Questions I ask when checking references When hiring for key positions, speaking with references is important. For us, it's typically the last step in the hiring process. A phase for the final-finalists. Anyone who makes it to the final stage of the hiring process has already been well vetted for skill and disposition. We have a great sense of how they interview, and their tours at previous companies. If they've gotten this far, we know they can do the job. But we don't really know them. Or know what it's like to work alongside them. Or above or below them in an organization. We can imagine, but hearing is better. That's why we check references. When I talk to a supplied reference, I'm curious about nuance, feel, and paradox. What are the things people are great at, and not so great at. And do they always know which is which? I'm curious about trust, how people interact with different roles, and which side of the decision they often find themselves on. How often does someone change their mind, and why? If they tend to hold grudges, or if they disagree and commit all-in. What are they great at communicating, and where do you need to read between the lines? Below is a collection of questions I think about when speaking with references. It isn't a definitive list, and it depends on role, but it's a library I pull from, improvising from there. I'd never come close to asking all of these — I usually just ask a handful at most, depending on who I'm talking to. In conversation, words, phrases, and angles may vary, but essentially what I'm trying to get at stays the same. And remember, we already like this person a ton otherwise they wouldn't have progressed this far, so many of these questions are trying to suss out some of the limitations and blindspots we may not have noticed during the formal interview process. • What's something that would surprise us about them? • Specifically, any areas where you were surprised they weren't as good as you expected with A, B, or C? Or much better than expected with D, E, and F? • What's the difference between how they interview and how they deliver on the job? • Is there a difference between how a boss, a peer, or a direct report would describe them? If so, what's the difference? • If you were at another company, would you absolutely hire this person again for a similar role? • Who do they naturally gravitate to inside an organization? Or naturally avoid? • What are they better at than they think, and, on the flip side, worse at than they think? • What sort of things do they do that often go unnoticed or are under-appreciated? • What don't they get enough credit for? • Can you tell me about the kind of people they've hired? • Do they leave disagreements on good terms? • Are they more curious or critical about what they don't understand? • What's the one thing nearly everyone would say about them? • What kind of company feels like a natural fit? And which kind would be a challenge? • Can you describe a time when they changed their mind? From what to what, and what caused the change? • What's the best thing about working with them? And the hardest? • If you could change something about them, what would it be? • Are they better working with what they have, or working with what they want? • When have you seen them get in over their head? And how did that turn out? • Have you seen them get better at something? Worse? • Do they make other people better? How? • Are they better at taking credit or giving credit? • Are they more likely to adjust to something, or try to adjust the thing? • Primary blindspot? And bright spot? • As well as you know this person, what do you think their secret career ambition is? • If they hadn't been at your company, how would your company have been different? • Can you remember a time you wished you had their advice on a decision, but you didn't? • Have they ever changed your mind? • What's the easiest thing for them to communicate? And the hardest? • How have they changed during the time you knew them? • Do you still keep in touch even though you don't work together anymore? • What do they need to be successful? • Why do you think we'd be a better company with them on board? • Who else should I talk to that would have something to say about them? There are many more, but those are among the things I'm most curious about. They're all contextual based on what I feel like I know — and sense that I don't — so I don't ask them all about each person. Feel free to take them, use them, tell me they're great questions, or terrible ones. Either way, I hope you found them useful.

HAVE LESS TO DO Time-management hacks, life hacks, sleep hacks, work hacks. These all reflect an obsession with trying to squeeze more time out of the day, but rearranging your daily patterns to find more time for work isn’t the problem. Too much shit to do is the problem. The only way to get more done is to have less to do. Saying no is the only way to claw back time. Don’t shuffle 12 things so that you can do them in a different order, don’t set timers to move on from this or that. Eliminate 7 of the 12 things, and you’ll have time left for the 5. It’s not time management, it’s obligation elimination. Everything else is snake oil. Besides, time isn’t something that can be managed. Time is time—it rolls along at the same pace regardless of how you try to wrestle with it. What you choose to spend it on is the only thing you have control over. Management scholar Peter Drucker nailed it decades ago when he said “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” Bam! At 37signals we’ve become ruthless about eliminating either work that doesn’t need to be done or work we don’t want to do. For example, we used to accept payment by credit card and check. Credit cards were entirely automated, so on our side it didn’t take anyone’s time to process. But checks were mailed in. Which meant someone needed to receive them, process them, deal with incorrect amounts, tie them correctly to the account they were associated with, etc. Now, some companies might say, “Hey, okay, let’s hire someone else who can do that specific work.” Others might say, “Let’s spend some time, money, and technology to automate the process some more.” What did we say? “We won’t accept checks anymore.” Yes, we decided to turn away revenue and customers who could only pay by check. But it wasn’t really a turn away, it was a trade away. We traded some revenue for some time. We didn’t encourage someone to carve out time in their day to deal with manual check processing. Instead, we eliminated work that had to be done by saying no— no more checks. There are surely dozens more things we don’t need to be doing at work. We’re forever on the lookout for them and always on the hunt to track them down. Not so that we can check them off the list, but so we can throw them away. —— via our book "It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work"