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COMPETENCY #1—INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY 81

Question 29. Tell me about a time when you had to adjust your prior-

ities to meet someone else’s higher priority.

Situation: Every day I create a to-do list that helps me prioritize the

day’s activities. One particular day I was going to make follow-up calls to gen-
erate new clients. Right after the day started, I received a call from a client
who said that their system was down. A technician was on his way to fix the
problem, but since I was the one who sold her the equipment a week earlier,
she wanted me on-site as well.

Action: To maintain goodwill, I put aside my to-do list and served as

the liaison between the client and the technician.

Result: Later on that day, I received a call from the client’s manager.

He personally thanked me for taking the time to ensure that the system was
up and running. When the company was ready to upgrade, I received the call
to make that sale.

Question 30. Describe the culture of your organization and provide an

example of how you work within this culture to achieve a goal.

Situation: In the organizational culture of the company I work for,

employees are often required to work after normal hours. For example, as
the organization partners with community businesses and participates in
outreach events, I am required to attend those events in the evenings and on
weekends.

Action: To strike a balance between my personal and professional life,

I negotiated flex time whereby I could take late and extended lunches so I
could attend my daughter’s soccer games.

Result: The arrangement worked well because I was able to support

my daughter and also meet the demands of the department and community-
involvement initiatives.

Question 31. Give an example of a time when your patience was

tested. How did you handle it?

Obstacle: When I worked for the Citizenship Enterprise, the media de-
partment had an affinity for meetings. We had two meetings per week, and
most were unproductive because the head manager resisted planning in ad-
vance. His thought was that unstructured meetings led to greater creativity,

American Management Association
www.amanet.org