by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
What do consultants do? This seems like such a basic question – and yet, if you ask the parents of most management consultants – mom and dad would find it a bit difficult to explain what their son/daughter did every week. They might be scratching their...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
My students are smart and disciplined. So what happens when you take talent, hard work, and marry that with a strong university recruiting engine and a healthy job market? Yep, multiple job offers Amazing, right? Trust me, I think it’s remarkable too It’s...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
No project has perfect data For the jaded and and road-weary consultants, this will sound like an understatement. In fact, it’s usually like an Easter egg hunt where the team has a good idea where the data eggs might be, but can’t be 100% sure until they...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
As we near the end of the semester, I’m proud of my students and how much we’ve learned. It’s a learning journey full of questions, curiosity, discussion and debate. A safe place to learn. These are 175+ questions that Emory BBA would feel...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Consulting is broad Management consulting is a disparate field with more than 700K+ Americans describing themselves as consultants. Yes, that’s possible – even though there are probably a good number of project managers, contractors, subject matter...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Solving business problems is fun, and follow many of the same steps you take when putting together a 1,000 piece puzzle. Original blog post here. Now the 3 minute video summary: Don’t forget to look at the box; what is the picture we’re making? what does...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Executives are busy. Start with the overall story and answer. Frame the problem so they understand the distinct parts. Do the right analysis, so you are sharing insights (not data). Stand behind your PoV. Prove it. Make it easy to say “yes”. Related blog...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
We listen to music before class starts. This is what the incoming strategy class curated.
by Consultant's Mind | Graphics
Data visualization sounds fancy, but it basically means charts and graphs. Consultants are good at quickly breaking down problems and telling stories with data. Graphs can be succinct: yes, “a picture tells a thousand words.” Lots of research has been done...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
During the winter recess (remember those days as a student?), I read through several weeks of the Economist. Some of the topics that caught my attention, direct quotes in blue italics font. Linked to the original articles. No one will forget 2020 It was a milestone...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Yes, Linkedin, GitHub, and Indeed make it easier to find and apply for jobs. But after your first, second, third job out of college – it’s all about relationships. Even with record unemployment, recruiters still find it difficult to find the...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Good decisions require data Of course. Without some robust thinking and analysis based on data, it’s called (um) . . . guessing. Even if you are not a “quant”, you better be able to explain what a regression is and roughly how it works. Look –...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
When will America re-open? Simple question on all of our minds, and yet, impossible to answer with certainty. Any forecast is doomed to be partially (if not completely) wrong. The first of the vaccines is arriving this week, and yet, new cases are climbing with...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Huge fan of this book. Did a tear-down of the first half of this book here; this covers the 2nd half. As a quick recap, A.G. Lafley (ex-CEO of P&G) and Roger Martin (ex-Monitor, ex-Dean of Rotman School of Management) explained that strategy is a set of choices...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
For consultants and all those who solve problems for a living, we know that “average” is a bit of a dirty word. A misnomer. “Average” is a four-letter word Averages are lazy; shows a lack of effort. Averages are inherently reductive and often...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Recently, I had the opportunity to spend a few hours with 20+ executives to talk about strategy. It was a thought-provoking and courageous conversation. Yes, executives are under enormous pressure to 1) continue to do their day job well (maintain uptime, eliminate...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
I’ve bought 6 copies of this book over the last few years: Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works (affiliate link). It was co-written by A.G. Lafley (ex-CEO of P&G) and Roger Martin (ex-Monitor, ex-Dean of Rotman School of Management) and breaks down...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Bain & Co published their Global 2020 Private Equity Report here in February 2020. Like all things Bain, it is very readable and useful. Here’s my tear down of the first 30 pages of the report: Buyout firms have outperformed Starting with the main point, PE...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Podcasts are a great life hack, a low time-cost way to learn something. Recently, I’ve been enjoying the Goldman Sachs’ Exchanges podcast even though I am not a finance wonk. It has an interview format. The heads of different Goldman Sach’s business...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Urgency “Urgency” is a word that I heard twice last week in separate conversations. And it’s no wonder, right? So many reasons why things feel urgent right now: Economy – we are collectively still stumbling out of a global economic coma....
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Happy 4th of July weekend. The country’s birthday makes me reflect on a lot of things – history, freedom, national governance, community, the future, and money. What? Money? Really John? Let’s not ruin the BBQ. Yep, money, let me explain why. . ....
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
I started this blog in 2012. Now, eight years later, I am starting a new blog here. I will be the editor, not the writer. Started blogging in 2012 When I started a new job in 2011, there was not a lot of work. Our group was not that busy and I was a bit bored. ...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Starting in mid-March, I went on an intellectual camping trip with 226 university students. We decided (a generous expression) to take our learning remote. How did it go? What did I learn? What worked? As with all things strategy, it involves trade-offs and using your...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Small gift. Found a great business resource online, for free, that chronicles 40+ years of business thinking. Written by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, legendary investors at Berkshire Hathaway (BRK). All put together into a book, it is 600 pages long with 4.6...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
I admire Warren Buffett for many reasons. Many people do. He’s a legendary stockpicker that outperforms the market (read: real alpha). Ironically, he also believes that most people should NOT follow his footsteps – but instead, invest in passively managed...
