| Cindy |
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| Below is one Below is one of Cindy's essays for her Harvard application. We present the essay in its original form, with just cosmetic changes made to protect the author's identity. We then provide comments and suggestions, based on the advice available in Your MBA Game Plan. |
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| The question that she answers in this essay is: |
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| What do you find most challenging about working with a group? (400 words) |
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I find working with diversity in a group challenging and rewarding.
The ExxonMobil environment encapsulated into one word is "diversity." My conservative Chinese background coupled with ExxonMobil's extremely diverse groups of people, with different degrees, ethnicities, and positions have created continual challenges. We work in hostile, remote environments, with life threatening operations and materials (e.g., radioactives), under long working days and strict deadlines. Each member is crucial to an operation; a small failure can lead to financial costs of billions, market share erosion and most importantly physical harm or death. Therefore, significant pressure exists to ensure efficient group processes.
In the field, where a team comprises of executives, engineers and the "muscle-men" rig operators, speaking a common language to connect, understand and maintain respect is important. Everyone's objectives are aligned and a sense of confidence instilled even amongst those most different. Although I struggled initially, I slowly devised strategies to manage diversity including ensuring clarity of communications, holding meetings, and supervising effectively. I standardized daily operations reports while working in remote locations to ensure support from higher management even in emergencies. During conflicts, I acted as mediator to relate to the rig crew, engineers, client and ExxonMobil management.
Due to complexities associated with group decision-making amongst a diverse group, where each person is crucial to safety, our team faced difficulties involving appropriate people in decision-making. Hence, I identified at initial stages of group operations the roles, capabilities, and weaknesses of each member through external social interaction.
In dealing with diversity, values of individual group members will be different. I was required to be flexible in changing priorities of work and life balance depending on deadlines for projects where as my Mexican counterparts gave equal priority to both at all times. As a result, strong emphasis was placed on efficient processes, achievable deadlines, and effective project management.
In the male dominated oil industry, I recognized my uniqueness. Many times, I was the first female member, leader or supervisor that my group had worked with. Initially, I proved credibility and influenced people at strategic points. I utilized interpersonal, relationship-building skills to resolve emotional conflicts while incorporating technical strengths to gain confidence. I depersonalized machismo remarks of male members, responding with professionalism and strict command over project issues.
I adapted to different demands of diverse managers while accommodating varying needs of other team members. I have worked under seven managers within five years, typical at nMobil where international employees frequently change assignments. Identifying different work styles and motivating factors of team members, which varies substantially from one culture or individual to the other, is critical in such an environment. |
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| Comments |
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Cindy does a good job of clearly spelling out the content of the essay at the very beginning. Applicants are often tempted to craft a "poetic" intro at the expense of helping the reader understand what the essay will be about. |
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The first quarter of the essay (until about halfway through the second full paragraph) does a good job of spelling out how Cindy is part of a large, diverse team that must work together to be successful. We wouldn't change this much at all. |
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After the initial description, the essay starts to get a little muddled. Cindy discusses some challenges that she faced and how she dealt with them (e.g., being a woman in a male-dominated field), but she never goes into many specifics. A more impactful way to tell her story could be by focusing on just one or two things and providing specific details about a specific challenge that she faced. For example, she could talk about how uncomfortable she felt the first time a coworker made a crude remark, and then discuss how she dealt with it and improved the situation. Admissions officers will be looking for specific evidence of how she overcame these teamwork obstacles. |
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Also, some of the challenges that she discusses are interesting, but don't necessarily fall in the "diversity" category. For instance, in the fourth full paragraph she mentions flexibility, and in the last paragraph she mentions having seven managers within five years. Neither of those really speak directly to the "diversity" issue; they have more to do with flexibility and autonomy. Cindy should either take these out, or consider approaching the essay another way (by writing about something other than diversity). |
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Even though the commonly accepted rule of thumb is that going over a word limit by less than 10% is okay, we encourage Cindy to trim down her essay by a couple of sentences. We believe that she can shorten this essay to 400 words and not lose any of the essay's key messages. |
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Cindy has a very unique story to tell, since she has a lot of experience in what has traditionally been a male-dominated industry. If she can focus her story around one topic and provide some more specific examples, she will have a winning essay. |
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