Darden MBA Essay Analysis, Your 2015 Application

Darden MBA Essay Analysis: Essay One

Describe the most courageous professional decision you have made or action you have taken. What did you learn from that experience? (500 words maximum)

Three words: something to LOSE.

To act in a courageous manner requires putting something vital at risk in order to pursue an objective. There is a crucial distinction to consider here between an act that is courageous versus simply impressive, or fraught with challenges or hardship.

Your child is walking across a set of train tracks, and his foot gets caught. A speeding train is headed his way at breakneck speed. What do you do? Probably, you risk your life to free your child from harm—even if it means potentially losing your own life. Wow, a noble, beautiful, sacrificial, eminently human act. But is it courageous?

Not really. In some ways, it’s utterly EXPECTED. Imagine a guy who weighed his options before lunging toward his child! Of COURSE you save your child, without even deliberating for a second. There’s no real choice here right? This makes your decision heroic, maybe, but not necessarily courageous.

Let’s try a different example. The firm you work for is about to promote you to PARTNER level. It’s going to mean hundreds of thousands of dollars extra in salary. It’s going to mean a gigantic, game-changing boost to your career. The moment you’ve been waiting for, years in the making. And then, someone on your team (below you in rank) messes up, and messes up BADLY. Loses a client, costs the firm big money, something. Now you have a choice. You can either point a finger—maybe it really WAS a bad apple on your team that you had no control over, wasn’t actually your fault, etc. Suppose that case could be made, for arguments sake. Your other choice is simply to OWN the mistake. Doesn’t matter that it was a bad apple, he was on your team, and it happened on your watch. When you present the reason for “the error,” you can claim responsibility for the whole thing—but this will of course jeopardize your promotion, and frankly, your future at the company.

The decision to present this as your own mistake is incredibly courageous, since it puts a TON at risk. See the difference?

So let’s turn back to the question at hand. The first thing you need to ask yourself when weighing potential stories, is “was there something at serious RISK here”? If you personally stood to LOSE something, it’s a great sign.

Now that you have your story, the next crucial piece is the “what did you learn” element. This is not quite as simple as “what did you learn—at all—from this experience.” Rather, read it this way: “what did you learn about making decisions that require putting something of serious value at serious risk?” We want to hear the internal dialogue here. The weighing of options. The algorithm that led to your choice. Lay it out as linearly and as clearly as you possibly can. These were my two options. If I went through Door #1, it would have meant this and that. Now, part of those consequences are great, but here’s the ugly part: xxx. Door #2 on the other hand had its own set of pros and cons. This that and the other.

Walk us through the dialogue. In a sense, rehash it and go through the decision all over again—here—and OUT LOUD. Don’t just summarize it knowing what you know now. Go back to when you DIDN’T know what your decision was. Go back to the part where the decision was TOUGH. And take us through the process of arriving AT your ultimate decision. THIS will give us insight into what makes your brain tick. This—for us—is a window into what kind of businessman you are, and could be. Don’t worry about length, it’s all tightenable. Once the story lands and the elements are all there, it can be 3x as long as it needs to be, and you can easily reshape it to generate the 500-word version.

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