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. Not 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...
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...
