Don’t let a cocksure attitude blow it
As a young engineer, Adam Steltzner wanted a job at the famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California. After one of his Caltech professors connected him with Donald Bickler, a JPL big shot, Steltzner scored an interview.
A top Caltech student, Steltzner arrived in a confident frame of mind. But, Bickler seemed disappointed in him from the outset.
First, they argued over the engineering design of a bicycle frame. Steltzner had built and raced bikes in college, so he assuredly shared his knowledge about “torsional stiffness.” Unimpressed, Bickler then asked how Steltzner would build a certain kind of wheeled robot. Again, Steltzner gave a detailed technical answer that he figured would wow his interviewer.
Again, Bickler expressed disapproval. Steltzner was stunned.
“By this time I realized the interview was over, and Bickler unceremoniously asked me to leave,” Steltzner says.
As it turns out, Bickler wanted to engage in a back-and-forth analysis of the problem driven by Steltzner’s line of inquiry.
Steltzner discovered this later, after he interviewed with Bickler’s colleagues and ultimately got the job. He wound up working closely with Bickler for years and they got along well.
Steltzner’s lesson?
“I went in assuming I’d be right, and my cocksure attitude prevented me from really hearing what Bickler was trying to ask,” he recalls. “JPL embodies a culture of questioners, and my unwavering certainty in the face of doubt didn’t communicate that I was ready to give up my pet answers in pursuit of real truth.”
— Adapted from The Right Kind of Crazy, Adam Steltzner and William Patrick, Portfolio/Penguin.
