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Behavioralstretch
Tell me about a time you failed to influence someone. What would you do differently?
How to approach it
Be honest that you lost. The strength of this answer is your diagnosis of why it did not work.
How a strong answer opens
“I tried to convince our CFO to fund a reliability project and failed. Looking back, I argued with data when her real concern was risk, and I've used that lesson since.”
Outline of a strong answer
Try answering out loud for a few minutes before you open this.
- What you wanted and from whom
- The approach you used
- Why it failed, for example you argued with data when the concern was risk
- What happened as a result
- The specific change you would make
- A later time you used that lesson
Where this question usually goes wrong
Telling a story that is secretly a success, or blaming the other person instead of diagnosing why your approach failed.
Learn the method
Influence without authority in Module 4, Behavioral and leadership.
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More behavioral questions
- Describe a time you had to get buy-in from a senior leader who was skeptical.
- Tell me about a time you influenced a decision without having authority over the people involved.
- Tell me about a time you disagreed with an engineer about how to build something.
- Tell me about a time you disagreed with your manager and turned out to be wrong.
- Describe a conflict between two teammates that you helped resolve.