Consulting is stressful
Traveling in a middle seat. Creating presentations from an empty, white PowerPoint template. Working with a new team. Meeting new clients. Learning on the job. Crunching data in a hotel room. Reworking data that was bad.
Yes, consulting is a launching pad for your professional career, but let’s not be Pollyanna . . it’s stressful too.
Eustress = good stress
Apparently, Dr. Hans Selye (1907-1982) was a pioneering researcher in the field of stress. He coined the term “stress”, “distress”, and “eustress” (good stress). At one point, he had 40 lab assistants, worked with 15,000 lab animals and authored 1,000+ research papers largely on the topic of stress. Heck, that sounds stressful.
Nowadays, it is commonly accepted that stress can be damaging, both physically and emotionally. When someone is rude, underhanded, or just sinful – you can feel your blood boil. The Mayo Clinic cites it as a risk factor for heart attack. No one likes stress, right?
Harness the Eustress
I am a big believer in good stress. It pushes us to be more productive, creative, and provide better client service. It gets us moving and motivated. According to Selye’s research, stress is destructive if we cannot overcome it. Only by harnessing it, adapting to it, resolving it, do we actually benefit from it psychologically. Interestingly, your body – hormonally – does not know the difference between good and bad stress. Instead, it is entirely your perception of the stress that matters. Whoa, it’s in your head, man.
What can we do to make more eustress? Some things that work for me. . .
1. Scope aggressively
Confusion creates anxiety on a project. This is magnified if you are the manager and you have 2-3 consultants looking up to you for direction. Without knowing how broad and bad a problem is, you’ll never solve it.
Whittle the problem down so that you can put it in a box:
- What does success look like? Who is the audience?
- What is the budget $ and time frame?
- What is the first, second, third thing that has to happen?
- If we don’t get the data by Wednesday, what will we do next?
- When to escalate to the partner? When to take it to the client?
Be willing to ask the awkward questions up-front. Don’t wait until the end to find out that you are solving the wrong puzzle, or did it the wrong way. Reverse engineer the answer.
2. Focus on the big rocks
Focus on the customer and what she wants to achieve. In Lean principles, it is critical-to-quality (CTQ) that defines what is valuable – because that is what the customer is willing to pay for. Focus on the big idea. Everything else is fluff and not worth stressing about.
- What is the one thing that will create a chain reaction on the project? What is the first domino to knock over?
- What are the 3 most important inputs to this projects success?
- What are the big 3 outputs that will show we did our job?
- What is within my (or my team’s) control and what do we need to leave to the client?
- What can be done on this phase of the project, and what is phase 2?
3. Avoid drama
Some people create unnecessary drama. It’s exhausting and doesn’t pay. A common refrain I share with team members (and often myself), “We don’t get paid enough to fix adults. Their parents had the chance 30+ years ago, but messed it up. That mid-50s adult is not my child to teach.”
People are messy. Even the nicest people can be dismissive, or rude. We all get hangry. So, let undue criticism, or ineffectual words, “roll off you like water on a duck’s back.”
4. Build trust, give trust
Andy Stanley, a pastor and leadership speaker, talks about the choice you make daily when people disappoint you. You have a choice of filling that gap (e.g., late to a meeting) with either suspicion or trust. He argues that you need to trust. Great podcast you can listen to Trust or Suspicion.
Consulting done right is a win-win for everyone, so how can we uncover and resolve the trust issues?
- How can I make it easier for the client’s IT folks to deliver that data request?
- What’s preventing that department’s VP from seeing the upside potential of this approach?
- Why is that manager so defensive? Are they scared of something that was said?
- How can our team follow through on our promises (however trivial) to show our reliability?
- Am I creating a safe, trusting environment on my team? If my directs don’t trust me, my clients definitely won’t.
5. Assume good intent
What if we don’t over-analyze everything. What if we listen with the heart of a child? What if we fill-in-the-blanks with useful, positive, win-win words? What if we were a consultant who was super easy to work with?
Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different. – Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepsi
“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.” – Napoleon Bonaparte.
6. Remember that the project ends
One nice thing about project work is that it ends. No matter how much dislike the project, client, or even your manager . . . hang in there. It will change soon enough, and you can reinvent yourself on your next project.
7. Embrace the suck
I respect and celebrate the gritty, can-do attitude of this military expression. Yes, it’s fatalistic AND awesome.
If you have a modicum of faith in your firm, client, team, and statement of work, then this project is worth doing. With a leverage model, you will have partners and a team that will not let you fail. This project will get done.
- We earn our paycheck because clients only farm out their hardest work
- We learn what “not to do” on the next project; we amass best practices
- We gain a managerial eye for newer grinders need to learn, experience, benefit
8. Answer 3 questions
One of my mentors said that you should always ask yourself 3 questions to keep your career on track:
- What am I doing? (content of the project)
- How well am I doing it? (performance)
- What have I learned? (learning)
Using this a simple rubric, you can see that all projects have their plus/minus. Rarely is it all good, rarely is it all bad. So, re-orient your thinking and feeling about the project. Convert the lead distress into gold eustress.
9. show some grace
If the client negotiated correctly, they will have given you a Extra Large size (XL) project on a Large-size (L) budget with a Medium-size (M) timeline. You will be busy and running hard; as a minder, you will be delegating responsibility (as you should) to junior consultants, putting together deliverables, and keeping the client happy.
This means you will make mistakes (usually not critical), but perfection is not the goal. Say “I’m sorry“, think about how you will not make the same mistake next time, and move on.
10. Make a great story
Consulting is about craftsmanship. Getting better. Becoming so good they cannot ignore you. Being so good that you are a category of one. What are they key takeaways from today, this week, this project? How can I personalize this and make it into my great story? How does this make me great?