by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Data is often imperfect As consultants we know that perfect data is a myth. No matter the organization or website, data is gunky, irregular, and often broken. Was at Starbucks this morning doing my travel and expenses. Went to the American Express website and...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
When you’re sorry, just say the words I said this to five different people on Friday. “I am sorry”. An overly curt email. Late for a meeting. Over-stepping bounds, a little disrespectful of the staffing process. Not bringing an extra copy of a...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Consultants ask great questions Peter Drucker famously said, that “My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.” BOOM. Today I was in a big corporate meeting of 60+ people. Big titles, regional heads, leaders...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
ROE (return on equity) Yes, this is one of the key formulas that most MBAs (yes, including Marketers) remember learning on their path to financial literacy. It is often the best FIRST place to start for financial statement analysis. In simplest terms, it tells...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Candy Crush So last night, my wife and I were playing Candy Crush on 3 different devices. Yes, it is a big part of our recreation life. Sad and funny. So which wretched company created this time-sucking game? King Entertainment Publicly traded under the ticker symbol...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Financial accounting is the language of business No question. It’s how investors, managers, creditors, suppliers, and regulators keep track of the “score”. Without it, even the most basic questions like “how much profit did you make”...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Accenture had a good week Their stock hit a 16 year high, as they boosted their forecast for both revenues and profits. Go A-C-N. While looking for their quarterly investor presentation, I stumbled on something entirely more interesting. Digital Business Era: Stretch...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
For 80% of you, this is so basic that you just “rolled your eyes”. Completely understand. If one of my team asked me this, I would not be happy. I would be scared. In a quick survey from my last post, looks like 1/3 of us don’t feel that confident...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Consultants are not accountants Yes, there are a lot of consultants who work at the big 4 (Deloitte, E&Y, KPMG, PWC), but they are not accountants. If you ask them to balance credits and debits on a ledger, they will look at you like a confused dog. Yes, we took...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Frankly, good writing is rare All of us have suffered through obtuse, boring business brochure-ware. Lots of jargon that means nothing. Read and write a lot It helps to read a lot. Helps you to pattern-recognize good writing. In particular, the Economist is...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Ever have writer’s block? Try using this simple process to breakdown your writing into the right process steps. It’s called madman, architect, carpenter, and judge. The idea is simple, but instructive. There are 4 different writing personas tugging at you...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Industry and company lifecycles I was first introduced to the concept of company life-cycles in 1997. Working for a US manufacturer overseas, our President hired a consultant by the name of Adizes to take us through a 2 day workshop to understand the potential growing...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Christmas morning and I am pretty comfortable at home. Warm, well-fed, and laughing. This is in stark contrast to many kids in the world. Pope Francis pointed out the plight of children in his Christmas address here: “. . children displaced due to war and...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Ran across this article on the four chemicals that are responsible for our happiness. Sad to think that our happiness is just a bunch of chemicals – but science does a great job of de-constructing our world, for the good of our health, but the death of mystery....
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
This week I coached a new consultant in creating an excel model. Here are some of the words of advice I gave him. I wish I knew these pointers 20 years ago. Excel model structure = easy to understand Put all the assumptions, drivers at the top of the page. This...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
I voted, I always do Today is an election day in the United States for Congress and Governors. I always vote, as it is one of my rights as an citizen. That said, very little gets done with state and national elections – it is largely marketing, divvying up of...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Gender blind consulting? For any of us in management consulting, we are fairly blind to gender in the work place. You see men and women partners, principals, senior managers, managers, senior consultants, consultants, analysts, and interns. Yes, I do believe there...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning, Real Estate
am an real estate investor I have rental properties. Something on the side, something my wife and I do on the weekends. I am a firm believe in real estate as an asset class for many reasons: Everyone needs housing Real estate gives you leverage because banks will...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
When I was working overseas, I was on a competitive intelligence project. It might sound super-crafty, and Mission-Impossible, but it was not. It was actually quite boring. Lots of meetings to share information, and try to piece together the competition’s...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
After reading some news this morning, I wanted to re-post this from 2 years ago about US foreign aid. For my non-American readers, hope you find this not-too-boring. Consultants make tables and graphs That is a large part of what we do. Please see some visualization...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
MOOCs are not new Massively Open Online Courses (MOOC) have been around in their current form for about six years. They continue their march to democratize education. If you are not familiar with these free online courses taught by some of the best professors in the...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Consultants are in the business of taking messy, unorganized data and turning it into information, and hopefully, some insights. Here is a simple example of excel clean up, and the steps to copy, paste, filter, sort, and cleanse data. For most consultants, the data...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Written 03/15/2018 Humble pie part 2. Elizabeth Holmes charged by the SEC for fraud. So apparently, the deception was deliberate – saying they had $100M in revenue, when they had $100K. Claiming that their blood testers were working, when in reality they were...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) just released a report called 2014 BCG Global Challengers which lists the top 100 fast-growing and formidable companies from emerging markets. It’s their 6th study and argues these companies are not only growing, but reaching a new...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
When I speak with eager MBAs on what they should do to prepare for management consulting, I often fall back on this basic idea: reading. We don’t read enough I really started enjoying reading when I turned 25 years old. Obviously, that is a fail because my brain...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Be. Do. Say. I heard this for the first time 3 weeks ago. It makes so much sense. In the overly-marketed world we live in, there is incessant advertising noise, propositions, and promises. Through the clutter of insincerity and puffery, which brands and people can...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
If you like your boss = winning There is significant evidence that shows that “liking your boss” is a huge source of work satisfaction. Put another way, if you don’t like your boss, you will not be happy. Accenture says 31% of people leave their job...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
We all like to talk This is not always good. It is often good to stop talking. Don’t re-iterate what the person said. Don’t overdo it on the paraphrase. If you agree, nod your head. Say “it makes sense”. Say “Great”. Stop talking....
