The Information
Interview
One of the key insights l learned from Haldane Associates involved
the “Information Interview.” The idea, invented
by Bernard Haldane, is described in his book: Career Satisfaction and Success, and is based on the notion that successful
people are usually happy to offer advice about their experience and success to those
just getting started—even when that person is looking for advice about a
career—provided only that they are not asking for a job.
In fact, one of the key rules I learned from Haldane
Associates was this:
“Never ask for a job
when you are looking for a job.”
The rationale for this rule is quite simple. If a person thinks you are about to ask them
for a job, they are more inclined to avoid you than to meet with you and offer you
advice, because your request puts them in the uncomfortable position of almost
certainly, for various reasons, having to turn you down.
Conversely, if a successful person knows you will not be
asking them for a job but rather, asking for advice on how to pursue a career
like theirs, they will often be surprisingly receptive to your request.
The reasons for this are not difficult to see if we recall
from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that security of employment ranks close to
such basic human survival requirements as breathing, food, water and sleep!
Successful
people, by definition, have already found a way to acquire and enjoy their own security
of employment and, having overcome that major life challenge, are often surprisingly
approachable and eager to speak and offer advice to others about their
path to career success and satisfaction.
Marvin S. Wachman
(1917-2007)
During the 1971-72 academic year, as I continued to follow
the advice I had received from Haldane Associates, I requested an information
interview with Dr. Marvin Wachman who was then the vice president for academic
affairs at Temple University and, coincidentally, Dean Johnson’s boss.
Wachman’s career was notable. He earned a Ph.D. in History
by age 25 and then served as an infantry sergeant in WWII. After the war, he
became a history professor at Colgate University for 13 years and then served
as the director of the Salzburg Seminar in Austria for two years prior to being
selected in 1961 as president of Lincoln University, the nation’s oldest
college established to educate blacks.According to his New York Times obituary, Dr. Wachman, who was white, was initially reluctant to become president of a black college at the height of the civil rights movement, but was persuaded to do so by Thurgood Marshall, a Lincoln alumnus, trustee and future Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Eight years later in 1969, Dr. Wachman left Lincoln
University and was appointed as the academic vice president at Temple
University. And just two years after my
information interview with him in 1971, he was appointed president of Temple
University and served in that position for the next nine years.
Good Advice
Dr. Wachman welcomed me into his office and asked how he
might be of help me. I said I was
interested in having a career like his and asked his advice on the best way to
do that. His advice was simple and
clear. To become a successful provost or
president, he said, it was first necessary to be an academic department chair
or dean for at least ten years to learn all the key workings of a university.
I thanked him for
his advice and for meeting with me. True
to my Haldane Associates training, I sent him a follow up thank-you note but never
imagined that our paths would ever cross again.
We Meet Again
In 1996, twenty-five years after my information interview
and four years into my term as president of Cal U, I was in Harrisburg attending
a meeting of the PASSHE Council of Presidents when Chancellor James McCormick
introduced a guest whom he wanted all the PASSHE presidents to meet. Much to my surprise and delight, he
introduced Marvin S. Wachman, emeritus president of Temple University!
After his presentation, I approached Dr. Wachman and said, “I’m
sure you don’t remember me, but I certainly remember you. The advice you gave me in 1971 changed my
life.” I explained how I had followed
his advice, served as an academic department chair for four years and a dean
for eleven years and how those experiences had prepared me to achieve my career
dream of becoming a college president.
He smiled and thanked me for coming up to speak with him. It was only later that I regretted not telling
him how grateful I was for the time he had so generously given me at a critical
time in my life. 
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