FOUR SAMPLE HBS ESSAYS, WITH COMMENTS
CHANGE ESSAY 1 — Turning Programers Into Consultants
What specifically have you done to help a group or organization change? (300 word limit)
In 1990 as a senior associate at Condor Consulting, I headed a four person Condor team for two years at Monitor Software (MS), a mid-size firm which sold data-base management software products. Our mission was to convince 120 key MS programmers and engineers to sell MS consulting services as a new ‘product,’ in addition to their old engineering and programming tasks. These valued and long-term employees were not sales oriented and were comfortable with the status quo. Also, they were committed to finishing their current projects, not adding to them. I helped plan several company meetings and question-and-answer sessions to share the company’s new vision. I explained the need for MS to change in order to remain competitive. But many MS programmers and engineers, at the end of our first orientation ‘phase’ (6 months), were not committed to the change. After carefully assessing these meetings with my own ‘change’ team, I told senior management the original plan would take 3 years instead of 15 months. We had to hire new people, deal with winning over more recruits, and craft an exit strategy for those unwilling to join.
Over the next two years 70 percent of the initial target audience signed on, and 30 percent were transferred, quit, or let go. The new consulting ‘business’ became 25 percent of MS’ total revenues.
Executing lay-offs at the same time as making new hires was hard. So was integrating new hires into this roiling environment. My team’s success was based on (i) open communication, (ii) a willingness to change the first plan, (iii) hiring outplacement and recruitment experts (after a failure of trying this in-house) and (iv) constantly sharing the new vision and benefits. Although we revised the ‘change’ plan, we never waivered in our ultimate commitment to it–and it showed. [word count-- 300]
| Comment: Not a pretty picture at MS, but a classic change essay with great content and adequate execution and analysis. The essay deals with a key change situation: veteran, skilled employees must adapt to an additional function: selling consulting services rather than just products. Reclusive engineering types must start selling themselves, an impossible transition for a substantial minority. The writer spearheads the change. The set up is adequately described, followed by the the buzz-word filled analysis (explained our vision, valued feedback, gave credit to resistance, recognized early mistakes, hired experts, showed our commitment to change). While the analysis is cursory, and repetitive, what gives this essay power is the underlying explosiveness of the situation, a real blood bath (30 percent firings) and for the survivors, a top-down change that nobody really welcomed. What comes through by implication is that the writer is tough, smart, and a natural leader. He is ‘compassionate’ not so much by nature, but by training. A perfect HBS type. He knew what you are supposed to do in such a situation (hold meetings, explain the change, listen to resistance) but that is where the book learning stopped and reality took over. All that jazz did not really work–at least it did not work as originally planned. Time for Phase Two: extend the deadline, keep up the ‘vision’ drill, fire people, and hire replacements. The detail about out-sourcing the hires and fires, after failing to do it in-house, is powerful and telling. So is last sentence about being committed to change, and showing that commitment. Within the context of this essay, it rings true, and you can almost picture the writer heading the entire two-year operation in a collected, firm, intelligent, by-the-book business-like way. More condensed writing and less repetition could have opened some space to screw in further powerful details, but the big picture comes through, and the situation is compelling. The writer touches all the right bases, and the essay scores high. |
