In our first "mini series" post I will attempt to delve into what Consulting is. I am often asked just what I do, and aside from listing clients and client projects I usually have a pretty hard time defining what exactly Consulting is.
Q. Why is a consultant so called?
A. Because he first cons and then insults you.
Consultare
In recent years consultant jokes have run as rampant as the lawyer jokes of yore. Where previously I would laugh at the question question: How many lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb? Now that they're directed at me it seems less funny.....I wonder why?
The term consulting is derived from the word consultare which in Latin means to discuss. But the ancient romans were not talking about today's roaming bands of men and women in suits selling their time for $800 an hour. They were talking about conversations, debates, meetings. The consultants of the time were more like politicians and debaters than startegists and salesmen. Consulting should be about helping people, helping companies to overcome obstacles. To help them through discussion and consilium.
So my first answer to the question, What is consulting is simple, its enabling discussion. Its listening but what else is it?
Friday, August 31, 2007
Mini Series: What is Consulting?
Thursday, August 30, 2007
What is On Boarding?
On-boarding is essential to all companies. But what is it? Well, put simply, its the process by which you turn a new employee or recruit, into an effective, engaged and (hopefully) soon-to-be profitable employee.
There are a couple of different techniques. The one most often used in the consulting world should be known as swim or die. Essentially young consultants are thrown into the water in near impossible situations and told to fight their way out or through. This method can be infective but as you would guess there is a high rate of attrition i.e. those who "die." Those who survive however can quickly be relied upon and will in due time become sharks who will eventually kill or simply swim off. They've been raised in a situation of extreme competition, I can't say that I blame them.
Another technique should be known as sit on the porch and learn. The "porch" is usually the term referring to that time period when you do not have a project to work on. If you're of sufficient rank, you should probably be working on sales or thought leadership but if you're not then you're told to sit in your cubicle in read 100+ iterations of the same (or strikingly similar) consultant Decks. Decks: The consultant term for a power point presentation, typically long, filled with too much information and jargon. Highly loved by consultants and highly despised by the executives we pitch them to.
Another option, and you'll likely tell from my tone the one I prefer is called Quick On-boarding. I can't claim that I thought of the name or the concept but I will do my best to provide a synopsis of the principles. First, get new people activated. Put them to work on something that challenges them to step outside of their typical roles, as an MBA student to research some company history, ask a Political Science major to do some Stat analysis. Get them working on something that is in the news. One of the things I did recently is asked an intern to research everything he could about Dow Jones and Rupert Murdoch (this was about 2 days into the buyout.) He did and he quickly was reporting to myself, a manager and an executive about all the work he had done. Pretty soon he was thrilled to be working on it and began working on ways that our company could help either party. It worked beautifully and it served as a mechanism to get the new-guy to talk to a number of people in our group, to prove that he could do something valuable and learn about our work and where he could fit in.
To find out more about the "Getting New Hires Up to Speed Quickly" method refer to an MITSloan Management Review article from the Winter 2005 edition (Vol. 46. No 2.) You wont be disappointed.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
An introduction to All Things Consulting
Welcome to All Things Consulting. In our first post I would like to tell a bit about the goal of the blog and the structure of things to come. As any good consultant likes to bring structure to a client, I look at this blog the same way.
Goals
My goals for this blog are grandiose. I would like this to become a forum to teach new people about consulting, a place for current consultants to learn some new tricks, an area where managers can learn about their employees and their bosses and to provide a system to ask and answer questions.
Structure
First, I'm going to attempt to post on a daily basis. Rather than bore you with my daily thoughts or feelings I'm going to post about particular topics and things on a daily basis. I want this blog to be helpful, easy to read/understand and fun.
Posting schedule and topics:
Monday - Funday
Tuesday - Long-term topics, starting with Globalization
Wednesday - Question and Answer, Merger's Mailbag
Thursday - Onboarding
Friday - Consulting Topics, starting with What is Consulting?
Saturday & Sunday - Book Reviews
