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Can you give an example of an answer to a PEI question on entrepreneurial drive? What if the challenge is a typical team-work related issue or interpersonal interaction challenge and there is a risk of it sounding similar to an answer to another dimension?

McKinsey PEI
New answer on Jul 25, 2020
3 Answers
4.2 k Views
Anonymous A asked on Jul 31, 2018

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Harri
Expert
replied on Aug 02, 2018
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Hello,

I believe the key here is to understand what is meant by 'entrepreneurial drive'. From my understanding, entrepreneurial drive is when an individual goes above and beyond what was required to deliver an exceptional output. This does not mean you have to of set up your own business (although that could be a good example). Completing an assignment during an internship to an extremely high standard where you exceeded all expectation, despite significant challenges, would be a great example.

Good entrepreneurial drive stories must include:

  • New approaches

  • Having an idea and implementing it despite a not helpful scenario

  • Achieving a goal which is clearly outside your regular role and responsibilities

  • You wanted to achieve something by yourself (and no one else imposed this task on you) and can explain a strong motivation behind

  • Several big obstacles which you needed to overcome - Ideally, you have 3-5 major obstacles which you needed to overcome in this situation to be successful – while the obstacle as such is needed as general context information, the interviewer will be mainly interested in how you overcame those obstacles (your “actions”) and what your thinking was (your “decision-making rationale”

One final point, you highlighted that often PEI stories cover similar themes (e.g. teamwork or leadership). This isn't a problem (if anything it's a positive because you can use one story for answering several different PEI questions), however, it's critical to focus on the aspects of the story which answer the specific PEI question being asked.

Hope that helps and good luck!

Best,

Harri

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Anonymous replied on Jul 25, 2020

Dear A,

This 3 dimension may sound similar. So below you can find questions to each of the PEI dimension that will help you to prepare you stories in a better and more specific way:

Leadership

  • Tell me about a time you led others.
  • Tell me about a time when you were on a team that had a conflict that was keeping it from achieving its objective.
  • How do you motivate people?

Personal Impact

  • Tell me about a time you had to convince someone to change their mind on something important to them.
  • Tell me about a difficult situation where you had to rely on your communication skills.
  • What do you want to be remembered for and how are you achieving it?

Entrepreneurial Drive

  • Did you ever have a goal that you weren’t able to achieve? What did you do?
  • Tell me about a time that you dealt with a tough problem.
  • Tell me about a failure.

Best,

André

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Clara
Expert
Content Creator
replied on May 31, 2020
McKinsey | Awarded professor at Master in Management @ IE | MBA at MIT |+180 students coached | Integrated FIT Guide aut

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Best,

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