Foundations of Consulting

"Business Consultants" – the ultimate modern day road warriors. You would often find them boarding the first flight out on a Monday morning. Who are these people? Long story short, a Business Consultant is someone who solves problems, improves existing methods, and executes on visions to enable a client's business to gain competitive advantage. Sounds fancy! But how do you succeed in a Consulting career? Well, most successful leaders often find time to take a step back, hit the reset button and get back to basics to map out a successful plan for the way ahead. Below are some lessons I’ve learned along my adventures.

Listen, Listen, Listen, Talk

So, you have a meeting with a client to understand about a problem they are currently facing. Should you go in, pull out your Superman shirt and show you know all the answers? Or should you take the time for the client to explain the problem first? The obvious answer is the latter; unfortunately, sometimes you might come across someone who would instantly brag about their past experiences - without paying attention to what the client has to say. There goes the first impression.

Customer is King. It’s important to pay them time and attention. I’ve seen that people are more willing to build a sustainable and trustworthy relationship if you seek their feedback, instead of pushing ideas on them. They will eventually seek your guidance – that’s your queue to take control of the discussion. Moral of the story: listen, take good notes and once the client has explained their position, then it’s your time to shine!

A Continuous Improvement Mindset

Lately I am exploring the deep waters of Lean Six Sigma. It’s basically a structured set of tools to reduce waste, improve processes, and create efficiencies in businesses – internally and externally. Lean Six Sigma isn’t just a way of approaching projects rather, it’s a way to train your mind to see things differently - maximize your outcomes with what you have.

The idea is simple – make a “Plan”, “Do” (or execute) on your plan, “Check” if your plan is working, “Act” on revising your plan to make it better, and repeat for continuous improvement. We oftentimes get derailed in our work and forget that basic ways like the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle can help us accomplish our tasks a lot faster and ensure quality. It’s really not that hard, give it a try for one of your processes and see it for yourself – you’ll be amazed!

Micromanage vs. Manage Up!

Let’s take a hypothetical situation – we have two managers working at a top consulting firm, Jane and John. Both managers each have five Consultants reporting up to them respectively. A survey was conducted with the teams to understand the team culture. The results showed that Jane’s team was happier, had more productive output and also retained a better relationship with their manager. When Jane and John were both interviewed, it was evident that John took a more hands-on approach. He wants to ensure quality by proof reading and cross-checking every activity in his team – John is a perfectionist. On the other hand, Jane encourages her associates to manage up – the team organizes a daily team meeting with her to track progress, escalate roadblocks, and seek Jane’s guidance when an issue arises. Not only is Jane happier as a manager, her associates feel that their voices are heard and their contributions are appreciated.

Perhaps there is nothing wrong with taking either of the approach – however it is true that micromanaging is almost always trumped when put in contrast with managing up. The role of the manager is evolving and the most successful ones ‘enable’ their team members, turn weaknesses into strengths through mentoring and guidance, and mitigate the red flags as they arise. If teams have a ‘manage up’ approach – it makes the manager’s life a lot easier and she can better allocate her time to solve the bigger problems. The outcome is a happier environment, better collective outputs and a positive working relationship.

Execution Is the Game

When I first started out in consulting - I thought I would go in to a project, become a subject matter expert and build a road map for my clients. Easy, right? Building a strategy to get from Point A to Point B is only just a fraction of the job done. In most projects, the initial phases are always related to strategy and planning. The real course of the project begins when we start executing on the strategy. Errors and issues come up when the execution has begun, and from then onward it’s a race against time to resolve the issues and tweak the solution on an ongoing process. This can also be applied to our daily lives using the 80/20 Rule – allocate 20% of your time creating a plan and learning just about enough about the topic to run with the idea, and spend 80% of the time taking actions and executing on that plan that makes a concept a reality. Mission accomplished!

Conclusion

Think of these ideas as a #toolbox to carry around with you on your daily consulting life. You may wish to keep adding more valuables to this toolbox as you continue to learn and improve over time. In the modern age, no one skill makes a person unique – it’s a combination of many valuable skills that make the best one stand out of the crowd.

Keep listening, keep improving, keep managing up, and keep executing!

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Question: What tips would you share with others aspiring to become a great consultant?

I look forward to your thoughts below - @WahidChowdhury.

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P.S. - Check out more of my articles in My Library of Contents