You should endeavor to separate your working relationship from your role as counselor; otherwise you will not be able to become the recipient of intimate details about the interviewees' private life. You have to indicate to them that whatever they tell you is for your ears only and for the purpose of finding a solution to the problem. However, it may happen that you have to take the matter to a higher authority, in which case you have to tell interviewees of this, otherwise they will think that you have betrayed them.
No matter how good the relationship you establish in the interview, you have to accept that you cannot change people nor can you alter their attitudes towards life. They in turn have to realize that though they may feel confident that you will support them, you are not their friend and they cannot depend on you to make things better for them.
Here are some do's and don'ts which will help to establish rapport with interviewees:
- Do arrange your time so that you will not have to hurry the interview. As we have seen, all interviews have their own natural pace, which the interviewer controls. The pace for problem-solving interviews has to be slower, because interviewees are often reluctant to reveal what is troubling them -even when they themselves have made the first approach.
- Do ensure that you will be undisturbed. Disruptions and distractions not only break the concentration, as they do in all interviews; they also destroy the atmosphere of trust and concern which may have taken you a long time to create and which you may never succeed in reviving.
- Do let the interviewees have the floor at the start of the interview. This will allow you to discover what it is that they want from you and, at the same time, permit them to get any anger, frustration or other strong feelings out of their system. Until this has happened, it is difficult to move beyond the emotions to their meaning, which is where solutions lie.
- Don’t show embarrassments at what the interviewees tell you, because this is another way of condemning and rejecting them. It is a test of your maturity that you listen in a calm and detached manner, your only concern being to help them solve the problem.
- Do remain poised and cool-headed whatever the provocation. Attempts to placate the interviewees could make things worse. If they are standing, invite them to sit down. It is harder to be angry sitting down than standing up. Remember, it is not your problem, nor is it your responsibility to solve it.
- Don't let your moral views interfere with morale. You may disapprove of divorce, for instance, but this is irrelevant when you are trying to help a valued, but temporarily neglectful, employee to come to terms with his or her own divorce so that he or she can return to the previous high standard of performance.
- Do give constructive criticism. It is your duty as their boss to point out defects in their performance and, if necessary, to tell harsh truths about the way they are behaving, and to do so without apologizing.
- Do listen, not only to what they tell you, but to what they leave out, because it is often in the silences and in the gaps between words that the real truth lies.
- Do give useful, practical suggestions; but don't tell people what to do. They either resent your giving them advice or they become dependent on it, using it to excuse their own inadequacies if things do not turn out as they hope.
- Do take notes, but only with the interviewee's consent and then only to record facts, not feelings. The notes may come into use at a later stage if there is any dispute about what was said. Reference to them will also help you decide what action, if any, to take.
Until you know what the problem is, you cannot formulate problem-solving questions. Therefore, when you meet your interviewee at the interview, you can approach the subject only in the most general way, not pushing forward or trying to steer them into areas they may not wish to enter.
Your main task at the beginning, and indeed throughout the interview, is to let the interviewee do the talking while you listen. Though you will have little time in which to think them out, your questions should be as carefully formulated and expressed as in other interviews.
- The kind of questions you ask should be such as to permit the interviewee to come to some understanding of the problem and then to make suggestions how it can be solved. Remember, it is for the interviewee to find the solution, not you.
- Start with general open questions to establish:
- what the problem is
- how the interviewee views it
- who else may be involved in it
- in what way if affects the interviewee
- You have to prepare yourself to accept that you yourself may be part of the problem as far as the interviewee sees it, and to go on dealing with it unemotionally and objectively.
- Open questions should be followed with more specific closed questions to ascertain all the facts as well as the interviewee's feelings about them. In problem-solving interviews facts and emotions are usually mixed up together - the events that led to the interviewee consulting you and his or her attitude to them are inextricably linked together. It is your task, as far as is possible, to separate them.
- Once you think you have got to the bottom of the problem or complaint, summarize or restate it to obtain the interviewee's consensus. 'Tell me if I've got this right. You are angry with your supervisor because . . .' You can then move on to the second stage of the interview, which is to search for a solution.
- Motivate the interviewee to talk with more open questions. Very often talking alone, getting the problem aired, is the best way to solve it. You want to get beyond the superficial to the real causes underlying it. At the same time you must avoid prying into private concerns. The line between satisfying your own genuine interest as well as your need as a manager to come to grips with the problem and invading the interviewee's privacy is thin indeed, and you cross it at your peril.
- Work on the basis of 'need to know' rather than 'want to know'. Control your natural curiosity and limit your questions strictly to what is relevant. Do not encourage interviewees to tell you things that may later embarrass or incriminate them.
