Structure Drawn from: Essay
Where the structure comes from
O. Henry published "The Gift of the Magi" in 1905, and Guy de Maupassant published "The Necklace" in 1884.
In "The Gift of the Magi", a wife sells her hair to buy her husband a watch chain while he sells the watch to buy her combs, and the two gifts are worthless for the protagonists. They are revealed in the final paragraph. Although a loss, the ‘sacrifice’ is the enduring theme of the story.
In Guy de Maupassant’s "The Necklace". Mathilde Loisel replaces a borrowed necklace and spends ten years in menial work paying off the debt. Then learns from its owner that the jewelry was fake. The story reiterates the value of holding onto worthwhile ideals only after validating the truth behind the violations.
'Oh, my poor Mathilde! Mine were false' is the line that shows the world the cost of chasing an ideal on a wrong assumption.
Why it carries this name
An applicant must also loss something – a promotion, a sale, or a career prospect, or worse – reputation.
The admissions person must feel the pain.
When to use it, and when not to
When it works
Case Study: An MBB consultant was trusted to turn around a retail store struggling to reverse a falling customer base in their apparel business.
Six of my colleagues quit the project. Our two weeks of hard work were for nothing. I didn't want to abandon the project. The client had finally shown trust in our ability. I met our engagement manager and requested two more days of investigative work. I sat through the billing history and customer buying pattern, segmented them by age, and found that it was the fall in 40+ year old customers that caused the crash in sales.
Breaking down over 10-15 factors that could have impacted the drop in sales for the market segment, I found that a change in supplier sourcing matched the period when the sales began to decline. I ran it through counterintuitive scenario modeling around changing fashion trends, before pitching to switch back the sourcing to the original supplier.
The meeting ran for ninety minutes. The CEO listened and asked the chief merchandising officer to find the original supplier. We got a project out of nothing. My diagnostic became the basis for a six-month transformation project. I felt proud.
Last month, 18 months after our recommendation, the retail store declared bankruptcy. I went back to our engagement manager.She showed me her recommendation that she didn't send the client. It said, "the 40+ year old has switched loyalty to brand B. Unlikely to return."
I looked at her in shock. She said, "I wasn't sure, but I wanted to give you the chance to try."
Sometimes one assumes oneself to be the only person who is reading the situation.
My engagement manager was way ahead of the curve.
She gave me the autonomy to test an idea.
I want to build the skills to be like her - wise but open to risk-taking
Why it fails
Don’t use in essays where the word limit is less than 200. The essay works on the generosity of the word limit. Even when you are using the reversal, include 2-5 lines of explicit value statement about the MBA program to show how you will bring the gap in perspective that his manager had built.
Where the Concept applies in the Essay
- Opening
- Middle
- Transition
- Closing
Position in the essay: Middle, Closing
