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I was sixty seconds into the interview, confident that my path to the executive suite in a large retail corporation was assured, when Miss Egan, the VP of Executive Training, dropped the bomb.

“Are you pregnant?”

I shook my head, not believing what I’d just heard but realizing I’d better respond.  “Uh, no.”

“Are you planning to have children in the next few years?”

“I don’t think so – not at this time.”

This was the interview as judo (and, of course, would be illegal now).  After throwing me off balance,  she went for the jugular — “Why do you think you’re different from the hundreds of executive training candidates who call me every month?  What’s so great about you?”

I listed my work achievements, my sales increases, my ability to manage and lead, my expertise in display.

She got up, walked around her giant grey battleship of a desk, held open her office door and said, “Yes, that’s very nice.  Keep up the good work.  If an opening comes up, I know where to find you.”

I’d been dismissed.  I hadn’t even had time to warm the seat – what happened?   In retrospect, I see three ways I missed.

Lack of an internal champion

I wasn’t politically savvy.  It was early in my career and I didn’t realize that I needed a mentor or someone who would serve as my internal champion and help grease the skids for me within the company.  Instead, I thought I could do it all myself.  My strategy backfired – Miss Egan was looking for someone who knew the ropes.  I demonstrated that I’d tied myself in knots.  She was not amused.

In this company, it was important to win your way to promotions by having several well-placed and influential executives call and pave the way for you.  Demonstrating that I had a relationship with such an influencer would have spoken volumes to her about my ability to plan and establish relationships.  It also would have told her that the executives had confidence in me.

Lack of preparation

I came off like a bumpkin because I couldn’t demonstrate to her that I had support from people who mattered in the organization.  Miss Egan actually expected – and probably already knew – all the stats I gave her.  She wasn’t blown out of the water because she was way ahead of me.  She wanted a demonstration of my social and cultural understanding of the company.  When I demonstrated my ignorance and gave her something else entirely, she showed me the door.

I should have checked with others already in the training program to find out how they’d succeeded.  A couple of coffee meetings would have provided the information I needed to give her what she wanted.

Lack of drive

In Daniel Pink’s new book, Drive, he talks about the importance of intrinsic motivation vs. extrinsic motivation.  When it’s intrinsic, there’s no carrot or stick.  Instead, the desire to perform is intense because it comes from deep within you.  More about this in a later post when I review the book – which, by the way,  is excellent and well worth reading.  After I finished it, I understood why one job I held was a complete setup for failure – I won’t have to make that mistake again.

Back to Miss Egan – who saw that I didn’t have the internal stamina and desire to make it at that time.

But I was tenacious, I learned and found another way to the path I wanted.  That way?  Mastery.  For me, high proficiency went hand-in-hand with drive.  The more capable and knowledgeable I became, the more drive I had to learn about the business and do well.

While I certainly didn’t have Miss Egan at hello, I turned the situation into a win by tapping into my internal desire to learn, grow and succeed.  And I never again went through an interview situation like this one.