by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Consulting is a career Consulting is more than just a job. You develop a way of thinking, unique skills, and lots of professional relationships. There is no better general business training than consulting. You work with super smart people, interact with clients...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
10,000 hours Malcolm Gladwell popularized this number in his book Outliers (affiliate link). Based on the research of Anders Ericsson, Gladwell notes that you don’t really start to excel at something until you put in the requisite blood, sweat and tears . . ....
by Consultant's Mind | Team
Some people over manage their careers They treat it like a classical piano recital piece where you can’t make a mistake. Massive FOMO. Yes, they think too much about the role they play, how they will position themselves for promotion, and what they deserve to...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Frankly, good writing is rare All of us have suffered through obtuse, boring business brochure-ware. Lots of jargon that means nothing. Read and write a lot It helps to read a lot. Helps you to pattern-recognize good writing. In particular, the Economist is...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
UVA Darden is a strong business school known for its case study method. Like Harvard, UVA uses this method to teach everything from finance to ethics. Over the course of 2 years, the students have more than 600 cases. Yes, it’s rigorous. Darden is known for...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Fiverr.com I discovered this website just a few months ago. The concept is simple, if not remarkable. It is a market where people offer services starting at $5. It varies from proof-reading your resume, writing a jingle, sketching something on paper, or even...
by Consultant's Mind | Team
love coaching It is one of the most meaningful parts of this consulting job. Sometimes I am more focused on coaching the junior resources than the client. Probably not a good mindset, but that is the part of the job that I get excited about. I am not a certified...
by Consultant's Mind | Team
Professional services is about people That should come as no surprise, of course. Clients pay our salary. There is no real “equipment” that we are operating. It’s just a lot of smart people, trusting each other, and working together. Simple. Yes, we...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning, Real Estate
am an real estate investor I have rental properties. Something on the side, something my wife and I do on the weekends. I am a firm believe in real estate as an asset class for many reasons: Everyone needs housing Real estate gives you leverage because banks will...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
When I was working overseas, I was on a competitive intelligence project. It might sound super-crafty, and Mission-Impossible, but it was not. It was actually quite boring. Lots of meetings to share information, and try to piece together the competition’s...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Consultants are in the business of taking messy, unorganized data and turning it into information, and hopefully, some insights. Here is a simple example of excel clean up, and the steps to copy, paste, filter, sort, and cleanse data. For most consultants, the data...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Written 03/15/2018 Humble pie part 2. Elizabeth Holmes charged by the SEC for fraud. So apparently, the deception was deliberate – saying they had $100M in revenue, when they had $100K. Claiming that their blood testers were working, when in reality they were...
by Consultant's Mind | Team
“I do this” said the newbie manager I gave this advice to a newbie manager this week. The manager kept acting like an individual contributor, as if that was enough to succeed. He kept saying, “well, I do this” and “I do that”. Wrong...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
This is a post I did 2 years ago. My new edits are in red color. Management consultants use the phrase “best practices” often. Perhaps too often. You will see that magical phrase mentioned numerous times in white papers and research on these...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
What’s the deliverable? You will hear this jargon often. A deliverable is the final product of a consulting phase or project. It comes in many forms: excel model, marketing plan, master facilities plan, workshop, customer research, or presentation. As an...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Opportunity cost = what if? I first learned about opportunity cost in college. It was a radical idea for me at the time, and frankly, clients and consultants probably don’t think about it enough. The idea is simple, but powerful; resources you plan to spend...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting, Learning
You cannot know everything As consultants, clients know more about their business than you do. Fact. However, we have the logical structuring, resources, focus, and objectivity to do great work. It’s a life-saving skill to get smart quickly on the topic, client...
by Consultant's Mind | Graphics
I have subscribed to the Economist for 20+ years. Solid reporting. Libertarian angle, but with a strong heart. Another benefit are the excellent graphs. Consultants love graphs Executives are visual people, and graphs can make an enormous impact without using too...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
What does success look like? During a consulting interview, a candidate once asked me, “What are you looking for in a candidate?” No surprise, I answered “It Depends.” As I described in a previous post called Finders, Minders, and Grinders,...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
This is the most important thing you need to know as an operations consultant. Bold statement I know, but Lean is so pivotal and fundamental, it precedes other concepts I M H O. Lean cannot be overstated. Lean is a philosophy of management, corporate culture, set of...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Clearly, this is some type of slang, but what does it mean? David Maister coined this term to describe the different roles you find in a professional services organization. Yes, he advised law firms on how to build their practices, but this advice applies to...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Oh, ERP ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning (pronounced “E-R-P”) and anyone working in a Fortune 500 knows what this is. Many people use it daily at work. Quite simply, it is the software backbone that runs most large businesses. In the early days...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Don’t use jargon It is usually nonsensical and a boring way to talk. It is precisely why the British – who generally have excellent word choice – find Americans to be lazy speakers. Think before you speak. You will have better word choice. Less...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Consultants are structured thinkers They may not have as intuitive a grasp on the topic as the client – after all, the client has been living in this field their entire life – but consultants excel at piecing together bits and pieces of data until it...
by Consultant's Mind | Graphics
Bain & Company is known for big thinking This 44 page report is no exception. Bain reviews eight global trends that will each generate a $ trillion+ of growth. Trillion with a T. Look at the concepts below, and you can see this big-think, Alvin Toffler-type...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Seems simple enough Consultants are in the business of making other people successful. Yes, consultants make a good salary, and yes, they do have some power on projects. Fundamentally though, it is not about them. It is about the clients. Good consulting habits. This...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
It’s a late night I am working at 2am, which is actually not that unusual with management consulting. Here are some of the many reasons why a consultant might be working this late: Some good reasons: Time zone change. You fly into NYC from the West Coast....
