Discuss the most difficult constructive criticism or feedback you have received. How did you address it? What have you learned from it?

Sample One

While I was an analyst in Middle Market Capital at Citibank, I was responsible for compiling a presentation for monthly portfolio review meetings with investors. The six junior team members in the group generated performance reports for the 115 credits in the portfolio and then submitted them to me for inclusion in the final presentation. One time, a team member left for vacation without completing the reports, and I did not discover this fact until shortly before the deadline for the presentation. I went into my boss’ office to inform him of the situation. He asked me what I planned to do about it, and my inability to provide a ready response indicated that I had not given any thought to a solution before stepping into his office. He then told me that it was clear that I was more concerned with shifting the blame away from myself than solving the problem at hand. When there is a problem, my first reflex should be to solve it, not focus on who is to blame for it.

At the time, this feedback was difficult to hear because I had gone into my boss’ office expecting to be absolved, not criticized for a problem for which I was not the direct cause. However, this did not change the fact that I had a deadline to meet and no planned course of action. I realized that it was in fact best to follow my boss’ advice and focus my attention on generating a solution. I returned to my desk to assess the work to be done and then divided it among the other junior team members and myself. Instead of perpetuating the “blame game” when I assigned the work, I emphasized the importance of everyone working together to meet the deadline. By using this approach, we were able to distribute the presentation to investors by the deadline without wasting time or frustration.

An oft-quoted Japanese proverb is “Fix the problem, not the blame.” My boss’ constructive criticism revealed to me the wisdom of these words. I have learned from the situation described above and from countless others that problems and mistakes are inevitable in the business world. True excellence and success are defined by the ability to respond to problems, not by the absence of problems. When responding to problems, promoting collaborative solutions is a far more efficient and compassionate business strategy than singling out who is at fault. I also learned from this situation that teamwork thrives in environments where people know they can count on each other for support, especially when mistakes are made. I could not have solved the problem I faced without the help of my teammates. Now whether I am a teammate or a leader, I strive to promote a culture where people work together to fix problems, not blame.

Sample Two

It had been just over two months since I joined New Corp, and thus far I had little trouble completing my assigned projects and bug-fixes. The shift from a regimented, top-down consulting culture at Acme to the controlled chaos of a technology startup had seemed relatively easy. Feedback, both good and bad, flowed freely in a company of 25 people—which meant I was surprised one morning by a request for a one-on-one meeting with my manager, Paul.

The meeting began well enough, but soon Paul got to the point. He was pleased with my work quality, but felt that I was not being proactive in identifying new problems and researching solutions. I was surprised and rather confused. I came from an environment where work assignments were doled out and, within the defined parameters of the project, innovation was encouraged. On my prior engagements at Acme, I had been commended for my innovative spirit for actions such as building an automated debit-card imaging system where a manual one would have sufficed. Discovering I had a shortcoming—in an area I previously considered to be my strength—came as a blow to my ego.

Overcoming my considerable disbelief, I forced myself to suppress the urge to be defensive and sought to better understand Paul’s perspective. Paul was an experienced entrepreneur, after all, and I was an aspiring one. I came to realize that in my eagerness to hit the ground running, I had neglected to fully grasp the important cultural differences between a startup and a large company. With everyone in our small office already up to their ears in work, I was expected to step up and become a project-owner without a formal process or ceremony. Being proactive had a vastly different meaning in my new professional sphere: instead of waiting for a project to be handed down, I was expected to take a leadership role in assessing the challenges facing our company, defining tactical and strategic responses, and collaborating with my co-workers to resolve the issues.

A few weeks later, the contractor maintaining our website left on short notice. His departure left me as the only engineer who fully understood the website code. I knew that our website had outgrown its original design, and was straining to handle the increasing traffic. I realized that re-architecting the website was a project waiting for an owner, and I seized the opportunity to accomplish this task. Analyzing traffic patterns, I located performance bottlenecks and prioritized the different website modules that needed to be fixed. Using a software framework known for its stability, I began rebuilding critical components of the website. I pitched the benefits of a more reliable website within the company, and Paul himself signed on to work on a few modules. Six months after I began, I had completely re-architected the website, while also adding new features which kept the site fresh and interesting. During that time, traffic doubled, but no new hardware was needed, which saved us $75,000.