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
This is my calendar from a recent week. Granted some of these were client interviews, but needless to say, the real work and thinking was done between meetings, or at night at the hotel. The time before and after the meeting were also “wasted” because I...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Sunk cost This is a simple economic concept that we often ignore. The idea that “resources already spent cannot be recovered” seems simple. You cannot “un-spend” money or time. We intuitively know this and yet, we constantly don’t follow...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Scalability This is my new favorite business-y word. It applies to our careers, client’s success, and business generally. We all want to scale our businesses. In a perfect world, this word describes the ability to copy/paste the good parts of the business with...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
There is a famous TED talk by Simon Sinek called How Great Leaders Inspire Action. 57 million have watched it so far. If you have an interest in consulting, management and persuading people into action, you need to watch it here. The concept is basic, but powerful...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Consultants solve ambiguous problems So do lawyers I recently watched an interview with Kenneth Feinberg, a famous lawyer, and was struck by his confidence, poise, professionalism, humor, and mindfulness. All traits that consultants should try and emulate. Even...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Opportunity cost = what if? I first learned about opportunity cost in college. It was a radical idea for me at the time, and frankly, clients and consultants probably don’t think about it enough. The idea is simple, but powerful; resources you plan to spend...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
BCG has a new book They make the argument that companies have a bad habit of responding to complex business environments by simply getting more complicated. This is so true. For those of us who have worked with Fortune 500 clients, there seems to be an endless number...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Poka-Yoke This is a the Japanese phase for “mistake-proofing.” Basically, you design things so well and people cannot help but use them correctly. It prevents errors by design. Basically, awesome and practical design. An everyday example of this is that...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
It was a tough week For all of my positive energy, pro-client attitude, and traveler’s stoicism, I remember one week that ran me over. Meetings going awry, data being wrong, unmet expectations, miscommunication among the team, cancelled flights, false...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting, Learning
You cannot know everything As consultants, clients know more about their business than you do. Fact. However, we have the logical structuring, resources, focus, and objectivity to do great work. It’s a life-saving skill to get smart quickly on the topic, client...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Yes, that’s right. . . supply chain Many of us don’t think of supply chain in our day-to-day life. Instead, we go to the store or order something online and expect it to be available. Welcome to life in the rich North. So, 2020 was a milestone year for...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
I am not in HR, a recruiter, or even a super linkedin.com user. That said, I was on the recruiting team at a Big 4 consulting, and we looked through hundreds of resumes every year and 90% of them went into the trash. We probably spent less than 15 seconds on a cover...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
So one of my best friends had his book published today. He is a lawyer by trade and by heart. The publisher is the American Bar Association. Yes, that Bar Association. The one that was founded in 1878. Completely Relevant to Consultants If you read through the table...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Went on a 6 mile run It was cathartic, and just what I needed before my client meeting this morning. The weather was awesome, and my (somewhat) crappy hotel was actually right by a lake with tons of bridges, boats, and bi-planes. See some of the pics below. Power of...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Detroit’s bankruptcy is sad for 2 reasons It shows the decline of one of America’s great manufacturing cities, and also augurs what will likely happen to many more US cities, counties, and states in the future. Governments are bankrupt everywhere. Without...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
GDP = C+I+G+NX Sadly, that is the only formula I remember from my undergraduate macroeconomics class, but thankfully, it is the most important one. The Gross Domestic Product = Consumption + Investment + Government + Net Exports (Export-Imports). It’s worth...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Peter Drucker Peter Drucker is a legend in business and management thinking. He passed away in 2005, after writing almost 40 books, teaching extensively and consulting people like Procter and Gamble’s A.G. Lafley, GE’s Jack Welch, and Intel’s Andy...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
I first heard the phrase “Culture Trumps Strategy” in 2008. Intuitively this makes sense. Culture lasts. Culture is everywhere. Employees don’t need online training to understand it. It’s who we are. It’s what we stand for. It’s why...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
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...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
I read this book in June 2002 by David H. Freedman. It was the year before I went to MBA, and it made an impression on me. I remember telling the HR director about it, and then seeing quotes from the book in one his presentations. Whether you are a hawk or a dove...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
I got my MBA many years ago. It was a good use of my time, attention, and money. That said, there are a lot of skeptics out there, and they have good reasons. 3 Cons of the MBA Inflation. Typically the more of something there is – all things being equal –...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Not sure how this happens, but the entire developed world is in debt. Europe, the US, and Japan have borrowed so much money that they are headed towards ruin. The Boston Consulting Group even went so far as to call it the biggest Ponzi finance scheme in history. That...
