A Consultant’s Definition

Quite some time back, I managed to reconnect with an old friend via LinkedIn. After chatting for a while, he asked how I am doing as a recruiter. I was taken aback because I never worked as a recruiter. Then I realised he misunderstood my job title “consultant” as similar to that of recruitment. I’m gently corrected him that I worked as a management consultant, and it is different. Well, he is not the first one that made that mistake. I do received messages in LinkedIn from people thinking I am some kind of headhunter and asking for assistance for job search. It comes to a point that I thought maybe this can become an interesting article to define what is a consultant.

Job titles are too generic nowadays. In modern context, whenever you see job adverts for engineers and looked at the description, there is a high chance it is Information Technology (IT) related. Three decades ago, engineers are probably commonly associated with Mechanical, Electrical and Civil. Now when you looked at almost every organisation, they will have engineers not related to those fields. Likewise, for Vice Presidents and Managers, those titles are getting common to sound “senior” to their clients. An old friend once told me, “You can give me any title you want, even an Office Assistant title is fine, I will do anything as long the pay is great.” I can’t deny there is some elements of truth in that. And then comes the title “consultant”, it is even more common in this era. If you do a google search now on this word, you will find Business consultants, Engineering consultants, Financial consultants, Management consultants, Career consultants, IT consultants and basically almost every field. There are consultants everywhere! Even someone can register his own company and call himself generic title like, Founder, President, CEO or in a more subtle choice, Principal Consultant. Do a little search in LinkedIn on the word CEO, and you can find all kinds of self-proclaimed CEOs. The point I am making is, titles don’t mean much nowadays if you are not earning your net worth.

So, back to the word consultant, although a much generic title of the 21st century, I am not discrediting its value. In fact, it is still a title I am very proud of. I truly believed it set me apart from my previous management titles. Why is that so?

Here’s come my story.

If you looked into the dictionary for the word consultant, it is defined as “a person who provides expert advice professionally.” To me, it is a very ambiguous explanation. You can easily replace the word with advisor, counsellor, specialist, expert and they can still fit the same definition. One of my new colleagues in Proudfoot who joined me in a project once asked me this, “What defines a person as a good consultant”, and I ended up giving my own full definition of it. I gave him my whole nine yards: the following analogy.

Imagine the restaurant management suspected their place is infected with rats. Before the Health Inspector comes knocking on their doorstep, they decided to engage a consultant to resolve this. Typically, when a consultant shows up, he will ask a series of questions to understand the environment and situation better. This is the part where if not done in the right professional way, will make the business owners think that they are trying to provide a crash course education to a newbie for his first day at work as a senior manager. Secondly, upon understanding everything, the consultant may try to look into all the areas where the rats might appear. He will dig around for rat trails and rat holes, search high and low for all kinds of evidences that made him feel like he is in one of those CSI series. Honestly, this is the second mistake. Much that he can appear very hardworking, the restaurant staff will be wondering, “Why is this clown doing everything we have already done? The management should pay us more if they want someone to do this!” At this point, you may be wondering why I keep listing out the mistakes, I promised we will get there soon, bear in mind the question my colleague asked. The final straw is when a consultant summarised all his findings and tell the clients all the possible areas where the rats could be. If they can take some recommended actions in these areas, the rats will likely be gone. At this point I can tell you for certain, the rats will never be gone. Because that is just a consultant, but not a good consultant. That’s why there are two common bad sayings that people said about consultants, “Consultants tell you what you already know but just in a good package” and “Consultants tell what you want to hear for assurances.”

A good consultant is different. Using the example above, the consultant must see himself like how a health inspector will do and at the same time, think like what he will do if he is the restaurant owner. He must be wearing two thinking caps at that point and he has to take ownership. By meaning of ownership is unless he finds the rats, all other recommendations don’t matter. You can say the rats may be in that cupboard or under that storage or behind those stoves but if you didn’t find the rats, you didn’t solve the problem. If you can show the rats (my definition of proven facts) to the clients, you can give them any recommendations and they will definitely see to that.

So how to achieve all that?

In a good consultant’s shoes, before he entered a client’s site, even before stepping into the company’s entrance, he should already do all the necessary research about that place. From the employees to the company’s culture, from the related industry to the business dynamics, from all the possible known problems to all the possible creative solutions, he must be prepared prior to entering the scene. Arming with those knowledge, he will be ready to ask the right questions, not just those for his own clarification but questions for the client’s own understanding. By giving that assurance, even if he looks all over the place like a monkey and sniffs around like a dog, the client will perceive he is looking at things from different perspectives. The staff will appreciate that different set of eyes. The last step is a given, don’t go back to client with the same question, “Where’s the rat?” Instead, give the answer, “Here’s the rat.”

Anyone can call themselves consultant, but at the end of the day, the role is truly defined when the person can really be in the position to consult. It is not about asking the questions to find the solutions. It is about knowing all the possible answers but finding the real questions leading to them.

I always like the popular slogan used by Management Consultancy, Proudfoot, “What if you could…, with Proudfoot, you can.”

Facts finding is the essential skill of any consultant or even any good employees, but facts proving is the strength of a good consultant. It is only then that real problems can be solved in the corporate world. So if you ever consider becoming a consultant, you need to cultivate both. If you ever read Sherlock Holmes novels, you will realise that is what makes him a great Consulting Detective.

May your career be fruitful and your life be a blessing to others.

Cheers!

Yours truly, Glenn Lee

 “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Creator of Sherlock Holmes