A JOB APPLICANT'S KNOWLEDGE

Another area you really need to look into is Knowledge. I am not going to talk a lot about this because the best way to check Knowledge is to have someone who already knows the area acting for you. If you know something yourself perfectly you can very quickly assess what level of knowledge someone else has.

Knowledge is not equal to education. When we talk about knowledge we are talking about what can the person apply? What can he actually do?

If we look at an educational record when we evaluate knowledge we could go very wrong. Actually knowledge is sometimes fairly simple to repair if the person is very productive. Have you noticed the enormous difference in time to train different staff members? Some staff, you show them and they get it immediately and are ready to get more. Some people need a long, long time to get it.

Sometimes so called “knowledge” is the biggest block to learning new things because when I think I already know something I stop looking. “Yeah I already know it... Teach me some tricks. I know it already.”

Have you ever tried to train a person who thinks he knows what you are training him on? What happens? Nothing. They don't listen to you.

For example, McDonald's when they look for franchise owners. They are going to sell a franchise to a person. They specifically look for people who have no restaurant experience. They do not want to deal with restaurant people because it takes too much time to train them as they think they already know everything.

If a person has been running a restaurant for twelve years and now he is going to start a McDonald's and he comes to McDonald's university. On the training he is told “Today we are going to teach you to cut a tomato.”

The guy with twelve years in restaurants sits smugly and goes “Oh, yeah. This is for you guys who don't know.”

The trainer goes “In a McDonald's franchise we cut them in eight pieces and they should be cut exactly this way.”

Then when they have an examination, all the people who were trained in how to do it cut it into eight pieces. The step from NOT KNOW to KNOW is a very short step, its very simple. But when this restaurant guy should cut the tomato he cuts it in five pieces “This way it tastes much better.”

“Yeah but in McDonald's we cut it into eight pieces. If you cut it into five pieces it is going to lower productivity, it's not going to work.”

“But you know, the tomato has to taste better. I can teach you!”

McDonald's doesn't have time for that. “You mean we are going to change the way we cut tomatoes in 30,000 restaurants?” See it doesn't work. He doesn't know how McDonald's cuts tomatoes. He just thinks he knows everything about tomatoes.

So McDonald's much prefer if they have a guy come in who was running a gas station, because when he comes to McDonald's university he comes in and goes “I know nothing about food.”

And the McDonald's guys go “Perfect!! It means we can train you fast. Okay, here is a tomato...” Then they go to the gherkins. “The grill should be exactly 178.3 degrees.” And he puts it exactly at that.

The restaurant guy “You know it will be better if you put it at 220.” They get into this constant argument.

THE EASE OF DETERMINING KNOWLEDGE

In any area you know very well, cutting hair, handling clients, fixing an engine. Whatever you feel you know very well, you don't think about. You just go – oh, smoke coming from the engine, okay, you work, and you fix it. You look, decide and act.

It is quite difficult to find out if a person has knowledge or not. For example if you have a lot of knowledge in an area and you want to find out if another person has a lot of knowledge you do not need a lot of questions, you can very quickly find out.

For example, Gareth works a lot with refrigeration systems. If he would ask me some questions to see how much I know about it. What question would you ask me if I am a prospective employee?

Gareth: How would you describe the process of refrigeration?

The process of refrigeration. That is you have a gas and you compress it and it increases temperature, because it increases temperature it actually takes heat from the environment and if you make sure the refrigerator is in the environment from where this gas takes the heat the environment becomes cold.

Gareth: Thanks for that, we'll get back to you.

See. I did a pretty good job, I thought.

Gareth: You reversed the process.

Because I took it out of a textbook that I remembered from school. I don't have any knowledge about refrigeration. Gareth could see after one question. He could see that I don’t know but that I think I do nad it would be hard for him to train me.

Gareth: We had a company I worked for who had a state manager and I discovered he didn't know what he was doing, we used to sit around in his office and have beers on a Friday night. Myself and a friend would pose problems out in the field to him and how he would solve them, he would bumble with the answer and go “Well err...”

And a friend and I would go what about, you could try this... which we knew was totally wrong, and everyone sitting around knew and he would say “Yeah you could try that.” So in one evening we totally undermined this guy, exposed him for the fraud he was. He had no technical knowledge but he told the company he did have technical knowledge.

Exactly.

The funny thing is, if you know it yourself it takes seconds to find out if someone else knows it. It is an instant process.

If somebody says to you “I am a very good designer, I have certificates here from different schools and education.”

“Good. Here is a pen, here is a piece of paper, make a design of blah, blah. I give you ten minutes.” You know, look don't listen. This is key in all knowledge – to really look. Where can I see this?

Or somebody sells “I am a very good salesman.”

Good say “Here is a pen sell it to me.” And you can see how he goes about it, and if you are really good yourself then you can evaluate it.

But if you don't know it yourself then it is much harder. Therefore the right person to check knowledge is the person who knows it the best and who can do it. He can see in seconds if it is knowledge or just talk.

A JOB APPLICANT'S KNOWLEDGE - SUMMARY

For example if there would come out now a totally new technology on refrigeration a person like Gareth would pretty fast learn it, because he already understands a lot.

When you already know it you can learn a lot more. That is why the learning gradient is an exponential curve. The more you know the faster it goes.

When you check knowledge, looking at grades has a very limited value, ask them to do something “show me.” or ask questions yourself if you are an expert, or if you are not an expert find an expert to ask those questions.

When we hire engineers we consult a very, very skilled engineer who will ask the person just a few questions and can tell us “This guy is cool he understands it.”