politics.

Who Did You Hit with That Book Club?

Would you pay $250 a year to hire the services of a book-group facilitator? Apparently that’s just what some New Yorkers are doing. A New York Times article chronicles the troubles many book groups have–mostly with members who monopolize conversation or selecting books the whole group can agree to.

My wife and I have been part of a book group for over a year now. It was inspired by some friends who saw The Jane Austen Book Club and thought it would be fun. Five couples, mostly neighbors, meet five times a year. For each meeting a different couple selects the book we discuss, hosts the group and leads the discussion.

In addition, it costs us nothing. Our local library gets ten copies of each book on loan from other libraries.

In the course of our first year we read

The Sparrow

Children of God

Saturday Night Lights

Devil in the White City

Sin in the Second City

It’s been a good mix of fiction and nonfiction with a nice dose of Chicago-themed books. Interestingly, while each couple can choose one book a year, members have not taken this an an opportunity to impose their book taste on the group. Actually, the tendency has been to think quite hard about what books most everyone in the group would appreciate.

Sure, we could probably have more balanced discussions with quieter ones speaking up more and those of use happy to hear our own voices backing off more. (OK, I confess.) Maybe a facilitator could help us with that. But for $250 a year? As my colleague Gary Deddo said, “Only in New York City! Groups that are willing to pay for one and probably couldn’t function without it. Do facilitators have to be psychiatrists as well?”

Business Casual

In Making Room for Leadership, MaryKate Morse tells this story:

In the early eighties, my family and I returned to the United States after working in the Andes Mountains of Peru and Bolivia for several years. It was the end of the summer, and a recession was in full swing. My husband, Randy, applied everywhere for a job, but he couldn’t get one. . . . By December our savings was nearly gone, and we were getting anxious. Randy decided to do something out of character for him–he went out and bought a new, contemporary suit, shelling out a couple hundred dollars in the process. At his next job interview, dressed in his new suit, he was offered the job. We do not think that was coincidental. (p. 103)

Before the age of gender-inclusive language, the saying was, “Clothes make the man.” I used to understand this to mean that the impression people have of you is significantly based on what you wear. That is Morse’s point, and there is a good measure of truth to that.

But when I was in high school I noticed another dimension to this contemporary proverb. I discovered that when I wore a suit, others didn’t just treat me differently. I acted differently. I carried myself more erect (which my mother, who always complained about my slouching, would appreciate). I walked differently–with more purpose. I gestured differently–with more confidence. I talked differently–with a more formal vocabulary. In fact, everything about me seemed to be more formal, as if I’d aged several years just by putting on a coat and tie.

When I mentioned this recently to one friend my age, he thought that sealed the case against casual dress at work. I wasn’t so sure. Yes, professional dress can help us conduct ourselves more professionally. Sloppy dress could possibly induce sloppy work. But perhaps casual is not the same as sloppy. Perhaps neat and casual dress can help us be at once careful in our work and more relational with our coworkers.

I don’t believe how I dress at work has much effect on me now. Probably being a high school nerd, I had a much greater sense of sophistication in a suit than I do now as an adult nerd in a suit. As with most of my colleagues, my Casual Friday has turned into Casual Monday through Friday, as I rarely don a coat and tie in the office.

In tough economic times, dress tends to become more conservative. So we may see that shift in the near future as we saw in the eighties. In any case, in how we dress we will all still be balancing the value of taking ourselves (and being taken) more seriously, with the value of being approachable and relational.

Publish Without Perishing?

My colleague Sally Craft recently spotted two very different perspectives on the future of book publishing that are worth reading and pondering together.

The first, “How to Publish Without Perishing,” from a guest columnist, author James Gleick, was posted at the New York Times.

The second, “To Publish Without Perishing,” is from a guest blogger, NYU college professor Clay Shirky. This response to Gleick’s piece was posted at BoingBoing.com.

So I want to believe Gleick. But should I? You tell me.

Giving Voice

I once emceed at a conference and was responsible for handling the question and answer session after a major talk. There were about three hundred in attendance and dozens wanted to ask questions, but we only had fifteen minutes available in the schedule. I had the roving mike and raced around the room trying to get as many questions as possible but only managed about five.
Continue reading “Giving Voice”