QUESTION 1: Often times when starting at a new industry, company, or team, we have to make decisions or take action without having all the information or the total picture. Describe a time when you experienced this kind of ambiguity. Why was it important to act? What did you do?

How would you frame the problem?

• The candidate inherited an accounting team that was historically two different companies that had merged.

• The team had two leaders, and the organization’s design was to merge these two teams under one leader, demoting the other to a lower position.

• The candidate was uncomfortable with this design, especially as it did not seem to offer any real cost savings.

Why did you select this action over others and what were the trade-offs and barriers?

• The candidate decided to pause the process to buy time to assess the situation and consider the right organizational structure.

• The candidate worked with the two leaders to design a more effective organization and ultimately decided to promote one leader while keeping the other at the same level.

• The trade-off was that the candidate was unable to capture enterprise cost savings immediately.

• The barriers included the contrasting personalities of the two leaders and the resistance to change from one of them.

What were the performance signals / kpis you were tracking? Why?

• The candidate does not explicitly mention any performance signals or KPIs they were tracking.

What was the detailed result AND impact?

• The candidate was able to retain the woman who was not promoted, which was beneficial due to her deep knowledge of the business.

• The candidate believes that losing her would have significantly set back the progress of building a best-in-class, consolidated team.

In hindsight, is there one thing that you would have done differently or is there something that learned about yourself along the way? And how have you applied this learning in other situations?

• The candidate does not explicitly mention anything they would have done differently or any learnings about themselves.

QUESTION 2: Describe a time when you demonstrated the ability to see the broadest possible view of an issue or challenge that others weren’t seeing. How did you deliver the difficult message without the “shoot the messenger” syndrome? How did you establish trust / believability to get everyone on board to take action.

What was the issue or challenge that others were not seeing?

• The candidate identified a significant regulatory change that would impact the economic relationship between the pharmacy business in XYZ and the health plan. The potential impact to XYZ Pharmacy business was going to be hundreds of millions of dollars.

What was the message? And how did you arrive at your conclusion?

• The message was that this regulatory change was imminent and would have a substantial financial impact. The candidate arrived at this conclusion by considering the potential impact based on different design choices that could be taken.

What emotions or people factors did you consider when delivering the message?

• The candidate considered the importance of involving the right participants early on, helping them understand the magnitude of the problem, and forming a working group to minimize the impact. The candidate also considered the need to build trust and ensure that all participants felt their contributions and sacrifices were acknowledged and valued.

What was the detailed result AND impact?

• The candidate and their team were able to implement an optimized enterprise solution. However, it required a lot of work and effort to go through all the necessary steps and minimize the impact.

In hindsight, is there one thing that you would have done differently or is there something that learned about yourself along the way? And how have you applied this learning in other situations?

• In hindsight, the candidate reflected on the importance of building trust early on in the process. They learned that helping everyone understand and feel confident that their sacrifices for the enterprise solution would be acknowledged could have accelerated the process. This learning has likely been applied in other situations requiring collaboration and trust-building.

QUESTION 3: Describe a time when you used formal goals or objectives to help your team or an individual achieve their best. Which goals related to their normal jobs and which were stretch assignments? What additional actions did you take to inspire others to achieve?

What was the situation?

• The candidate was working in a banking environment where a new MBA candidate named John was struggling to keep up with the technical work. This was becoming a problem as the pace of banking required quick learning and productivity.

What was the gap and how did you develop goals and objectives drive the learning?

• The gap was in John’s technical skills. The candidate developed an action plan and a development plan to address this. They figured out extra assignments and worked closely with John to help improve his technical skills. They also provided him with support from other team members who had strong technical skills.

What was the training & development plan created to help the individual/team close the skill gap?

• The training and development plan involved giving John extra assignments and working closely with him to improve his technical skills. They also surrounded him with support from other team members who had strong technical skills.

How did you measure success in the short term and long term?

• The candidate did not provide specific measures of success. However, they mentioned that John’s learning accelerated once he broke through the initial barrier and he became one of the stronger technical individuals on the team.

How did your team respond?

• The candidate did not provide specific information on how the team responded.

What was the detailed result AND impact?

• The result was that John’s learning accelerated once he broke through the initial barrier and he became one of the stronger technical individuals on the team. The impact was that the team was able to continue working at a fast pace and John was able to contribute effectively.

In hindsight, is there one thing that you would have done differently or is there something that learned about yourself along the way? And how have you applied this learning in other situations?

• The candidate did not mention anything they would have done differently. However, they learned about the importance of investing time, resources, and energy into helping people develop when they are not developing as fast. They gained confidence in their ability to help underperforming individuals improve.

QUESTION 4: Think back to your most challenging example of transforming activities into an efficient workflow or process. What was the workflow/process? How did you create scalability through people, processes, and/or tools?

What problem were you solving for? What were the activities?

• The candidate was solving for the lack of systematic rigor and strategic alignment in the m&a team at XYZ. The activities involved reorganizing the team, creating a log of ongoing work, holding systematic weekly meetings, and aligning team members with business functions.

Why did you select this workflow/process over others and what were the trade-offs and barriers?

• The candidate selected this workflow to create a more systematic and strategic approach to managing the m&a team’s deal pipeline. The trade-off was that not all team members fit neatly into this new structure, particularly one senior member who was great at processing but didn’t align with the customer-facing element of the new structure.

What were the performance signals / kpis you were tracking? Why?

• The candidate did not explicitly mention any specific performance signals or KPIs they were tracking.

What was the detailed result AND impact?

• The result was a more systematic and strategic approach to managing the m&a team’s deal pipeline. The impact was that the team became more efficient and aligned with the larger organization’s needs. However, the candidate admits that they struggled with fitting all team members into the new structure.

In hindsight, is there one thing that you would have done differently or is there something that learned about yourself along the way? And how have you applied this learning in other situations?

• In hindsight, the candidate admits they struggled with fitting all team members into the new structure and may not have found the perfect solution for the senior team member who was great at processing but didn’t align with the customer-facing element of the new structure. The candidate did not mention how they have applied this learning in other situations.