by Consultant's Mind | Learning
This is something I say to all my students – those in undergraduate and those in executive education. Whether you’re 19 years old or 59 years old, learning isn’t about someone else. It’s about you. What’s in it for me? What’s the...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Create a podcast with a few clicks NotebookLM is something new from Google. You upload a document, or link to a webpage. Then you can select “Deep Dive” on the top right, and it creates a super-real, fun, interactive dialogue between two people. Basically,...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
McDonald’s strategy presentation We have a strategy presentation due in a few days. It’s 8 pages total, including cover page and any appendix the students want to add. The target company is MCD, which is both easy, fun, and difficult. Easy because...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Fixed costs are everywhere What do airplanes, hospital equipment, and full-time employees have in common? They are all fixed costs. These are costs that a business incurs, regardless of how many passengers you carry, patients you treat, or products you sell. ...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun, Strategy
Learning is fun This is something I learned quite late in life; probably my junior year in college. Basically, I learned it 10 years later than most. . . but I am making up for lost time quickly. I think learning is the best; after all, what else is there? As a...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Two hours with executives Spent a great morning. Facilitating a discussion on the topic of strategy. Open discussion, good learning, excellent examples from high-performing managers, directors. Creating a sustainable competitive advantage = strategy. Yes, we covered...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Some people might call this unconventional or “outside of the box” thinking. Being radically different. Instead of optimizing an existing part or process, ask the question, “do we even need the part?” This is Lean thinking Actually, I would...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Let’s talk about longevity The Economist “surveys” are great, and the one on Longevity here is no exception. TL;DR – We are living longer than ever – which is beautiful, empowering, just, and also a financial headache. In the 1800s, no...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
GenAI is kinda amazing If you haven’t spent an hour with Chat GPT or a LLM (Lamda, Bard etc), you’ve been missing out. It’s a super easy, personable chat friend, who is 100% interested in what you are. They are like super-smart, ivy-league interns...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Who wants to learn consulting stuff? Over the last 10+ years blogging about consulting, teaching at Emory University, and corporate clients – I talk A LOT about consulting stuff. More recently, I put 70+ videos on management consulting on Coursera here. So,...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Books are magic Before ChatGPT, before YouTube, before podcasts, before audiobooks, there were books. One of Tim Ferriss’ common question during interviews is “Which book do you most often gift to others?” In a similar way, I asked readers and...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
What advice do you often give? This is one of my favorite questions. It’s interesting to learn from others. The advice is usually pithy and to the point (no book purchase needed). It usually says a LOT about the person, where they are in life, and what’s...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Started golfing in 2021 My dad has been encouraging me to pick up golf for the last 20+ years. But it took a pandemic to get me to take lessons. The greatest unlock was picking up this hobby with my wife – and it’s been a great, weekly adventure ever...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
This is an apprenticeship Successful consultants are intrinsically motivated. We value a sense of purpose, autonomy, and mastery. We enjoy working in flow state and getting good at our craft. Ideally, we get so good that new clients coming looking for us. After seeing...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
I am a procrastinator, so is my sister We both do good work, AND we do our best work at the last minute. Agreed, it’s a weird way to live and something both my wife and brother-in-law don’t approve of, heh heh. Yes, I have gotten better Learning how to...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Consultants help executives Executives have big, enterprise-size problems, and Fortune 500 budgets. We understand the industry landscape, work well cross-functionally, dig through the messy data, prioritize recommendations, and generally help them succeed in their...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Strategy is difficult There I said it. Strategy is about winning and that ain’t easy. They call it “average” for a reason, because that’s the central tendency of everyone. Yep, scatterplot. A LOT of people end up near the middle of the thing....
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Congratulations There are many joys to being a teacher. Watching “sharp-as-a-pin” seniors graduate is one of them. You’ve finished this race, you’ve done the work, you’ve earned your seat at the alumni table. Your paid back your...
by Consultant's Mind | Strategy
Managers ask strategy questions Had a great strategy session with 30+ senior managers and directors recently. Some of the Q&A that came through the chat (yes, John loves chat during remote sessions): 1. Defining a strategy? Q: What are some key steps to take to...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Listened to The Psychology of Money audiobook on Libby app while driving to Florida recently. For those who want to buy the book here (affiliate link). The thesis is simple and powerful. You don’t need to be a MBA to make good money decisions. A lot of this is...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Listen to interview podcasts We can all agree that mentors are great. They have the wisdom that comes from experience. They’ve seen it before and they can save us the trouble and the heartache of their own mistakes. These can be people you don’t know. This...
by Consultant's Mind | Strategy
What is your key takeaway? At the end of each class, I ask that all students spend 2-3 minutes thinking of their key takeaway. This helps us to reflect on what we learned. It also allows me (the teacher) to see if there is any confusion or things to clarify. Since I...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
I teach strategy as my day job. I also have the privilege or working with 500+ students, professionals, grinders, learners, athletes, performers, and winners. So yes, I am blessed. During my conversations, I often find myself relating strategy concepts to career...
by Consultant's Mind | Strategy
This is something I found myself saying a lot recently. No matter if you’re a 20 year-old university student, or a 45 year-old corporate manager, life seems like it is a constant fire. Exams, recruiting, dating, conference calls, student clubs, PTA meetings,...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
David Maister This gentleman has shaped the way I think about consulting, client-services, and my craft. If you look on the bookshelves of senior partners at law firms, accounting firms, consultancies, they have multiple books by David Maister. Recently, I took down...
