Teaching consulting
Teaching management consulting this semester to a select group of 40 students. I imagine 1/2 of them will have consulting internship or full-time offers already. This is an elective, and they are elite. That said, I wanted to describe management consulting succinctly in the syllabus. Two weeks ago I described it by sharing 30+ links to other posts here (version 1). This is how I am explaining it to my students this semester in 530 words in blue below (version 2).
The introduction to the syllabus
Management Consulting is a very broad topic because it describes a burgeoning professional services industry, a much-coveted career path, and a specific way of solving business problems. Since its fabled origins with Arthur D Little (1886) and McKinsey & Company (1926), the industry has ballooned over the last 50 years to an estimated $100+ billion of revenues. It has also expanded in scope to include many disparate areas not traditionally associated with management: information technology, design, marketing, etc. . .
For all its detractors, most everyone will agree that consulting firms have been enormously influential in corporate decisions making in three ways: 1) formal consulting engagements 2) well-placed alumni at the heads of corporations, governments, and institutions 3) popularized thought-leadership on business and organizational topics. In one 2011 NY Times article noted “The current chief executives of Boeing, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Morgan Stanley and PepsiCo are all alumni of either Bain, Boston Consulting Group or the most prestigious consulting firm of all, McKinsey & Company.”
In many ways, the generic term “consulting” has become a type of “short-hand” description for the type of knowledge work that Peter Drucker predicted in the 1960s: teams of smart and motivated individuals who mobilize temporarily to tackle difficult, ambiguous, cross-functional, business problems. In many ways, consulting firms – on their best days – foreshadow a future for all workplaces that are deeply meritocratic, highly flexible, and great places for intellectually curious people to work.
Consulting is a career launching pad for four reasons: 1) The vast majority of people joining a large consulting organization will leave during the first third of their career. The promotion criteria is stern, and there is a culture of mobility; many firms work diligently to place their “alumni” in prestigious, and high-paying corporate roles, which in turn, serve as future client contacts. 2) As a result, consultants are a diaspora. You will develop a large network of smart, motivated, and ambitious ex-consultant colleagues 3) Many of the analytic frameworks, consulting skills, and professional habits apply to most any professional services work environment. Some call it “the MBA after the MBA.” 4) Finally, you will learn how to work well with consultants. Throughout your career, you will likely work for bosses, work-along colleagues, hire vendors, and manage direct reports who came from consulting firms.
How do consultants – however smart and informed –provide marginal value to clients who are 30+ year industry veterans? How do top-tier consulting firms sell multi-million dollar engagements without advertising? What is the difference between management consulting, project management, subject-matter expertise, and staff augmentation? To what extent will the industry be disrupted over the next 20 years? What are the core analytic frameworks, skills, and professional habits you need to know at each stage of consulting development? How do you create a company culture where apprenticeship is the model way of learning?
Look forward to learning this together.
Its interesting how top consulting firms solidify their networks by having their alumni’s lead client firms, a good strategy. The intro to the syllabus is well written! I wonder if you have plans to post the information on frameworks, skills and prof habits at various stages of Mgmt consulting here on the website for us to learn from your experience?
Yes, I think 20% of the content is already scattered throughout the last 400 posts. That said, I know that new content will find its way here too. Thanks for reading.
Thanks for replying! I wanted to ask your suggestion about getting into top Consultancy firms like BCG, MK&C and Bain. I understand MBA alumni from a non-target school has low chances but nonetheless not impossible. What can be done to get called for case interviews? Networking would be of help I assume but how can we get into networking circle?
Yes. That’s a good question. Don’t think there is any secret – just lots of outreach, authenticity, and grit. Typically if you are post-MBA, they will be looking for specialists, not generalists. And hopefully your timing will match their specific need. Best of luck.
thanks! I have a background in Medicine and MBA in healthcare mgmt.
Great – I will email separately, have a few ideas for you.
Great summary!
One aspect of management consulting that is less understood are the challenges consultants face when delivering engagements – much more relevant for consultants that are involved in implementation (not just technology but also business / strategic initiatives).