My next one-on-one with Paul had a different tone: he expressed his appreciation for my work on the website and my proactive attitude. Paul’s feedback taught me a crucial lesson: that leadership means reaching for opportunities beyond my comfort zone to make an impact—often with minimal supervisorial guidance. As I took on new projects, such as running a $1-million branding campaign or doing statistical data modeling, I actively sought feedback to improve my performance. I encouraged new hires at New Corp to understand this attitude, and helped them adapt to our culture. As I look to build my own startup, I realize that being open to feedback from my partners, and criticism from the marketplace in general, is crucial to my individual performance and my company’s overall success.

Sample Three

“So what?” has been one of the most useful questions I have been confronted with in my career. During an early performance review at Cannondale Associates I was told that I needed to work on looking at the bigger picture, as I had a tendency to get stuck in the details and data. Although my data analysis was strong and focusing on data was important, it was essential that I learn to step back and see the big picture in order to draw appropriate insights for our clients. If we just gave a table of numbers or a chart to a client, they would say “So what? What do the numbers mean?” I immediately grasped the importance of these comments. In order to create value for our clients we had to not only find results but then take these results and translate them into strategic recommendations. Learning how to do this took a huge effort. My quantitative background has led me to be very detail-oriented. As an Economics and Psychology major in college, I took many quantitative-based classes, and my job at Cannondale involved a great deal of data analysis, which reinforced my training to be meticulous in attention to detail. However, realizing the importance of the feedback, I took steps to improve my strategic thinking. I reviewed numerous client presentations, pulling out and understanding the strategic insights. I sought advice from my manager on a regular basis, and made sure that when I created a slide for a client or even just brought a chart into one of our Managing Directors’ offices, I had given sufficient thought to how we could use this data to solve a problem for the client. Over time, as I focused on not only the analytics but the strategy as well, my ability to answer and draw insight dramatically improved. This focus was pivotal in my promotion to Senior Analyst at Cannondale Associates, as I proved that I was capable of making strategic recommendations. The advice that I received at Cannondale has also proved to be very useful going forward throughout my career at Digitas. I have learned that that there are times when I need to be tactically detail-oriented and others when it is more important to focus on the bigger picture. Sometimes a client will just want to see the results, but more often than not they can attain these results themselves and need us not only to do the data-heavy work but also use our industry experience to drive their business forward. I have learned how to appropriately balance these two aspects of analysis and have become a better analyst through this process.

Sample Four


The CEO and majority stakeholder of GET financial had been in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission and striped of his securities licenses. The company had been unable to grow revenues and had lost more than $6 million over the past five years. My mind was flooded with reasons why the acquisition of GET financial would be detrimental to the future of General Bank. Yet our President, John, insisted on moving forward.

My frustration built as I attempted to rationalize John’s decision. Had he lost faith in my recommendations? Did he see something I didn’t? As the acquisition process progressed, I focused my analysis and conversations on proving my opinion, finding faults with the deal rather than finding ways to make it work.

I took my concerns to Bob, our CFO, enumerating my reasons for disagreeing with the acquisition and expressing my frustration. I was passionately determined to prove the validity of my recommendations and I was looking for an ally who would help me convince the president to back out of the deal. While he agreed with my rationale, he criticized my approach, “Rather than allow your emotions to take control of your actions, think creatively and appeal to the motivations of others. Chose your battles wisely and be willing to make compromises. Focus on finding the right answer and forget about being right,” He explained. I left Bob’s office still frustrated and now embarrassed. Bob was right; I had spent the past month so obsessed with being right and so caught up in my emotions that I had completely lost track of the project. As I reflected on Bob’s recommendations, I began to see the value of a tactful rather than forceful approach. It was my duty to provide John with a sound recommendation and then to carry out his decision, regardless of its relation to my recommendation. To that end, I spent the next several days creating a feasible budget and a strategic plan for the new division.

Within three months, I once again faced the opposition of senior management. I had devised a plan to leverage the newly acquired division to create a focused deposit growth effort. Because of our loan-focused history and hierarchical culture, senior management was skeptical of my idea to implement this new initiative. One senior manager told me that the bank was too big and I was too junior to effect change. It was clear that pursuing this idea would put my reputation at risk.

Confident in the initiative’s potential, I kept Bob’s recommendations in mind and focused my next steps on addressing their concerns specifically rather than just arguing what I believed to be right. I built my case from the bottom up, leveraging my relationships with junior level employees to gain insight into our products, procedures, and branch culture. I knew that their ideas would be crucial to the project’s success, so I communicated my respect for their knowledge and their potential to be part of an exciting change. My excitement was contagious, and I began to see the benefits of strategically expressing my emotions as they offered up their ideas with enthusiasm.

