Before Drucker explained to me that Welch was the right person for the future of GE, it was easy to think of leaders in two dimensions. That entailed hiring the best person for the job without taking time frame into account. Drucker once said, "There is no such thing as a good man. [...] Jeffrey A. Krames

You, the hiring manager, meet the candidates, perhaps for lunch, explain what the job needs are, ask a few questions about their experience and interests, sell the job a bit, and respond to questions. If it looks like a mutual "go" for one or more finalists, your assistant organizes a day of interviews with some key members of your team. Current practice for "organizing" the interview sequence is like a fourth-grade fire drill. On the day of the interviews, two scheduled interviewers have crises to address, and so substitutes are thrown in at the last minute. The candidate is asked to be flexible, interviewing with a partial group. Most interviewers are ill-prepared, fumbling through candidate résumés for the first time --"uh ... tell me about yourself." Interviewees consider this day a hodgepodge of redundant, superficial, shallow interviews. But it's typical.Bradford D. Smart, Ph.D. Topgrading - How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best People , (p. 79), Prentice Hall, Inc., 2005