What are the skills of a top management consultant?
What is it that top management consultants do that has such a big impact? An impact not just on companies and their strategies but also on careers?
The textbook answer is that consultants have deep analytic skills. They are trained at the leading business schools, build experience on multiple projects, then hone these skills by working with (competing with) other sharp minds in very competitive environments.
The consulting firms add that they combine a unique depth and breadth of experience, having worked at multiple companies across industries, they can bring to bear data that companies cannot collect themselves and cross fertilize best practices across industries.
All this is true, but it does not explain what top consultants actually do. Analytical skills, and even data, have become commoditized. There can be a short competitive advantage when some new business framework becomes the flavor of the moment.
At present there is no one dominant meme, but things like ‘Digital Company’ and ‘Internet of Things’ (the business applications not the technology) seem to be trending up along with the ever popular competition for talent and transformation in HR. You can track this by following thought leadership pieces and even the Twitter feeds of McKinsey, Bain and BCG (try subscribing to McKinsey Insights and Strategy & Business to complement your HBR subscription).
TeamFit is built to make consulting companies more effective (you can sign up for TeamFit here) so we spend a lot of time talking with top consultants and trying to understand how they think about their own businesses. But what makes a top consultant? We reached out to our network to get some insight.
The big questions
Roger Martin has had a huge impact on strategy consulting. We use his Cascading Choices framework internally and I require my own consulting clients to sign off on aspirations. He has also shaped the conversation about design thinking and has had a big impact on major companies like Proctor & Gamble. Having stepped down as Dean of the Rotman Business School at the University of Toronto he now heads the Martin Prosperity Institute. In his words, a top consultant is committed to
Listening – most consultants don’t listen so they solve a problem that they care about; not the problem that the client cares about. Remember, they are going to take action; you aren’t. If you solve your problem not theirs they will not take action on it.
Hmm, that helps explain why so much consulting work, even good work, ends up sitting on the shelf. It solves a problem the consultant wants to solve, not the problem the client needs solved.
Earning in – clients won’t trust you entirely day one. You have to earn in. And accept that fact and get to work. Don’t act like they owe you trust.
It takes time and commitment on the consultant’s part to earn trust.
Roger works at the very top of the consulting industry.
Closer to home, I also spoke with Alan Albert. Alan is the best product development consultant I know. He earned his knowledge the hard way, in the trenches. He was the product manager for Filemaker Pro (I still miss this application, is there a good version in the cloud?). In Alan’s words a great consultant
Asks the important questions to help their client make difficult decisions
Understands that he/she doesn’t necessarily have the answers
Identifies what important information isn’t yet known, and helps point to ways to get it
And a great consultant helps clients to
Learn what their target market values most
Identify the fundamental assumptions underlying strategic decisions
Understand the difference between opinion and fact
Alan is pretty much an independent operator.
Duncan Sinclair is the Vice Chair of Deloitte Canada and was previously the Managing Partner for British Columbia. He is not only a top consultant but is also responsible for managing large teams of consultants. He believes that a great consultant has the following capabilities.
Independent and Objective outlook to a client’s situation
Great analytical skills
Ability to listen effectively to what is said and unsaid
A strong sense of intuition and instinct about different situations
A balance of empathy and clinical perspective to the client’s needs and aspirations.
“Listen effectively to what is said and unsaid.” (my emphasis). Listening to what is unsaid. That is a crucial yet very difficult skill. We will explore what this means and how to get better at this, in a later post, but clearly experience is key. You can only do this if you have listened closely to teams that are under stress.
At the end of the day, it is the client’s voice that is most important. Rita Trehan has been a top executive in human resources for many years (she is now a consultant). In her words, a great consultant
Starts by getting grounded with the business, understanding the pain points, the opportunities and challenges they face and what problems they are trying to solve. There are many other skills that come into play, but I think one other valued skill that I valued in consultants is to focus on the customer and not on what business you may or may not get. Build from a platform of trust and the on-going business follows on.
So people who want to become top consultants need to do a few critical things.
Get experience helping teams in high stakes situations so that you develop your empathy and intuition, so that you learn to hear what is not being said.
Learn to listen. This is the most important skill a consultant can have. To really hear what the client’s problems are.
Build trust. Building trust takes time. You have to invest in understanding your clients, their company, the industry context and how the world is changing.
Of course, you are going to need good technical skills, and probably you will need to have two specialties. But these days, technical skills are table stakes. They are not what differentiates the merely competent from the truly great.