by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Consultants, by the nature of their project-based work, are process oriented. Projects have a start-middle-end. That’s part of the luxury, tempo, and fun of the work. At the beginning, proposals are signed and kick-off meetings held. At the end,...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
It’s the beginning of the year and firms are lining up their projects and consultants. Proposals and statements of work are getting written and signed. My students (management consulting class M 10-1pm) have a proposal-writing assignment due, here’s what I...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Had statements of work (SoW) on my mind a lot. Writing some, fulfilling others. What you put in a SOW will affect the quality of your life. Do it well. For the consulting finders, proposals and SOW are the lifeblood of business development. If a fisher, these are...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Pre-internet I am Generation X. This means lots of things – but for me, it means that I remember life pre-internet. Yes, 1994 was a pivotal year. Crappy job, serious career angst; but the dawn of unlimited information thanks for the Mosaic Netscape browser. Yes,...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
I work at a business school. So we teach (yes), stay curious about business (yes), and also cheer students on to get great jobs (definitely yes). Set them on the way to career satisfaction and success. Many business students (undergraduate and 2 year MBA) are aiming...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Most everyone will agree that storytelling is important for professional success. When I recently surveyed some working professionals MBAs (read: folks with jobs), they rated it a 6.3 (out of a 7 point scale) with a stdev: 0.7, n=62. No pushback here. Storytelling...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
It is interview season for consulting firms. People are writing up cover letters, fine-tuning their resumes, and practicing their cases. This is what I said to a packed room of students. Before the interview It’s all about curiosity. Great problem solvers...
by Consultant's Mind
John Kim Associate Professor in the Practice, Emory’s Goizueta Business School Strategic Management: Strategic positioning, competitive advantage, core competencies, organizational effectiveness, disruptive innovation, network effects Management Consulting:...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Hope you’re enjoying the summer – full of beaches, lakes, friends, and food. As consultants, it’s often hard to stay “aware” and “fresh”. In reality, the travel and the clients can be a bear. Same hotel concierge lounge, same...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Grading papers is work Grading papers is a double-edged sword; it’s insanely time-consuming, and yet enormously valuable. As a ballpark estimate, last semester I reviewed 500+ written pages (MS Word, double-spaced) and countless presentation slides (MS PPT)....
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Three years ago, I wrote about idea fight club – the simple, fun, true idea that consultants should start projects with an open mind, then systematically, democratically beat up on those same ideas, until the best one emerges victorious. Making ideas stronger...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
This makes sense. . . Have you ever gone to a fancy restaurant and left disappointed? Of course. Expectations were probably TOO HIGH, and the food and service were good, but not THAT GOOD. As consultants, we are in the client satisfaction business. Happy clients =...
by Consultant's Mind | Graphics
Stories matter If you type “storytelling” into Amazon, it spins up no-less-than 20,000 book titles. Yikes. It’s a popular business topic and for good reason, we humans are wired (think lizard brain) to tell and remember stories Business storytelling...
by Consultant's Mind | Graphics
A student recently asked me for clarity on prioritization slides. Yes, we’ve all seen these before. They usually come at the end of a performance improvement presentation with the intent of narrowing down the choices. Super useful, almost simplistic....
by Consultant's Mind
Consultant’s Mind Since 2012, a consulting blog about strategy, clients, and staying curious Subscribe Strategy Helping client’s play to their strengths and beat the market g Operations Smoothing out processes so they are (yawn) boring and lean People...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
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...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Platform for consulting? A few ex-consultant friends and I mused over this concept several times in Marriott hotel bars across the country. “Why not set up a two-sided platform (think: VRBO, UBER) where companies can hire consultants for 1/3 of the price? Cut...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
This is shocking because it shows the extent to which outsourcing is no longer a trend, but just a simple, fat reality. Fact. The days of Hershey, PA life-time employment are long-dead. Labor has become so specialized (read: Adam Smith talk) that there is a company...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Management Consulting. It’s a lot of things. It is an industry; we all know McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Deloitte, PWC, and others. It is a profession built on asking good questions. It is a team sport. It is a bit of an attitude. It is a tribe that is difficult to get...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Consultants are very visual people, because our clients are. Executives like to see complex ideas and data simplified, so it is easy to understand and act upon. Clients pay to see simplicity. Simplicity is difficult to do well. Infographics are fun. Honestly, this is...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Case competitions are great fun I did 9 of them during my MBA days. It’s a chance for you to compete with students and see how good you are at ‘cracking the case’. The format differs considerably: Some competitions last 3-4 hours, while others can...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
This 21 letter hyphenated-phrase generates $billions of management consulting work. With M&A booming the last few years, it’s no surprise that companies need lots of post-deal support. Whether a company hire outsiders to help or not, post-merger integration...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Wrote this blog post in 2013 (yes, when I was 20% younger). New comments in red color. Key takeaway (TLDR), focus on getting really good at your craft (read: expertise, professionalism) and relationships. Three kinds of power: positional, relational, and expertise...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Richard Thaler Yes, professor from University of Chicago, won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Most people know him for writing the 2008 best-seller Nudge (affiliate link) with Cass Sunstein. Super enjoyed the book and was...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
It’s case interview season Seems like students just got to school. Moving in, meeting a few people, and getting into an academic groove. Then, BBAM it’s late September and time for case interviews. There is one huge upside. You may have a job offer before...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
