Susan Docherty of G.M. - What if You Were in My Shoes? - NYTimes.com This interview with Susan Docherty, who leads the United States sales, service and marketing team at General Motors, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times Susan Docherty, who leads the United States sales, service and marketing team at General Motors, says she asks job candidates for three things they would do if they were in her position. Every Sunday, Adam Bryant talks with top executives about the challenges of leading and managing. A. I like building teams with people who come from very different backgrounds and have very different experiences. I don't just mean diverse teams, in terms of men and women or people of different color or origin. I like people who have worked in different places in the world than I have because they bring a lot more context to the discussion. That's something that I value a tremendous amount. I make sure that when I'm looking at people for my team, it's not just what's on their résumé - their strengths or weaknesses or what they've accomplished - but it's the way they think. I can learn twice as much, twice as quickly, if I've got people who think differently than I do around the table. Q. Can you talk more about how you hire? A. I'm always in hiring mode. Always. When someone comes in for an interview, and they're polished, and they're practiced, and they've honed their résumé - everybody can give a great first impression. But what's most important is seeing how people handle interactions on a day-to-day basis, when you've got days that are good, bad and ugly. It's about how you handle the day-to-day interactions with your peers. It's about how you treat the people on your team. I have these little cardboard cards. And if I have an open position, and I'm considering a certain person, I grab one of these cards, and I write 1 through 10 on it. And I always try to get input about that person from other people. I don't tell people necessarily, "Hey, I'm thinking about hiring so-and-so. What do you think about them? I might say, "Give me two great things that you like about this person, and two areas where you think they have a developmental opportunity." And when you ask people like that, off the cuff, when you're in an elevator or waiting for a meeting to start, you get some really candid feedback. So I get input from 10 different people - from the person's supervisor to people who are on their team, and also from someone completely outside of the organization, like an ad agency or a supplier. Q. What feedback have you heard about yourself through the years? A. I will tell you that 9 times out of 10, people say that I'm impatient. However, I think in the environment that we're in right now, coming out of bankruptcy, that has become a strength. Q. When you're gathering comments about someone, what phrases do you like to hear, and which ones scare you off? A. The ones that scare me? If I hear the person uses sarcasm negatively, or is a constant second-guesser. The things that excite me would be team player, innovative thinker and a willingness to take risks. Q. So you've got your input and you've decided to interview someone for a job. What are you asking them? A. One of the first questions I ask is, "Can you describe a decision that you made, or a situation that you were involved in that was a failure?" And I don't need to know how they got to the failure. But I need to know what they did about it. How they handled that is the best illustration of whether or not they're an innovative thinker and are comfortable taking some risk. Q. Any other acid-test question? A. I always ask people, "If you could be in my shoes today, what would be the top three things you'd do?" When most people prepare for an interview, they're very focused on their prior experiences and examples of what they've done. And I think that you really do get some very candid, on-the-spot thinking when you ask them what they would do if they had my job. It demonstrates to me how they think on their feet without being prepared. Sometimes I get answers back that are very in-the-moment, tactical answers. Sometimes I get very leader-like questions about vision, about things that are way beyond stuff that we're currently thinking about. I love that question, because it's very telling about how people think. And then there are other people who give a very balanced view, with thoughts on the short-, medium- and long-term. So I get a real quick read on strategic versus tactical thinking. Adam Bryant conducted and condensed this interview. A longer version is at nytimes.com /business. A collection of past interviews, searchable by topic, is at nytimes.com/corneroffice.