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Recently gave a talk on the topic of networking. It’s a vast topic that we universally agree is important, yet few of us really excel at. Books and books have been written on the topic, but here is my take: heart has to be the right place There are lots of...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
“Excellence is a habit” Apparently that is something Aristotle said. If we are what we repeatedly do, then you are not “excellent” once, by chance, but by training, diligence, muscle memory, and habit. Anders Ericsson talked about...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Consultants (Keep) revising their work Yes, the end product tends to be high-quality because a lot of smart people have spent A LOT of time on it. Looking at recent files saved on my laptop, I see some with pretty absurd file titles like: ABC_phase 1_02082013 10pm...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Went to an improv theater recently. Had a a great time and laughed a lot. It made me ask: What can consultants learn from Improv? My first reaction to the question was dismissive. After all, improv is about entertaining the audience, making things up, and generally...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Messy processes everywhere SIPOC is not a nice sounding acronym, but it’s a useful way to think through problems. Clients often present consultants with complex processes that seemingly don’t have a start or a finish. They go on-and-on. They are...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
In 2013, PricewaterhouseCoppers (PwC) published its 16th annual global CEO survey. It’s a hefty survey with responses from 1,300+ CEOs across 68 countries. To me, this type of survey is very credible. CEOs suffer from the herd mentality like any of us do, but...
by Consultant's Mind
Management consultants are successful largely because of their skills, tools, and know-how. How are they able to successful do work across industries, clients and functions? From the last 4 years of blog posts, please find the top 50 posts about consulting skills,...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
US gun violence is a problem Approximately 12,000 Americans are murdered each year with a firearm. This per capita homicide rate is 4x that of England and 6x that of Germany. In the 14 days after the sad day in Newton, CT, there have been 242 reported fire arm...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Yes, consulting = PowerPoint One colleague joked that he gets to the client sites, turns on the computer and just opens up PowerPoint – even before opening email or anything else. Like a baker who turns on the oven as soon as he enters the kitchen. It’s a...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting, Learning
Consultants know better than to use the word “average” too loosely. It is certainly useful, but too general and sometimes misleading. It’s a good first step, but it is analogous to a chef using pre-cut vegetables or day-old bread. It’s easy, a...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Hypothesis-based consulting Yes, this sounds fancy, but some cynics might call it educated guessing. Either way, it is a smart way to break down complex or ambiguous problems, and quickly start driving towards an answer. At its heart is the scientific method –...
by Consultant's Mind | Graphics
Better Olympic metrics please As a consultant, it always seemed odd that news reporters routinely compare the medal count between the USA and China – after all, the USA has 530 athletes compared to China’s 380. Seems like the total number of medals is only...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Recently came across a list called 101 Most Useful Websites curated by Amit Argarwal, a columnist with the Wall Street Journal India. Useful, free and refreshing websites. 1) FaxZero.com: This a free PC-to-Fax machine service No registration and it takes only 60...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Happy Birthday! The United States is celebrating its 236th birthday today. I saw an article from Mental Floss Magazine by Matt Soniak called How All 50 States Got Their Names. It was well-timed for July 4th, but a bit long at 5,000 words. After reading through the...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Management consultants are always looking for ugly problems and broken things to fix. After all, we only get paid when we uncover difficult problems and fix them. Clients do not always know what is wrong What really surprises me is that many clients have trouble...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Structure your thinking This is the only way to present your ideas clearly to clients. One excellent tool is the pyramid principle by an ex-McKinsey consultant by the name of Barbara Minto. She authored a book called The Minto Pyramid Principle here (affiliate link)...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Podcasts are a life saver You can listen on the drive to the airport, waiting at the gate, or on the plane. Easy to download them to you smart phone. One of the greatest downsides of management consulting is the incessant travel. The time-suck is enormous with 4-6...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Management consultants need to be quick learners. Junior analysts are routinely asked to support proposals and projects across different industries. The good ones are fast, and proficient with Excel and PowerPoint. The great ones get up-to-speed quickly on the...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
I am an iPad addict. Crazy convenient, and new apps everyday. Always inspired by the ingenuity of app developers. Useful, fun, powerful. Here is how I find awesome apps AppAdvice.com Excellent reviews of app by category. It is well-curated and gives you a real...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
$1M for a recommendation they did not use In 2006, Netflix offered a $1 million prize to anyone who could improve the algorithms used to recommend movies to customers. Essentially, the solution had to beat the in-house software by 10%. It was a close battle among more...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Management consultants are always on the prowl for good data. After all, it is the stuff that client recommendations are made of. To a cynic, it might seem obvious. The title of this post would be a kin to: “Why chefs love ingredients” or “Why district attorneys like...
