Staying Sharp as a Consultant

Thirty years ago, Dr. Stephen Covey released his landmark book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” It’s a perennial best seller for a reason, and if you haven’t recently, it’s worth revisiting to ask yourself which of the seven habits you’re performing consistently, and which could use some conscious attention.

Fittingly, this process of self-reflection is one that Dr. Covey addresses in the 7th habit, which he calls “sharpening your saw.” He describes it as a process of continuously improving and renewing yourself and your skillset. While often easier said than done, your value as a consultant directly correlates to your ability to both stay current on business trends and provide new insights, tools, and ways of thinking to your clients.

To that end, let me highlight 3 current topics where consultants would benefit from “sharpening their saws.”

• Visual Facilitation – Our minds relate to and retain images far better than words; images also create a more compelling and engaging environment for any group. Visual facilitation capitalizes on this tendency by combining imagery, text, graphics, sticky notes, and movement to dramatically increase the productivity of meetings. One need not be an artist to be highly effective at this type of facilitation, but it does require practice. A good place to start is through the work of David Sibbet. He is one of the foundational practitioners in this discipline and has several wonderful books you should add to your library. Another practitioner to check out is Dan Roam, whose visual academy (www.napkinacademy.com) allows you to deepen your visual facilitation skills online.
• Driving Innovation – To survive, every business, in every part of the globe, in every industry must continue to innovate. We are in unprecedented times where speed and complexity seemingly increase with each passing year, and continually meeting these challenges requires new ways of thinking across all facets of the business. Whether or not your specialty is innovation, it is important for all consultants to know how to help companies innovate, and to encourage innovation beyond the halls of research & development departments. The more adept you are at helping companies bake innovation into the fabric of their organization, the more successful they—and therefore you—will be.
• Business Model Generation – It seems every week you hear about businesses that have transformed themselves to operate in new ways with even greater success. Uber, Airbnb, Tesla, and more have challenged long-held conventions and created entirely new markets. No matter where your consulting practice is focused, there are always opportunities to improve the model by which something gets done, on either the client’s end or your own. Learning how to use the frame of business model generation in your own consulting work will undoubtedly challenge and expand your thinking.

Over more than two decades of running my own consulting firm, I have seen first hand the tremendous value that comes from keeping your saw sharp. While it is often a challenge to make the time, it has and will continue to be one of the most important success factors for having a successful consulting practice. As Dr. Covey himself said, “We must never become too busy sawing to take time to sharpen the saw.”

About the Author:

Mindy Hall, PhD is the author of Leading with Intention: Every Moment Is a Choice, which has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., Strategy+Business, and Investor's Business Daily, among others, and received a Foreword Reviews INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award. Her articles have appeared in Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Leader to Leader, Leadership Excellence, Change This, Life Science Leader, Chief Executive, Talent Management, and more. As the President & CEO of Peak Development Consulting, LLC, she works with leaders around the globe to create sustainable organization and leadership development solutions: helping them address today’s challenges, while also growing their capacity to lead future initiatives from within. Her philosophy can be summed up in eight simple words: “I want it to matter that we met.”