As you noted, most of the professionals will leave the consulting fairly early in their careers – exposing them to problem solving, number crunching, messaging / slideware, tools, templates, team work, etc. etc. but these early years are shielded from challenges that these consulting firms have to overcome to deliver the value they are being paid for. For an aspiring consultant, understanding and appreciating these challenges will help them make a much informed decision about their careers and hopefully, some will stay beyond 1/3rd of their careers with consulting :).
Absolutely. Well-said. Clients expect more than good ideas, they want results. The gap between strategy and execution has been closing; clients are more skeptical of PowerPoints and no results. Think this is ever more true in the world of “at-risk” fee structures where consultants get paid if/when results come through.
otherwise known as dont expect rewards for your “efforts” but “outcomes”
Some quick points:
A very good summarisation. Well done.
1. Informational technology should be information technology. You should reference digitalisation as a trend.
2. There is a historical gap between the strategy consultants and the more implementation oriented consultants i.e. the strat guys aren’t deep enough to provide readily implementable guidance and the implementation guys don’t go high enough. There are initiatives to bridge this (e.g. McKinsey Digital and the other firms buying strategy houses) but it remains a gap.
3. More senior leadership in corporate and public sector organisations have consulting experience which creates a more knowledgeable buyer but less tolerance of consulting blah blah (overly abstract advice and buzzword bingo).
4. There is a move to co creation. That is to say consulting as a process that is done collaboratively with the client rather than to the client.
5. Consultant as a job title has a bad rap. It implies that it’s about propaganda but the best consultants bring expertise and thinking skills, acceleration and credibility. There is more use therefore of terms such as coach, advisor, facilitator.
Thank you kindly for the proof-read and feedback. Adapting those changes now. Have a great and productive 2018.
First of all, I love your work.
Secondly, what resonates the most is the reference to consulting being the launchpad for a career. I started in IB, then have worked in Corporate Strategy teams since, and the attention to detail you learn in BA-level positions serves you well when entering into more “traditional” work environments. The biggest couple of challenges for many with consulting backgrounds are around truly adding value in sustainable ways (difference between a good and great consultant), and being perceived to be operationally savvy. Most traditional employees who have risen up the ranks through tenure, tend to automatically create (at times) a false dichotomy between having strategic expertise and being able to “get your hands dirty”.
Overall, I’d love to see how the syllabus could be rolled up into a core constituent of traditional educational delivery.
Thanks for the compliment and reading over the years. Yes, I agree about the dichotomy between strategy and execution. Sadly, companies can often be too distracted to “stay with” something long enough to see it work all the way through. In contrast – we as professionals – should be better than that.
Thanks for replying! Your selfless work deserves praise, as it’s very hard to find compacted “syllabuses” on actual business topics. If it helps you understand my user story with your material, I Evernote more or less every article so I can search my own compiled “Consulting Bible”.
Now the boot’s on the other foot for me in a Corporate, I’m also often wary of the drag-and-drop type of consultancy some overly confident consultants can possess in their locker. Training for those eventualities would be super helpful for aspiring / current consultants and business professionals.
Thanks for reading.
I sincerely thankyou for this wonderful blog. It definitely motivated me towards Management consulting. Your experience was a valuable input for my shift to a management consulting company. I went and applied on various topics you discussed in blog and was able to secure position in a big4 consulting after several years in corporate life.
That’s inspiring. Do great work and glad I could help.
John – of course you’ll be getting some deep confirmation bias from me on this topic (!), but looks like a tremendous way for these 40 or so students to learn and grow over the semester. I’d suggest a sub-title, or feel free to revise the title itself, to be “What Makes Me a Management Consultant?” Clearly more personal. Ownership of all that is envisioned in the syllabus becomes more real when you envision yourself, on day one, being introduced to the client, sensing that they may have just learned your name, but what they really want to ask/understand/test/and ultimately decide to pay for, is … What Makes You a Management Consultant? Early practice, posing and answering this self-referential question, leads to increased confidence along the path, starting in the recruiting cycle, and continuing with each new project, client, or role promotion level.
I’ll leave it at that for now but looking forward to hearing about this “learning curve”!
Bob, great advice. Will share that with the students. Will also bring you into the classroom – speak offline, have a great 2018.