The conversation discusses the impact of toxic team members on company culture and the interviewing process. It also introduces an interview question to identify ownership and blame-shifting tendencies in candidates.

Takeaways

• Toxic team members externalize blame, while owners internalize and take ownership.
• Interview question: Tell me about a time a project didn't go as planned. Listen for I vs. they/them in the response.

According to research, the average knowledge worker saves 12 articles per week but reads fewer than 2. If you're a senior leader, that ratio is even worse. You're triaging constantly—meetings, decisions, fires to put out. Deep reading time? It's the first thing to go.

But staying current in your field isn't optional. The executive who falls behind on industry trends, competitor moves, and emerging technologies loses their edge. The guilt compounds. The "read later" list grows. You start making decisions with incomplete information.

I've been fighting this battle for twenty years. My reading list currently sits at 147 items. Articles about AI developments, talent trends, workforce predictions, tech evaluations—all critical to my work, all unread.

Until I tested a solution that actually works.