On April 19, we had the pleasure to host Mr. Rob de Maat, Senior Manager at Deloitte in our “Learning to learn” course. In a friendly chat, Rob shared with us his experience of how consultants (struggle to) learn, during the various phases of their career. Among all, here are a few highlights of his talk:
- Navigating through the politics also means asking feedback on the “why” if people give you?positive?feedback or a compliment. We always do ask with negative feedback or suggestions to improve, but mostly never when positive. Why? That makes us somewhat blind for what makes us appreciated, which in turn could feed arrogance if you have not got it right and keep on working on the wrong things
- Arrogance is the main challenge for consultants when they have reached the experiences and mature level. The change of the outside world is important to stay connected to, or the “truth” we have known and preached before becomes less true or even false. Which is hard to accept if you do not check it regularly, which causes consultants to stick rigidly to their old truth… This is also enforced by the previous bullet, where you never check what is really done right, and what is not that good.
- To help consultants learn, we have to let them make mistakes, and not prevent them through micromanagement. This is where the comparison with bike riding comes from. We do not frantically prevent them to fall, but accept the occasional fall, as long as it only leads to some bruising, but not broken bones. We never “make them fall”, that would be sadistic
