My favorites:  

“Do you know how to innovate?  How?”

“How interested is this guy in understanding my problem(s)?”. If they’re not, then they’re a hammer looking for nails, or you should just buy their book or read their blog or such. 

Do they ever answer a question with “I don’t know, I’ll have to think about that someone more.”  If they have an answer for everything then either the questions or the answers aren’t that great.”

I also highly recommend reading his essay “How to Learn From Your Mistakes.”  I have a print out of it on my desk; as he notes, “The kind of mistakes you make define you.”

A few highlights from his essay:

The learning from mistakes checklist

• Accepting responsibility makes learning possible.
• Don’t equate making mistakes with being a mistake.
• You can’t change mistakes, but you can choose how to respond to them.
• Growth starts when you can see room for improvement.
• Work to understand why it happened and what the factors were.
• What information could have avoided the mistake?
• What small mistakes, in sequence, contributed to the bigger mistake?
• Are there alternatives you should have considered but did not?
• What kinds of changes are required to avoid making this mistake again?What kinds of change are difficult for you?
• How do you think your behavior should/would change in you were in a similar situation again?
• Work to understand the mistake until you can make fun of it (or not want to kill others that make fun).
• Don’t over-compensate: the next situation won’t be the same as the last.

But – don’t rely on this cliff notes version; read his whole post; you’ll improve your personal lessons learned process,  and perhaps improve the quality of your professional projects, too.

“Success does not consist in never making mistakes, but in never making them a second time.”    –   George Bernard Shaw

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