Alice's Adventures Above Ground

Failure is an inside job. So is success. If you want to achieve, you have to win the war in your thinking first.” — John Maxwell

I’m smarting from an interview I had last week. It was the fifth conversation in a series of six for a place on a team of change management consultants; that is, people who help people adapt to change in the workplace, largely through application of (allegedly) exceptionally well-honed communications skills.

The conversation went something like this — although I’m pretty sure some of the sassier comments stayed in my head:

Her: “I’ve read your resume, your LinkedIn profile, your recommendations, the essay you wrote for us, your writing and presentation samples, and the notes from the other interviewers, so there’s no need to go back over all that. I’d like you to tell me how you approach a new project.”

Me: “Well, it depends what it is. Once I know, then I’ll use whatever protocols are appropriate from Prosci and Kotter and others.”

Voice: “This call is now being recorded.”

Me: (Hey lady, that’s not legal. Are you going to ask my permission?)

Her: “Yes, but what are the steps you always, always take?”

Me: “I always, always start by learning what the client’s needs are. What are they trying to accomplish? What is happening? Who is it happening to? Where’s the pain?”

Her: “How do you do that?”

Me: “I talk to them.”

Her: “What steps do you take?”

Me: “I call them and set an appointment, then I talk to them?”

Her: “And then what?”

Me: “Then I’ll develop a strategy, a plan.”

Her: “How do you know which direction to take?”

Me: “Um, experience. That’s my job.” (And BTW, are you going to mention that recording?)

Her: “Give me an example.”

Me: “Well, when I was at Procter & Gamble…”

Her: “Oh, that was soooo long ago, it doesn’t matter.”

Me: “Well, it was 2006, but if that’s too long ago, how about Coke? That was three months ago.”

Her: “Never mind. Just tell me, after you develop your plan, what do you do next?”

Me: “It depends on the situation, on what I learned in the consultations, on what went into the plan. I can’t know until I’m there.”

Her: <exasperated> “But don’t you have a process?”

Me: “Yes, my process is to find out what the needs are, develop a plan, then execute against it. From there it could go in a hundred different directions.”

Her: “How do you do that? What reports do you file?”

Me: “It depends on the client.”

Her: “Who do you present it to?”

Me: “It depends on the client.”

Her: “Who reviews your work?”

Me: “It depends on the client.”

Her: “Surely you have a typical process?”

Me: “We are talking about change here, aren’t we?”

Her: “All right, forget about change. Let’s talk about communications. How do you approach a new communications project?”

Me: “Er, the same way? By the way, just curious, how long have you been with the company?”

Her: “Since graduation, about twenty years.”

Me: “Not big on change, huh?” <awkward pause>

Her: “Anyway, as you know, there are many phases in our hiring process so you’ll be hearing from someone about possible next steps in a couple of days. Thank you for your time.” <dial tone>

Me: “That went well.”

I spent the next couple of days self-flagellating for not being better prepared, not being able to hold my own after thirty years, not being able to tell my own story in a way that made it compelling to an automaton.

True to the process, I got the “thanks for your time, you’re fabulous, but not fabulous enough” email two days later.

Then I got mad. No, thanks for YOUR time. You don’t tell ME no, I tell YOU no! I wrote you an article, I gave you my samples, I spent hours on the phone with your ridiculous people, and on the strength of one charisma-free conversation with a rigid, humorless MBA, you stop your almighty process? And you recorded me illegally without telling me?!? No, I’ll be the one to say no.

And then John Maxwell’s words rang loudly in my ear: “If you always do what you’ve always done, then you will always get what you’ve always gotten.”

It’s true, I don’t speak MBAese, and that’s okay because I don’t want to work with people who are so married to process that they can’t read nuance. Or have never spent any time on the client side. Or are so self-important as to be rude. Or think six years is a long time. Or have no sense of humor. And I really don’t want to work with people who will record a conversation without my permission.

But it probably wouldn’t kill me to prepare answers to those (stupid) questions for next time. Just. In. Case.

P.S. You know you’re an MBA when….

• You ask the waiter what the restaurant’s core competencies are.
• You believe you never have any problems in your life, just “issues” and “improvement opportunities.”
• You refer to your previous life as “my sunk costs.”
• Your “deliverable” for Sunday evening is clean laundry and paid bills.
• You use the term “value-added” with a straight face.