Bringing In An Outsider

So, you are considering bringing in an outside perspective to help you with a big interview you have coming up. That’s a fantastic idea. Let me just add fuel to the fire by providing a few reasons for why that is such a good idea. For one thing, it’s a fantastic opportunity to bring in an outside perspective. As you think about the strategy on this interview, it’s always a good idea to bring in a new brain, maybe a fresh brain from outside the organization, that doesn’t know as much about you as you do. You can discuss the project with them, get their perspective, and add to the discussion about how to approach this thing. Second thing is more creativity. Adding a new person into the conversation is going to produce ideas that wouldn’t have come up otherwise. Third thing is, by bringing in an outside person to help with an interview, it adds accountability to the whole team. Everybody on the team now has a person that they don’t already have a relationship with, a person that they don’t already know, and this person is bringing in some requests and some guidance and some structure to the process. That team members will now have some version of accountability to, and as a leader in the interview, you can pass that accountability to this person and increase people’s willingness to say, “Yes, I’m going to do X by this date” because this outside person is saying, “Hey, we really need this done by this date.” The fourth thing is just added energy and commitment from the whole team. When you bring somebody from the outside into an interview, everybody recognizes, “Oh, we are stepping up for this, we are investing in this, this is a bigger thing than normal.” And so, they bring more. They bring more energy and commitment and interest in doing everything they can to succeed in front of the team because nobody wants to let their team down. And finally, another great reason to bring an outside resource in is the whole thing is going to get better. The messages are going to get better, they’re going to get sharper, the performances are going to get better and sharper, each individual is going to do better at presenting their stuff, and the whole team is going to come together better because everybody has stepped up. You bring somebody from the outside in, and the quality of the whole interview steps up. If you don’t win this particular project, the selection committee are going to see that you brought more to the table, and man, are they going to want to work with you at some point. You have risen in their vision, in their estimation, in who they’re thinking of, and how they’re thinking of you. And as a result, you are going to get more business from them.