Tell me about a time you worked with a difficult co-worker.
I am a director of engineering and I partner regularly with principal product managers. I work well with them, but there are times when they make demands of my teams without thinking them through. I work with a particularly enthusiastic product manager who often makes last-minute high-priority requests. I admire his commitment to customer advocacy, but I also believe in protecting teams against making hasty technical decisions that lead to debt and burnout. Each of those issues can have a lasting negative impact.
I asked my co-worker if I could attend more customer-facing and product strategy sessions. My goal was to help balance client requests with the consideration of team and technical impact. He was open to the idea and it worked out well. We partnered well in the meetings and were able to limit technical debt and avoid burnout by prioritizing requests and considering the impact of last-minute items more holistically. I learn a lot in those meetings and I appreciate how open my co-worker was to trying something new.
Interviewers ask this question because it helps them understand you better as a candidate from multiple angles. The way you approach working with someone you perceive as difficult can offer insight into your ability to collaborate, communicate, influence, lead, resolve conflict, etcetera. Your MIT Sloan admissions committee member only has thirty minutes to assess whether or not you are a fit for their program, so you are likely to be asked several multifaceted questions like this one.
When working with my clients to prepare for this interview question, I encourage them to describe a conflict scenario that is work-based as opposed to a conflict due to a personality clash. This helps them avoid the interview pitfall of describing a co-worker with a personality that is similar to their interviewer.
Provide background on the situation and then describe the specific actions you took to improve the situation. Then, describe the effects of the action you took. Remember to keep your assessment of your co-worker's actions professional. It may even help to demonstrate empathy for their feelings about the situation.
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