A WEIRD (in my opinion) job interview question these days is to name three people you would most like to invite to dinner.
Interviewers may think this is cutting edge in getting inside your head, but it’s now become a cliché.
So just as you prepare to disclose how you will make a bazillion bucks for the business if they are savvy enough to hire you, a list of dinner guests to make you look cool is just as important.
The last time I was asked that question was actually for an employee profile in our company magazine (in the days when I was employed – heh).
My answer was Francis Drake, Shaka Zulu and Ernest Hemingway.
I wasn’t asked why they were the chosen trio, but I’m pretty sure it would have been for vastly different reasons than the questioner imagined.
Bang-on history revisionists have rubbished Drake’s reputation as a swashbuckling skipper and instead branded him a bloodthirsty pirate. So he would not be on my list as a goody two-shoes patriot.
Instead, he is without doubt one of the most superb leaders of men in history. The life of a sailor in those days was miserable beyond comparison.
Drake’s ships, for example, sailed deep into the Roaring 40s where his crew had to haul massively heavy canvas sails in heaving seas surfing 15-metre swells.
Each ship had four masts, the tallest being 36m, which had to be climbed on flimsy rope ladders.
This the men did in all weather, including hurricanes and blizzards, and on a diet so poor that many died of scurvy, if not outright malnutrition. There were no toilets or showers on board and certainly no heating.
The average height of a sailor was 1.57m, which means I would have been the tallest on board. Yet they did the work of supermen.
So how do you handle people in such conditions? How do you get them to do their jobs in such dire situations without them slitting your throat?
That would be my key question for Sir Francis.
Visionary Shaka
Shaka Zulu was one of the first generals to create Special Force units, which is now an essential element in any modern army.
Battles this century are going to be fought by elite warriors at the frontline backed by geeks in the office pushing buttons.
Okay, the Japanese ninjas possibly preceded him, but Shaka’s army was basically the SAS, Green Berets and Navy Seals rolled into one.
So he’s not on my list to show what a cool non-racial hipster I am, but as a military visionary.
Ernest Hemingway would not be at the dinner table as a literary genius. In fact, I have battled to finish any of his books.
His life was far more colourful than his art.
Indeed, Hemingway’s most spectacular achievement was not scripting very short repetitive sentences. It was rather how he inspired an entire generation to live more intensely, despite his own torment.
Thanks to him, people suddenly found it okay to venerate heroism and courage and be sensitive and flawed at the same time.
Then on 2 July 1961, he put a shotgun barrel in his mouth and blew his brains out. It was the ultimate Judas kiss to those who believed he had shown them a more vivid meaning to life.
Hemingway was not shatterproof after all. The granite was mere clay.
So my question to him would be this: how did you manage to so inspire and so betray so many simultaneously?
The fourth guest, if I was allowed an extra one, would be the actor Steve McQueen.
Many may not remember him, but McQueen was the epitome of cool hipness in the days when Hollywood glamour was genuine.
Except he wasn’t. According to those who knew him, McQueen was one of the most boring guys around, despite his massive on-screen magnetism.
All he could drone on about was muscle cars and motorbikes.
So why would I have him around?
Simple. To make me look vaguely more interesting.
Except, I know he would still go home with the girl.
So on second thoughts, to hell with that. McQueen can organise his own dinner party.
