Elon Musk shares a valuable insight on evaluating job applicants: asking them to explain their thinking at multiple levels helps him determine if they worked on the problem themselves or they’re just taking credit.
If you just talk to the people on your team you can learn a tremendous amount. As you iterate through problems … when you struggle with a problem that’s when you understand it. Once you’ve done that for (years), then you have a pretty good grasp of it. In fact, that’s one of the ways, when I interview someone … is to ask them to tell me about the problems they worked on and how they solved them. And if someone was really the person that solved it, they will be able to answer at multiple levels — they will be able to go down to the brass tacks. And if they weren’t, they’ll get stuck. And then you can say, “oh this person was not really the person who solved it because anyone who struggles hard with a problem never forgets it.”
The reason this approach is so effective is because it’s hard to fake a good answer. While imposters can answer the question at a hard level, they can’t do it at a low level. One of the hidden superpowers in life is learning to distinguish between people who talk and do.
Still Curious? Check out The Two Types of Knowledge: The Max Planck/Chauffeur Test