That reminded me of the last time interviewed for a job. It was for an internal promotion to my first management position. Had a lengthy interview with a regional manager, second moderately long interview with the department VP, and finally a half day interview jointly with both of them. I’d worked with the regional manager for about 8 years and with the VP in various capacities for about 15 years. The only other candidates had similar time with them. A couple rounds of interviews made sense but by the joint interview it seemed pretty ridiculous being everyone involved knew everyone else’s work product, personality, and pretty much everything else about each other, both relevant stuff and irrelevant.
Toward the end of the joint interview, the VP asked, barring upper management, what the most difficult job in the department is. Told him even not barring upper management what the most difficult job was. He asked why. Told him why and why it wasn’t a close call. He said he disagreed and did I want to know his thoughts. I was done with this dog and pony show, so I told him the truth: No, I didn’t want to hear his thoughts because if he disagreed all that showed was he had been insulated from the front lines so long he’d lost touch with reality in the trenches and he was wrong.
He then asked the last question of the interview, why was I better than the other candidates. Told him I might could answer if he listed them off. He said he wouldn't name them. Told him then that’s not a question that can be answered due to insufficient information, but these are your three candidates you have left, one you’re not seriously considering for reasons I don’t know, but any of the three of us would do a good job in my opinion and I’m not going to say anything bad about either of the other candidates. There’s no “bad” decision on that list and you knew all of us almost as well as your family before the 14 hours of interviews so just make a damn decision. That was the end of the interview and I was quite confident I would not be offered the promotion but might get encouragement to find other employment.
Years later I was at an out of town meeting, sitting at a bar with the VP. He asked if I wanted to know why they offered me the promotion instead of the other two short listers. Told him no, but being he was half drunk I was pretty sure he was going to tell me anyway. He said the other two at least acted like they wanted his opinion on the hardest job and after hearing his explanation they changed their minds and agreed with him even though my answer was obviously correct. He had a couple similar questions he asked them to see if they’d consistently change their position to match his and they did. He and the regional manager didn’t want a yes man who would agree with them even if they were clearly wrong. First thing they realized I was right about was they interviewed way too long and just needed to make a decision after the second round of interviews.
They were both good managers that had the confidence to not always be right. Not many like that.