Don’t Tell Me What You Have Done. Tell Me What You Are Going to Do The firm has been merged with a..

Don’t Tell Me What You Have Done. Tell Me What You Are Going
to Do

The firm has been merged with a larger firm carrying a
similar product line of information technology consumer and industry products.
One major goal of the merger was to save costs by eliminating duplication and
improving management. Weeks before the merger, Lauren (not her real name) had
just been promoted to project office director of the smaller firm. She assumed
her position would be absorbed into the project office of the large firm.
Mentally, Lauren was prepared to start job hunting. Maybe she should change
careers
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Don’t Tell Me What You Have Done. Tell Me What You Are Going
to Do

The firm has been merged with a larger firm carrying a
similar product line of information technology consumer and industry products.
One major goal of the merger was to save costs by eliminating duplication and
improving management. Weeks before the merger, Lauren (not her real name) had
just been promoted to project office director of the smaller firm. She assumed
her position would be absorbed into the project office of the large firm.
Mentally, Lauren was prepared to start job hunting. Maybe she should change
careers and go back to a job that used her bachelor’s degree in political
science. Two weeks after the merger was finalized, others, including herself,
received a letter to report for an interview with the new company senior
management “conversion” vice president. Lauren spent three days gathering
materials to substantiate all of her past accomplishments, to demonstrate her
management skills, and to show her potential value to the new firm. When the
big day came, Lauren entered the office of the interviewer with approximately
nine inches of substantiating material. She was prepared!

The first few minutes were spent explaining her past roles
in the firm, the new project office, and other niceties. She explained to the
VP she had all of the materials with her to back up her statements and he could
take them if he wished. He replied, “I am not as interested in your past
accomplishments as I am in your possible future accomplishments. Here is the
need. Projects eat up about 40 percent of our yearly expenses. We need to cut
10 million off those expenses. In five minutes tell me how you will do it and
how it will be verified.”

Her last statement at the end of four minutes was: “I can
give you five million within the next year. Ten million is too big a stretch.”

His retort was, “Lauren, can you get five in six months?” 
(Gulp.) “I’m pretty sure I can.”

 “Congratulations, Lauren, you are now the new project
office director of this continental division.”

In 500 words or less, write what you believe Lauren could
have used as key points to get the position.

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