by Consultant's Mind | Graphics
Consultants use PowerPoint almost to the point of parody. Yes, some of us turn it on first thing in the morning (hat tip: FL). Kinda makes sense. We are in the business of turning the complex into the simple. We put things into buckets – and the individual...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
First of all, you gotta love the provocative title of this article from Roger Martin, ex-Dean of Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto here. Big. Lie. Hard to get past those two words. Big Lie. Why is strategy (potentially) a scary thing? Martin starts...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Writing is a superpower Putting your thoughts on paper in an organized way pays massive dividends. If executives can learn quickly from the work you’ve done and make smart decisions, then you are winning. If it’s a pleasure to read and reflect on, even...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Yuk, news all the time. . . Like everyone else, I’ve been a bit glued to my phone – looking at the continually “breaking news” on the Covid-19 crisis. Frankly, there is a lot to know and be concerned about. As I told my students, the entire...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
The fancy phrases are “contingency plan” or “business continuity.” A year ago – if you were mature and prescient enough, you would have called it “scenario planning”. For now, it’s shocking and disorienting. In my...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
For many readers, your are excel professionals. You get happy – almost excited – to create tricked-out excel models to impress your boss and clients. The fact that there are 500+ formulas,100+ functions, and 200+ shortcuts, is kinda cool. Yes, you are a...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
What should you be doing mid-project? Just got off the phone with a project manager (hat tip: FH) about working smart in the middle of the project. Seems like we talk a lot about the beginning (proposal, kick-off, problem set up) and the end of the project...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
I listened to a podcast interview with Kai-Fu Lee a few months ago and immediately ordered his book, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order (2018, affiliate link). Since then, I’ve order several copies for friends. If you want to get...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Proposals are the life blood of any professional services, consulting firm. As Peter Drucker said, the purpose of business is to create a customer. In professional services, easier said that done. Customers don’t always know with clarity what they want, who...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
1. Consulting work/life balance? This is a question I get asked a good bit, so I sent out a survey and 90+ readers responded. Thank you. I asked several questions about the quality of the work, people, travel. See the original survey here. Will include a good...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Before class, I like to play music and get in the mood to learn. This is the playlist – crowdsourced from students – this semester. Gen-X readers, add some new music into your playlist...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Last week, I went to my first Orange Theory Fitness (OTF) class with my two sisters. Not a big fitness person, and yes, I was pretty sore from all the exercise. If you have not been – it’s quite an experience. Immersive. Loud. Fun. While I was running,...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
It’s the end of the semester, so I will be grading 50+ final strategy papers. Unlike previous write-ups, the students have the freedom to choose their company and use any resources they want. This sounds deceptively simple: choose a company, do the research,...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Last Friday, I spent time with two of our case competition teams. We chatted about the logistics, judging, teamwork – but the majority of the time was spent on making killer presentations. Here’s the way I framed the pow-wow. 1.1 Start with the audience...
by Consultant's Mind | Graphics
On Thursday night, had a talk to MBAs on logical structuring, storytelling, storyboarding, presentations. Yes, lots to cover in 3 hours. One area that we went very light on was data visualization. So here’s my contribution. These are from the Economist’s...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
It’s good to have a healthy skepticism with “business books.” Afterall, there are 8,000 of them published every year. Most are banal, reductionist, or derivative (fancy way of saying, boring). Rework (affiliate link) was written in 2010, and...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
It’s September/October, so case interviews will be in full swing for undergraduates and MBAs. More than 14% of Harvard’s undergraduate class goes into consulting, and it’s a great career that gives you life-long learning, good compensation, and many...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Deloitte published their 2019 Banking and Capital Markets Outlook here. (2.4Mb, 40pgs). Times have been good, historically low interest rates with moderate growth. What’s not to like? High-level takeaways Return on Equity (ROE) for Western banks is up to 8.6%...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Crowdsourced playlist. Yes, I added in some Doors, Led Zeppelin, Prince, and Lou Reed....
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Many of you have probably seen Hans Rosling’s famous TED talk where he describes 200+ years of economic history using animated bubble charts and a very big stick. See below. Factfulness is the book. Factfulness: 10 Reasons We’re Wrong About the World,...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Operational transparency is exactly what it sounds like. Showing the customer how hard you are working for them. Think of a restaurant with an open kitchen format so you can see the food being made. Think of Amazon that let’s you track the progress of your...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Huge fan of this book, phrase, and career philosophy. In fact, I mention this book to 400+ Emory students every year. So Good They Cannot Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Question for Work You Love (affiliate link). This was written in 2012 by Cal Newport,...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
This HBR article has a catchy title: Why Consultants Quit Their Jobs and Go Independent (July 2019). You can easily guess the top 3 reasons: 1) More work-life balance 2) Better compensation, sometimes 3) Less internal politics. The potential downsides are equally...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Recently read a 150pg book on personal financial advice targeting physicians. It’s called White Coat Investor (affiliate link) by James Dahle, a practicing emergency room doctor. Good title, huh? It has a matching website, and podcast here. My physician...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Client service . . . Consulting is a service profession, which at its core, means only one thing. There is a client. As a consultant, you do the work, you worry on the client’s behalf. You make the client’s life better. You serve. I believe this is...
