Methodology for Authentic High Achievers Interview Series

Authentic High Achiever Interview Series Project Goals:

• Elucidate findings about high achievers who are also authentic: commonalities and differences
• Share learnings for anyone who wants to be more authentic in the workplace

Methodology:

• 1:1 structured qualitative interviews conducted from April – August 2024
• Interview questions consists of:

1. What drives or motivates high achievers?
2. What are the key traits, characteristics, or qualities of high achievers?
3. Not all high achievers are authentic, so what makes some high achievers authentic?
4. Shifting over to the personal side: how about authenticity in the personal life? Do you think it is connected or correlated to authenticity in the professional life?

• Analysis of interviews consist of reviewing notes and looking for repeated or unique themes from responses for insights

Recruitment: 

• Outreach to previous managers and colleagues who lead teams and organizations, are successful, and get to goals while showing up to work with more of themselves. This can take the form of being honest and transparent, not putting on a mask, or being genuine. During the times I worked with them I never felt like I had to second guess what they said or that I cannot trust what they say is true.
• Subsequent referrals to other authentic high achievers by the high achievers who were interviewed. 

Interviewee Demographics:

• Total sample size: 8
• Gender identification: 3 women, 5 men
• Race: 1 African American, 1 African, 1 Asian American – originally from the US and moved to the UK, 5 Caucasian – 1 is based in the UK
• Sample titles and roles: Vice President and General Manager, Executive Director, Vice President Global Strategic Accounts, Senior Director, Senior Executive – Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Growth Officer, President
• Industry: given my previous background as a business consultant in the pharmaceutical industry, there is quite a strong bias here – every interviewee is in the pharmaceutical industry. While this project would benefit from having perspectives from more industries, I believe that given the goals of this project and the breadth of demographics within gender, race, titles and roles, and company types that the insights are sufficiently useful and applicable to understand what makes certain high achievers more authentic

Sample company types: Fortune 500 multinational pharmaceutical company, technology company, advisory services/consulting