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 | 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 | 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 | Learning
Pre-internet I am Generation X. This means lots of things – but for me, it means that I remember life pre-internet. Yes, 1994 was a pivotal year. Crappy job, serious career angst; but the dawn of unlimited information thanks for the Mosaic Netscape browser. Yes,...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Hope you’re enjoying the summer – full of beaches, lakes, friends, and food. As consultants, it’s often hard to stay “aware” and “fresh”. In reality, the travel and the clients can be a bear. Same hotel concierge lounge, same...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Today I found an old Fortunte magazine on my shelf dated March 2005. Warren Buffet is on the cover – looking a good 13+ years younger – and the title proclaims: “The best advice I ever got.” Perhaps this had more significance to me because I was wrapping...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Managers assume too much We get busy and think to ourselves, “I have seen this problem before, I know what to do, why don’t you get it?” We (falsely) assume junior consultants should know what we know. Silly bias. As result, expectations can be...
by Consultant's Mind | Fun
Mondays 440am wake up. My wife and I have a love/hate relationship with Mondays and Wednesdays because they start with a 440am alarm. Massive coffee. 515am we are at the gym with a physical trainer. Planks, V-ups, Goblet squats, push-ups, dead-lifts, lunges, you get...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
This was a phrase coined in 1969 by Dr. Laurence Peters – an educator who wrote a 100+ page satire called The Peter Principle (affiliate link) replete with fake data and everything. Apparently, it was a NY Times best seller for 1 year, and is still in print...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Geek out I have been using this slang a lot. Many of us who have heard this expression know that it means to become a little bit obsessive about something (usually a hobby). Applying this to business problems, my argument is that business consultants and students...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) Yes, we all have it sometimes. Social anxiety. It’s that nagging fear you that you might be better off – somewhere else, with someone else, doing something more fun. It’s that high-school sense of peer pressure to not be...
by Consultant's Mind | Team
Vince Lombardi For those who don’t know US football, Vince Lombardi is a legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers and one of the 4 horsemen of Notre Dame. Impressive guy. Old School. He had his flaws – all great people do – but when it comes to GRIT....
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Grit Grit is a casual word which means “resolve” in English. Endurance with a mission. Doing something difficult and not giving up. It is the opposite of complacency or indecision. Clearly, people with grit are going to be more successful – because...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
takes more than 10,000 hours. Malcolm Gladwell popularized the idea that people have to practice for 10,000+ hours before becoming experts. At the time, this dispelled the idea that it is just raw talent or genius at work. No, he concluded, it takes lots and lots of...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Stay curious, hunt for the answer yourself Over the last two weeks, this scenario has repeated itself a few times. A junior consultant I am working with hits a simple roadblock and instead of reflecting on the problem and hunting out an answer, they pull the brakes...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
When you’re sorry, just say the words I said this to five different people on Friday. “I am sorry”. An overly curt email. Late for a meeting. Over-stepping bounds, a little disrespectful of the staffing process. Not bringing an extra copy of a...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
“Let me get lunch. I am the cheapest person here.” As a manager, hearing a junior consultant say this made my day. Not because I avoided the task of going and picking up lunch; I do it all the time Not because I was particularly busy that day, and...
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 | Consulting
I recently read a 4,300 word article in the Harvard Crimson school newspaper that helps to explain why more than 14% of the Harvard graduating class goes into management consulting. If you are interested in understanding the psyche of young top talent that goes from...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Two workshops tomorrow: FedEx or print at the office? Tomorrow, we have 2 workshops, totaling 30 people. It amounts to 1,900 pages of color printing and binding. Since Fedex usually charges 69 cents per color printed page (retail), it comes out to approximately $1,300...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
I do a fair amount of work in the hotel concierge lounge. Lots of snacks, stimulus, and a nice large marble table to spread-out and work. Last night, I was the last to leave at 10pm, and this morning I was one of the first in the door at 630am. The concierge person...
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 | Learning
Be. Do. Say. I heard this for the first time 3 weeks ago. It makes so much sense. In the overly-marketed world we live in, there is incessant advertising noise, propositions, and promises. Through the clutter of insincerity and puffery, which brands and people can...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Today I fired my CPA I have been thinking about it for a while. A few things have bothered me over the last six months, and in the end, it was the lack of courtesy and communication that really tipped the scales for me. Customer service is an attitude which makes the...
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
It’s a marathon The hours are long, and the schedule erratic. It’s not for slackers or sleepy-heads. Including travel, it’s easily a 70+ hour a week job. Days start early This Monday, my flight was at 6:45am. Same thing this coming week. I live an...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
So one of my best friends had his book published today. He is a lawyer by trade and by heart. The publisher is the American Bar Association. Yes, that Bar Association. The one that was founded in 1878. Completely Relevant to Consultants If you read through the table...
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 | Learning
Consulting is stressful Traveling in a middle seat. Creating presentations from an empty, white PowerPoint template. Working with a new team. Meeting new clients. Learning on the job. Crunching data in a hotel room. Reworking data that was bad. Yes, consulting is a...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
We are in the influence business Just like anyone who sells services to clients – markers, bankers, consultants, dentists, plumbers – we influence clients to do things we think is in their best interest. It’s harder than it sounds because: We are...
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
Stephen Covey passed away recently His most famous book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (affiliate link), sold 15+ million copies and has been on Amazon’s top 100 best seller list for almost 5 years. It is worth buying if you don’t have a copy....
