How would you handle a situation in which a Cisco IT engineer on your team wanted to use a design that you knew was inefficient or inappropriate for the project?
Unfortunately, confrontations with fellow workers, management, clients, or other project stakeholders are part of an IT engineer's job. What is critical is how you handle these confrontations and the steps you take to minimize and move past them. A Cisco interviewer will ask you about this to better understand your communication and negotiation skills and how you use these on the job. Not only should you be able to describe these to the interviewer, but you may want to provide them with a concrete example that demonstrates how these skills helped you to resolve a conflict and complete a task or project.
"If one of my Cisco team members approached me and wanted to use a design that I felt was inefficient or inappropriate for our project, the first thing I would do would be to listen to their suggestion and ask them for their rationale for using the design. If I still disagreed with them, I would calmly state this and describe why I felt we should not move forward with their suggestion. I might even provide an alternative that is close to their idea and work with the project we were currently engaged in. This typically works in most situations in which a teammate and I disagree on a design. If we could still not reach an agreement, I would suggest that we take our conversation to the project leader or another member of the management team and ask them to arbitrate."
