Hi there,
the PEI at McKinsey is structured around three key dimensions, leadership, impact and drive, I have provided a description for them below:
1) Leadership is about leading a whole team in a challenging situation and showing team management skills. Questions include:
- Give me three examples of a time that you lead a group.
- What are some key lessons you have learned about motivating people?
Here you want to emphasize how you overcome a difficult situation leading a team.
2) Personal Impact is mainly based on persuading someone about doing/not doing something. Questions include:
- Tell me about a time that you persuaded your boss to go along with an idea you had.
- Tell me about a difficult situation where you had to rely on your communication skills.
Here you want to emphasize your influence on someone else, usually in disagreement with you.
3) Entrepreneurial Drive is about starting and implementing something overcoming major difficulties. Examples include:
- What was a situation where you set a major goal and been able to achieve it?
- What has been your major accomplishment so far?
Here you want to emphasize the achievement you reached and the process that led you there.
So can you classify your story as Personal Impact? Yes, so far that its main focus is on your action on persuading someone who was not agreeing with you. If that’s not the case, you should keep it as an entrepreneurial drive story (or possibly also leadership, if you can and want to underline in your story that dimension). In general, given the background of the story, entrepreneurial drive would be easier to fit in it.
As a side note, I would recommend to have at least two stories for each dimension, to be sure that you have a backup in case the interviewer doesn’t like it and to be able to show different angles of the same dimension, according to the question.
Best,
Francesco