by Consultant's Mind | Healthcare
Complex problems do not have simple answers There is not a simple answer. It took US healthcare 70+ years to get this fragmented, complex, political, entrenched, somewhat inequitable, and definitely exhausting place. It will take a lot of competition, collaboration,...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
I am a huge fan of quotes Whenever I think of something 1/2 useful or deep, I quickly discover that someone has said it with more verve and brevity. Hence, a running list of great quotes. This is not exhaustive (of course) and I did my best to attribute to the right...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
strategy has been on my brain Started teaching strategy at Emory six years ago. Sure, there were glimpses of strategy in my consulting deliverables, but now I am paid to think about it all day. I am either reading, talking, debating, or questioning business strategy...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Really enjoying ChatGPT If you have not tried ChatGPT, please stop reading this blog post and do that first. It’s worth your time. Massive hype The amount of (probably justifiable) hype on ChatGPT cannot be understated. Heck, my dad sent me a 20+ min video on...
by Consultant's Mind | Strategy
PESTEL and Porter’s 5 Forces Industry analysis is a core part of strategy. Think of Michael Porter’s iconic 5 Forces framework. Yet, we can all agree that the world is changing and fluid. Twenty years ago, would any of us have thought: Disney would...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Clients pay $ millions for recommendations Management consultants are not cheap. Yes, consulting bill rates are high, AND a lot of client energy goes into rallying the client organization for kick-off meetings, focus groups, interviews, working sessions, status...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
One PowerPoint slide a Day I first heard the expression “One PowerPoint a Day” reading McKinsey Way (affiliate link), many many years ago and still find it useful. While management consultants have many flaws (oh yeah, we do), we are generally disciplined thinkers. ...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Not a lawyer So I couldn’t tell you the difference between copyright and trademark (whoa, ignorance), until I read this article from the Economist. It turns out that many famous works are going into the public domain. This means that you can adapt and use it...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Amazon needs to be good at forecasting Saw this 6 page article here on how Amazon has tweaked their forecasting algorithm over the last 15 years. I am not a statistician or machine learning expert, yet, I found the article very easy to read, undertsanding, and...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Yes, economists work for Big Tech Read a short, and surprising, article from the Economist. They shared these startling facts: Amazon has some 400 full-time economists on staff Tech firms hired one in seven newly minted PhDs in 2022 Heck, Uber hired a fifth of Harvard...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
One PowerPoint a day I tell junior consultants to practice making PowerPoints. Read a simple article, group the ideas into buckets. Write a useful title. Have a diagram that helps understanding. Use data points to persuade. This is one for today. US state tax...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Jack Welch, ex-CEO of General Electric To baby boomers and Gen-X, this a corporate titan who’s name you will remember. He led a renaissance in GE, driving its market capitalization from $14B to $400B+ 20 years later. He famously whittled down GE’s...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
STP (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning) This is Marketing 101 for many reasons: There is no such thing as an average customer Groups of customers are not just defined by where they live or how old they are In a free market, customers will always have some choice,...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Chief Financial officers have to juggle CFOs are trying to juggle 3 competing demands for resources and their time: Optimal capital structure Investor returns Investment in the business With the increase in interest rates, I thought this would be a mighty problem for...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Private equity (PE) has outperformed By most measures, private equity has given investors better returns that most asset classes over the last 5, 10, and 20 year time frames. It’s been an incredible run. The names of Blackstone, KKR, and Apollo have been become...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Parents worry about their kids’ education Of course they do. That’s part of the job description. Clothe them, feed them, love them, teach them values, and give them the education they need to win in life. Yeah, talk about an underpaid job. The last two...
by Consultant's Mind | Graphics
One-pagers are super useful Consultant put their thoughts on PowerPoint. Sometimes, it’s for the final presentation, but much more often, it’s for simple one-pagers. These one-pagers serve a diversity of purposes: Checklist of data collection progress and...
by Consultant's Mind | Healthcare
30%+ of Nurses are Thinking about resigning Let’s agree that 30% is a big number. You don’t have to be an expert in organization design and change management to see that if 1/3 of your workforce is unhappy or disengaged, that’s a problem. In...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Final project = Give strategic advice to a company After a long semester studying 2 dozen frameworks to breakdown problems, my strategy students have a final assignment due on Tuesday 8pm. They choose a company and give them strategic advice. The wrinkle is that the...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Create and keep a customer For all the talky-talk about consulting, it really comes down to what Peter Drucker said 60 years ago, “The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.” BOOM, how simple and beautiful is that? Create: know...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
I asked 40+ recent college graduates a bunch of questions. This is their response to the questions: What is your key takeaway about consulting / corporate life? What surprised you about corporate life? What would you like to share with juniors and seniors in...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Great, you got the job, now what? How do you start your new job off right? I have LOTS of opinions on that, but why take my word? Let’s hear from new hires who just started working over the last 1-3 years. Their direct quotes in blue italics. Celebrate before...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Graduates from 2018-2021 I asked some previous students for their recruiting advice. They all went through grueling recruiting rounds and superdays. After a few years of work experience and reflection, here is their advice. You will see their responses in blue...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Consultants break down problems Open up any newspaper and you see that problems abound. Problems vary from the specific (e.g., corporate concerns about market share) to the global (e.g., accelerating climate change). Yes, to some this may seem negative and a bummer....
by Consultant's Mind | Strategy
Strategy is not simple Like marketing, finance, or any large topic of consequence, strategy doesn’t easily narrow down to sound bites. There is a reason why you study this stuff over 3-4 months with heavy use of case studies, discussion, and debate: Strategy...