This post is from many years ago, but more relevant than ever. Consultants are likable. If you are not likable, uh, you have a problem. New comments in red color. Eager to hear your comments on this one. Being likable is a characteristic of all successful...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
What business books have you read recently? When I ask this of friends and colleagues, I usually get this guilty look of someone who hasn’t read a book in year. Honestly, who has time to read? After 45 hours of billable work + 15 hours of non-billable work + 15...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Love this expression I first heard this in a Tim Ferris interview of Marc Andreessen here (min 6:10). Andreessen created the Netscape Mosaic browser (making the internet easy to navigate), sold it to AOL for $2B, then spent last 15+ years investing and running a...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Mondays 440am wake up. My wife and I have a love/hate relationship with Mondays and Wednesdays because they start with a 440am alarm. Massive coffee. 515am we are at the gym with a physical trainer. Planks, V-ups, Goblet squats, push-ups, dead-lifts, lunges, you get...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Career is not a straight line So much is changing. Interest rates, geopolitics, hybrid work, expectations of work/life balance. After so many years of continued specialization (yes, do one thing well), we are finding that we all need generalist skills too. Swing like...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Consulting is a big tent Consulting comes in many flavors. Or in other words, it spans all industries + non profit + governmental. Whatever story you read about in the WSJ, there is a consultant and an attorney who can help (or at least say they can help). M&A,...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Check the quality of the fruit When you are buying a banana at the grocery store, do you blindly pick up anything? No way. A green banana and yellow banana means something completely different. Depending on your taste preference, when you plan to eat it, and you want...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Hypothe – what? Yes, I know it sounds like jargon, but actually it’s part of the secret sauce of management consulting. It’s more than educated guessing; this is how consultants smartly break down complex or ambiguous problems, and quickly start...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
This was a phrase coined in 1969 by Dr. Laurence Peters – an educator who wrote a 100+ page satire called The Peter Principle (affiliate link) replete with fake data and everything. Apparently, it was a NY Times best seller for 1 year, and is still in print...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
After reading Switch (affiliate link) by the Heath brothers, I am convinced that successful consulting projects must appeal to the head, the heart and the hand. It’s a simple way to think about change management, but it also makes a lot of sense. We all want to...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Podcasts are a win-win-win. 1) Great use of your time when you are running errands or mindlessly driving to/from work. 2) Free to download. 3) Access to hugely successful people giving you practical, fun, real advice. 4) Share with clients, friends, and family....
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Jigsaw puzzles are fun, meditative, mindless, and dopamine-filled. It’s a good way to stop scrolling. Listen to some music, have some coffee, and puzzle with your spouse. The good life. I have 10 reasons why this is a useful metaphor for problem solving. Some...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Gap analysis sounds fancy. . . Gap analysis is exactly what is sounds like – figuring out how far you are from a particular goal or target. Consulting firms do this all differently. It takes many forms, but is super common. In fact, I can’t think of any...
by Consultant's Mind | Team
Talking with clients A reader asked me for tips on talking to clients. On the surface, this seemed so basic – but for those who aren’t client-facing or doing BD (business development) all day, here are some thoughts. As with anything, take what is useful...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
The Financial Times wrote a short scathing article on the management consulting industry here. Some valid points, but clearly a quickly assembled article with a Warren Buffett quote and visual used as a wrapper. If you are going to argue that a $133 billion industry...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Everyone understands inventory It’s the stuff sitting on Walmart’s shelves. It’s the frozen pizzas in the freezer. The unsold house in the neighborhood. The empty hotel rooms and empty movie seats. Non-billable consultants are no different....
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Great presentation It’s always good to look at consulting decks to see how they put together data in a coherent way to tell a story. It is a craft and an art form. Was reading through reddit, and they mentioned this odd presentation from 2016. BCG was giving the...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
What do McKinsey presentations looks like? Please find links to 30+ McKinsey presentations which are publicly available online. Many of these are from conferences, or governmental / non-profit organizations clients who have chosen to make them available online. Yes,...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
I wrote this post 6 years ago. It is still true today. Management consultants use the phrase “best practice” often. Perhaps too often. You will see that magical phrase mentioned numerous times in white papers and research on these websites: Boston Consulting...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Generally speaking, I am pretty good under pressure. This can take the form of final revisions the night before the presentation, or conference calls lined up back-to-back. The endorphin gets going and you can ignore the pain. The dopamine gets going and you feel the...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Ray Dalio is a billionaire, a genius, a hedge-fund manager, and a “piece of work.” He is not your average guy in any sense. He is a super smart, opinionated “macro” investor who started Bridgewater Associates, one of the largest hedge funds at...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Clearly, eloquence has many parts – content, structure, conviction, tone, pacing, empathy, and word choice. Ah, words. Let’s not forget the words. Word inflation. Seems like we are bombarded with words constantly – most of them advertising or loose...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Yes, love blogging Over the past few weeks, I have recommended blogging to several people. (Yes, I know how cliche it is to write a blog post about blogging). In a way, this has been my short-hand way of telling them to 1) invest in their craft, 2) develop a point of...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
McKinsey’s advice McKinsey, in a 2011 article entitled Have you Tested Your Strategy Lately here, makes the very valid point that executives and leaders too often treat strategy as a ” procedural exercise or set of frameworks”, rather than a way of...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Sample size This is a phrase every consultant should know and (kinda) understand. Consultants are in the business of 80/20 rule, and smartly deducing insights from a sample of structured data (read: excel), qualitative interviews, observations, benchmarks and other...
