The Twenty-Minute Scenario
Final Selection Board. You have 20 minutes to prepare a 10-minute presentation on a scenario, then 25 minutes of questions from three panel members: a director, an HR business partner and an occupational psychologist. Your prepared notes must be handed to the panel. The scenario: you lead a customer service centre with 22 staff. The backlog is up 40% on last quarter, three vacancies are frozen, a ministerial correspondence case about waiting times is due in 48 hours, and a staff member has raised a grievance alleging bullying by a colleague - who happens to be your deputy. You have no access to the case file.
1. Set out what you would do in the first 24 hours and justify the order. Note what you would deliberately not do.
Read the worked answer
Order of work: risk first, deadline second, underlying problem third.
1. The grievance (first two hours). It carries legal and duty-of-care exposure, and the harm from mishandling it is irreversible. Because the subject is your deputy, you have a conflict of interest: refer the investigation to HR immediately, agree terms of reference and a timeline within 24 hours, and put in place a temporary separation of duties. Speak to the complainant today - briefly, to confirm it has been received, that it will be handled confidentially, and who will contact them. Do not discuss the allegation's content with your deputy.
2. The ministerial case (same day). A hard external deadline and reputational exposure. Pull the waiting-time data, draft a holding line, and agree with the director what figure can be committed to before anything is sent. Never promise a number you cannot evidence.
3. The backlog (this week). The underlying problem, but the only one that tolerates a day's delay. Daily huddle, reprioritise the queue, identify what can be automated or temporarily redeployed, and check whether overtime is available under the freeze.
What I would not do: investigate the grievance myself; cancel leave or mandate overtime without checking the rules; give the minister's office an optimistic number; discuss the grievance with the team before the complainant knows the process.
2. The director says: 'You've just told me you'd hand the grievance to HR. Isn't that passing the buck?' How do you answer?
Read the worked answer
Concede the fair part, then distinguish.
'I can see why it looks that way. The distinction I'd draw is between investigating and being accountable. I stay accountable for the outcome, the speed and the environment my staff work in. What I shouldn't do is investigate a complaint against my own deputy - I'm too close to it, and an investigation I run would be challengeable on exactly that ground, which would fail the complainant as well as the department.'
Then say what you keep.
- Daily check-ins with HR until it closes.
- The complainant's safety and their knowledge of the timetable.
- The decision on temporary separation of duties, which is mine.
- Communication to the team, without detail.
What to avoid
Do not become defensive or restate the policy. Do not promise a finding or a timescale you do not control - 'it will be resolved within two weeks' is a promise you may not be able to keep, and this panel will notice. Do not claim the decision is 'out of my hands'; it is not, and saying so is the actual pass-the-buck answer.
3. The psychologist asks what you would personally find hardest about this scenario. What do you say?
Read the worked answer
Be specific and honest, then say what you do about it.
'Two things. The first is that the operational backlog is measurable and the grievance isn't, so under pressure I'd drift towards the queue because it gives quick feedback. The second is that the deputy is someone I work closely with, and there's a real temptation to soften how I handle that - to assume there's an explanation before the process has established one.'
Then the mitigation, because diagnosis without a mechanism is just confession.
- Diary-block a fixed HR checkpoint each morning so the grievance cannot be crowded out by operations.
- Keep a short decision log with dates, so drift is visible to me and to my manager.
- Tell my own manager explicitly what I am watching for in myself, so someone else is checking.
What not to say
- 'I'm a bit of a perfectionist.' It is transparent and says nothing.
- 'I don't really have weaknesses.' Untrue and reads as low self-awareness.
- A disclosure that damages your credibility on the core task - this panel is assessing whether you can run the scenario, not conducting therapy. Choose a real weakness that has a credible control.