“I didn’t think you were that smart,” a friend told Moesta, “you ask all these, almost stupid questions. But those questions are how you understand contexts.”
An analogy to Jobs Theory is sports analytics. For a time, teams thought the easy-to-measure statistics like points in basketball or home runs in baseball were the best predictors of wins and championships.
But, in a market things like easy-to-measure and helpful cost more. Analytics arose to find hard-to-measure and helpful.
In Jobs, the goal is to find casual structures. It’s like the hard-to-measure statistics in sports. Doing that requires good listening, which is good questions & a willingness to hear the answers.
Good questions frame the situation. They use exclusionary logic - what it’s not. They appear simple. Sometimes people (us!) chime in to show how smart we are. That kind of thing has no place in a Jobs interview.
A willingness to hear answers is rooted in curiosity. What’s the intent? Dig into the context. Find the string and gently tug.
Timelines help to listen. Who were you with, where, was it a Saturday? Those answers are not answers. Those are pre-answers. They’re good questions building blocks.
Good listening is difficult. We’re not wired for it. We want to talk and be heard.1 Our biases interject, like a line cutter. Preconceptions preoccupy the mental landscape.
Homework 1: Identify the listening. Not all listening is Jobs listening. This YouTube video: It’s Not About the Nail was a blessing early in marriage. Sometimes people want to vent or be heard. Sometimes people want to collaborate. Sometimes it’s social.
Homework 2: After identification, practice the right listening.
Ego. Incentives. Promotions! It’s all there.