“Let me get lunch. I am the cheapest person here.”
As a manager, hearing a junior consultant say this made my day.
- Not because I avoided the task of going and picking up lunch; I do it all the time
- Not because I was particularly busy that day, and didn’t have time
No, this was beautiful because it meant that he (now a colleague and friend) understood consulting. It’s a combination of confidence and humility. Confidence in important things, humility is small things.
1. Consulting is about Leverage
This junior consultant, let’s call him Ted (pseudonym), implicitly understood how consulting firms make money. We work on a leverage model where senior resources win the business, scope the problems, get out of the way for junior consultants to effectively do the work. Namely, we give the work to the cheapest person on the team who can reliably do it. Ted was essentially saying, “Hey I am the grinder. It’s more efficient for me to go. I have the lowest opportunity cost.
2. John, isn’t that a jerk way to think about people?
So, I will tread a little softly here. There is dignity in all work that is value-added, not illegal, and gives joy. Yes, I can think of dozens of professions, jobs, that don’t pay as much as they should (read: teachers, nurses, public defenders). That said, in a professional services business the apprentice is learning on the job, and actively getting more valuable. They are raising their own bill rate by learning how to do things. They are cheaper (for now), but getting more expensive.
Every $1,000 per hour attorney started out as a $200 / hour associate.
3. Ted is a good guy
He’s polite. He opens doors for other people. He gets the car and warms it up on cold days. He would go and get lunch for people just because of his personality, no one would be surprised. And yet, listen to his reasoning. . .
3a. I’ll go, I am the cheapest person here
He gets it. It is not just a matter of respect for authority, some Confucian ideal of harmony or hierarchy. No, it is about team economics. The healthcare analogy is that “everyone should work at the top of the license.” Everyone should be doing the most unique, needed, and specialized thing they can do. Namely, you don’t want to overpay for a task.
Put another way:
- $400 / hour people should not do $200 / hour work
Put another way (v2):
- The $200 person / hour is freeing up the $400 / hour person to do more value added work
4. Yes, delegation is a good thing
In the corporate world, this is most simply called delegation. Getting things off your plate by giving it to someone who:
- Yes, has a lower bill rate that you
- Yes, could learn from the experience
- Yes, who can then free you up to do other work
- Yes, who understands the implicit reciprocity involved
- Yes, who is trusts you and is worthy of your trust
5. Thank goodness someone gets it
When junior consultants start to feel privileged and don’t want to do certain kinds of work, it is a sign of a problem. It shows a certain disconnect between 1) the work that has to be done for client service, 2) the team’s agreement on who should do which work 3) the setting of goals and expectations on what each person wants to learn on the project 4) the storming / norming / performing needed to efficiently get the work done.
My advice to many people starting jobs is: 1) Say “yes” a lot and show the desire to be a team player and do great work 2) Be coachable and worthy of coaching 3) Earn the right to say “no” (in a politically savvy way) over time because you have built up a lot of relational equity 3a) Don’t be a complainer from day 1.
6. Sacrificial attitude
I am a big believer in servant leadership; namely it is the manager’s job to get out of the way of his/her people. Give people the tools, the direction, and the trust to do their jobs. I do my best, but it was great to see that sacrificial attitude by team members today. Love to see it in the work place. When the CEO of Lenovo gives his $3M bonus to the lowest-paid workers here, or a partner slows down enough to spend quality time and coach a consultant, it makes you hopeful.
7. Teach your clients opportunity cost
I told this to my client a few months ago. He was caught up doing some menial activities – and I had to reiterate that it was a waste of his time. He should be delegating it to someone “cheaper” than himself. I said, “If someone else can do the job, you should give the work away. You should only be doing the work that ONLY YOU can do. If you are doing this, the company is overpaying to have it done.”