With the employees on board, I developed a feasible, profitable plan but still faced the complex hurdle of convincing John that these changes were necessary without overstepping my position or letting my passion for the project interfere with my ability to analyze it objectively. He was understandably protective of his business, and I did not want to insult him by critiquing the business model. Thus, the most tactful and strategic plan was to appeal to his intelligence and pragmatism. Bob’s recommendations resonated with me throughout the process and I found a new level of self-awareness as I quantified the potential returns and explored all potential challenges, rather than ignoring them in an effort to support my point of view.

The morning of my presentation, I woke up nervous. I wondered if the day’s events would bring the beginning of my professional demise or an opportunity to truly create something new. As I began my presentation, I faced the criticism I had anticipated. Despite the push-back, I stuck to my strategy of staying pragmatic; I simply outlined the benefits of funding loans with inexpensive deposits rather than expensive borrowings. Gradually, the merits of my idea became clear to John, and he started to see the potential of the initiative. At the end of the presentation, he praised me for attacking a problem that he now realized had been hindering the organization for over a decade. With the President on-board, other members of the management team also began to recognize the value of the initiative. I was very proud when both senior management and the Board of Directors approved my proposal two weeks later. Ultimately, I was promoted and given responsibility for the division. I am both thrilled and humbled to be leading this change in our large organization. Moreover, I am grateful for Bob’s important leadership lesson on appealing to the different interests and motivations of various groups, rather than expressing solely my own opinions and emotions. I was able to rally the employees by including them in the solution, while appealing to the rational side of senior management.

Now that I am charged with responsibility for the division, I have the opportunity not only to prove the effectiveness and scalability of my proposal, but also to apply the leadership skills I gained during its development.

Sample Five

I wanted my thinking to be scrutinized, my analysis to be questioned, and my ideas to be exposed. After spending a year at Capital building tools that improved the portfolio management process, my interests expanded into investment research. Researching all aspects of a company, forming an investment thesis, and presenting that thesis to senior management, captured my desire to learn. After spending three months researching Strategy Partners, I showed a draft report to one of my supervisors (Carol). Carol’s comments were scathing. “This is not going to sound good, but frankly, this report is so pointless,” she said. She went on to say, “You have 40 pages of detail but I don’t know what it all means. You need to think strategically.”

Carols’s comments took me by surprise. In past experiences, I was trained to analyze every aspect of a project; over-analyzing and providing tons of detail were seen as positive attributes. In this case, I followed that same philosophy, including every piece of information in the report, and analyzing every aspect of the company. Yet, what I failed to realize is that over-analyzing and being thoughtful are not synonymous. Over-analyzing the wrong areas can actually be detrimental!

Over the next few weeks, I thought deeply about Carols’s feedback and continually sought her expertise. Carol walked me through sections of my report, questioning why I analyzed parts of the company individually (i.e. devoting 3 pages to distribution channels and 4 pages to the customer, etc.). She pushed me to look at the various parts of the company with an integrated view. I began to see how distribution channels and customers were actually linked together, giving me a holistic and more thoughtful understanding of the company. I also followed Carol’s “think strategically” advice and structured my report around the four to five main points of the investment thesis. I realized how ineffective it was to over-analyze aspects of the company that were not core to the business. Focusing my report on the key drivers and filtering out ancillary data made the report more digestible and easier for my audience to understand. These new approaches proved successful as Strategy Partners was purchased in our Fund and has returned over 30%, far outperforming its competitors and our fund.

Although Carols’s feedback was harsh, I appreciate her honesty/courage because it improved my vision. Her probing questions and criticism made me realize that analytical skills must be channeled in the right direction; over-analyzing by itself does not translate into higher quality. While it is easy to get lost in the details of a project, strong leaders have an ability to know when to dive deeply into analytics and when to step-back and think higher-level. I was fortunate to learn this lesson early in my career and will continue to sharpen this skill at Tuck, where the general management curriculum will teach me to think strategically. Today, when working on projects, while I am cognizant of the small details, I also make time to reflect on the most important issues, focusing on the larger picture. This quality has helped me bring five investment ideas to our Investment Committee, all which have been scrutinized and questioned, and all which have been purchased in our Fund.