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...
by Consultant's Mind | Team
For my last class of the semester, I share a few of my thoughts on life, work life, and generally, how to be happy. NB, n=1. Just one person’s opinion. One of the more practical diagrams is the following. On the left side is formal education = school. It is a...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
July the 4th is Independence Day in the United States. It’s exactly the right time to reflect on what it means to be American, and how America fits in the world. Yes, its more than fireworks, BBQ, and swimming pools. Exactly six years ago, I blogged saying July...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Consultants excel at making sense of disparate, messy, and sometimes conflicting data. This is not a robotic exercise in copy/paste into an excel – no – you’ve got to think through the problem. What’s relevant? What’s valid? Can you find...
by Consultant's Mind | Team
Naval Ravikant is an angel investor, creator of AngelList, billionaire, and philosopher. After recently listening to a few interviews, my wife and I have been mesmerized. 1) What he says makes massive sense. “Yeah, totally.” 2) He’s got a strong...
by Consultant's Mind | Team
In April 2018, Tesla was at a critical juncture – oh wait, that’s redundant – Tesla is always at a critical juncture. Well, at the time, they had only produced 30K cars (as of June 2019, they’ve produced 420K+) and wanted to improve their...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Deloitte recently published Pivoting to Digital Maturity: 7 Capabilities Central to Digital Transformation here. They surveyed 1,200 executives (74% C-level executives, remainders VPs) and identified 7 PIVOTS that can help organizations push the digital transformation...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Recently read The Firm: The Story of McKinsey, by Duff McDonald (affiliate link). Before I do a write up, please find a 16 min video by CNBC which highlights some of the strengths (reputation, history, alumni, 17,000 over-achiever consultants), and controversies...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
PWC surveys CEOs every year and publishes the results at Davos (nice timing, right?). PWC believes that CEOS’ confidence – broadly speaking – on the economy, and business climate can be a leading indicator of actual GDP growth. Seems plausible, in...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
For all of its faults, the United States has been the destination of choice for emigrants since – well – for half a century. Personally, I have friends and family who got their green cards just within the last few years. The US continues to be a magnet for...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Bain & Co released a Healthcare Private Equity and Corporate M&A Report 2019 here. (1.7Mb, 64 pages) Last week’s blog post was on private equity portion. This week, I am covering the M&A portion. Healthcare M&A = $435 Billion in 2018 As a...
by Consultant's Mind | Healthcare
Bain & Co released a Healthcare Private Equity and Corporate M&A Report 2019 here. (1.7Mb, 64 pages) First blog post on the private equity half. Bain & Company notes that “there was significant activity across all segments of the value chain.”...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Yes, you may have seen him on Shark Tank. He is an UBER-successful angel investor and venture capitalist. Famous for his wearing vintage cowboy shirts and being on the ground floor of Twitter, Uber, Instagram, Facebook. Listened to a 90 min interview of him by Tim...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Gift for you – podcast playlist Someone recently asked for a few podcast recommendations (hat tip: JZ), so I put together a playlist of 60+ podcast interviews. Two ways to subscribe: From your Iphone, click here and hold down for 1 second. It will open...
by Consultant's Mind | Healthcare
Yes, US Healthcare can be a puzzle. Or worse, a labyrinth, a Gordian knot. First, I would probably spend 5-10 hours skimming The Health Care Handbook 3rd edition, 2023 Askins, Moore. Google things of interest. As a second step, here is my resource list of 90+ links to...
by Consultant's Mind | Healthcare
Interested in healthcare? Buy this book. Just held a talk for 25+ MBA who are heading into healthcare this summer and told them to buy this book. I even gave them a money-back guarantee, saying that I would buy the book from them, if not satisfied. BOOM. If you are...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
US Healthcare has so much potential, yet, it remains a super-fragmented, inefficient, and often unjust system. In sum, it’s broken in many places. In the fall, I facilitate a graduate-level course where we try to grok the root causes of an industry which is 1/5...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Stanford d.school is the gold standard for all things experience, design, and honestly, cool. What do you expect when you combine smarts, engineering, meritocratic Groove-style culture, VC money, and graphics. So, it I was fairly delighted to find this 90 pg+ free pdf...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Successful client service means doing great work AND exceeding the client’s expectations. If the client worries unnecessarily, gets surprised, or is somehow unaware of the scope of work, the consultant has done a poor job of communicating. For experienced principals,...
