What Clichés Keep You Up at Night?

‘What keeps you up at night?’

Oh please.

The favourite ‘Gotcha!’ question of recruitment interviews, or boss to risk manager, or board to boss …

The person is meant to briefly stare into space, perhaps scratch their chin, then begin a list of catastrophes that sees them tossing and turning in their bed, labouring over the worries of the organisation and showing their commitment to it by losing sleep.

Like some badge of honour. ‘I lose sleep over this organisation.’

Really?

That’s what we want in our people? Sleep-deprived, worried, stressed, anxious workers, tossing and turning and pacing up and down in the darkness …?

Sure. It’s a metaphor. And so is the list of what it means to not sleep at night.

What does the question train our brain to think? First, our brain responds by picturing itself churning over quarterly profit and loss statements at 2am. Going over network configurations to confirm all the software patches are up to date against the latest threat to the company’s servers and information. Our brain can’t differentiate between the thought of something and the thing itself. Our brain says: Worry.

Like most stupid behaviour in organisations, the question is designed to meet the needs of the questioner (look at how I just cut to the chase!) rather than to genuinely elicit helpful information from a person.

Why not ask this question:

What helps you fall asleep at night?

The question does two things. First, it triggers our brain to think positively. To identify the good things that are being done, or need to be done. The actions that will put our mind at rest. A rested worker is a more productive worker.

Second, the framing of ‘What helps you fall asleep at night?’ shows the questioner cares.