Assess your Business Mind with 1 Question…
Posted on September 15th, 2008 | by Nick Grinberg |I want to share a question that one of my good friends asked me. He knew I fancied myself as a bit of an entrepreneur, and wanted to test my acumen.
This same question was asked to the top 30 managers of a large company to determine who of them was to be promoted to an Executive position…only 1 of them got it right.
So here it is…
The Scenario
| One night, you are out driving in a remote area that is far from the city centre. Its an extremely cold and stormy night, with buckets of rain and hail coming down. You pass a bus-stop in the middle of nowhere and notice that there are 3 people huddled together, sheltering under it. Now you can only pick 1 of them up in your car, as it is a 2 seater. The region is so remote that calling for help would be futile. The question is…which of the following 3 people would you pick up? The first person is the love of your life. If you leave them there, then you are guaranteed to lose your soul-mate and never find true romantic happiness.The second person is a 40-something year old lady who you do not know. She is bleeding to death, and unless you pick her up - she will surely die (The area is too remote to call an ambulance).The third person is your best friend. He has saved your life in the past and this could be your one chance to pay him back. So who do you pick up? |
I thought about it long and hard. And I finally chose the dying woman. I rationalised that I wouldn’t be able to go on knowing that I could have prevented her death. I did not give the correct response…
The Answer
Give the keys to your best friend, and tell him to drive the dying woman to a hospital. This saves her life, and allows you to repay your best friend. It also allows you to stay at the bus-stop with the love of your life!
It’s not hard to see why the individual who answered this correctly was promoted to be an executive. The correct answer involved some outside-the-box thinking, which is a critical trait for an executive to have.
The question specifically asks “Who would you pick up” and not “What would you do” to test your ability to think outside the given parameters.
The ‘outside-the-box’ part of my brain must eat some humble pie and get back to the training grounds!
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2 Responses to “Assess your Business Mind with 1 Question…”
By James on Sep 17, 2008 | Reply
Hi, I found your blog on this new directory of WordPress Blogs at blackhatbootcamp.com/listofwordpressblogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, i duno. Anyways, I just clicked it and here I am. Your blog looks good. Have a nice day. James.
By Jared O'Toole on Mar 31, 2009 | Reply
I’ve heard that one before. And your right its all about thinking outside the box. With every problem you should not just focus on the question at hand but flip it around and ask more questions from different angles.
There is rarely a right or wrong answer but you should at least have come up with a variety of possible ways to answer that make sense.