Malcolm Gladwell

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The First 15 Seconds

In the movie “The Big Chill” one of the characters has been dating for 20 years and laments how hard it is.

“I know in the first 15 seconds if there’s a chance in the world,” she says.

“At least you’re giving them a fair shot,” her friend replies.

That may sound a bit harsh, but the truth is you can tell a lot about someone within the first 15 seconds of meeting him or her. This is crucial to remember if you are interviewing for a job or meeting with a potential client.

In my last column I wrote about ways to lose a job in an interview. I’ve interviewed hundreds of people for all levels of jobs in my decades as a Turnaround Authority, and yes it is possible that you can seriously decrease your odds of landing that job within the first 15 seconds.

We all make snap judgments when we meet someone. Will we like this person? Do we want to be around this person? Our brains made fairly rapid assumptions about the personal traits of others. This process is known as thin-slicing, which refers to our ability to gauge what is important and form opinions from limited information.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote about thin-slicing in his fascinating book “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.” Speaking of the book in an interview he said, “When you meet someone for the first time, or walk into a house you are thinking of buying, or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions…. As human beings we are capable of making sense of situations based on the thinnest slice of experience.”

If you are interviewing for a job, you need to spend time focusing on what you are telling the interviewer about yourself in the first 15 seconds. Here are just a few things I can tell immediately upon meeting someone.

1. Whether they are respectful of others

Did he show up on time? Was she friendly to the receptionist or anyone else I introduced her to? Is he dressed appropriately for a job interview? Does she look polished and put together? Are his pants ironed? Did she wait for me to invite her to sit down?

2. Whether they have confidence

Did she look me in the eye when we met? Does he stand up straight? Did she smile when she met me? Does he seem excited to be here?

3. Whether they arrived prepared

Did he bring a copy of his résumé and references along? Does she know my name?

Frank Bernieri did a study at the University of Toledo in Ohio to find out if there are any particular mannerisms that will help you in a job interview. Two people were selected to be interviewers and were trained for six weeks on interviewing techniques. They then interviewed 100 people for 15-20 minutes and filled out a six-page questionnaire on each person. His conclusion was there were no particular tricks you can use in an interview.

But then one researcher asked to do a second study with the videos they had made of each interview, showing people just the first 15 seconds of the interview as the applicant arrived and met the interviewer. They were then asked to rate the candidates using the same criteria that the trained interviewers had.

In an article in The New Yorker written by Malcolm Gladwell, Bernieri talked about the results. “On nine out of the 11 traits that the applicants were being judged on, the observers significantly predicted the outcome of the interview. In fact, the strength of the correlation was extraordinary.”

Accept the importance of the first 15 seconds of any encounter towards making an impression on someone. And do what you can to make yours a positive one.

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Two Ingredients for Success Never Change

“I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”

― Thomas Jefferson

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

— Steve Jobs

Our society is always looking for the next thing that will lead to success and while theories on what makes people successful may vary, I believe there are two ingredients for success that never change: hard work and creativity.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers,” he writes about the 10,000-hour rule, which was based on a study by Swedish psychologist K. Anders Ericsson that claimed it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a task.

He uses examples like the Beatles. While he acknowledges their talent, Gladwell claims that an invitation the band received to play in Hamburg, Germany, while they were starting out is what led to their monumental success. In Hamburg, the Beatles played five hours a night, seven hours a week, and honed their skills, preparing them for worldwide stardom.

The Atlanta Crackers minor league baseball team played in this stadium on Ponce de Leon Avenue

The Atlanta Crackers minor league baseball team played in this stadium on Ponce de Leon Avenue

I’m a big believer in the value of hard work. I’ve been working since I was 12 years old. In the warmer months I dragged a lawn mover around the neighborhood and cut lawns. When I was 15 I got a paper route, waking up at 4:00 a.m. to make sure my customers had the latest news from the Atlanta Constitution when they woke up.

While I learned valuable skills from these jobs — responsibility, reliability, how to land a newspaper squarely on a front porch and collect from delinquent customers — the job where I honed many of the skills I would use the rest of my life was as a peanut vendor at the Atlanta Crackers baseball games.

The Atlanta Crackers, a minor league team, played from 1901 to 1965, prior to the Braves coming in 1966 from Milwaukee. The games were played in Ponce de Leon Park, destroyed long ago and replaced by a shopping center.

I sold peanuts for a penny a bag commission. The top seller for each game got a $20 bonus for selling the most peanuts. It didn’t take me long to figure out that even if I threw away 100 bags and paid the $10 for them myself, I’d still come out ahead if I sold more than anyone else.

So during every game I’d try to track the other boys’ sales and then would buy whatever additional bags I guessed I needed so I could be the top seller and win that coveted $20. I won it every time and some weeks there were multiple games, so that extra $20 really added up.

While walking up and down those stands week after week, handing out bags of peanuts to baseball fans in the 20,000-seat stadium, I learned then that two of the keys to success are hard work and creative thinking.

I could have just worked hard selling the peanuts. But it took the creative thinking to land that additional $20 a game.

It’s that creative thinking that is often called into play in my work as a turnaround authority. It’s not that I’m the smartest guy in the room. It’s that I bring a level of experience at rescuing failing companies — there’s that 10,000-hour rule — and I bring a fresh perspective that is conducive to a creative approach.

Here’s just one story I tell in my upcoming book, “How Not to Hire a Guy Like Me: Lessons Learned from CEOs’ Mistakes.”

On one of my assignments we had a big problem with theft from a warehouse. Lots of merchandise was disappearing and I didn’t have the time or money to install a security system.

But I could install a dummy camera, wire and blinking red light. No guts or recording equipment, but it worked! Theft was reduced and with the savings I could buy a real security system.

There are plenty more examples where the combination of hard work and creative thinking by a team challenged with saving a failing company was able to succeed.

That’s what I do as a turnaround authority. And fortunately, I don’t work for peanuts any more.