What Are We Trying to Accomplish  Have you ever read an email and gotten upset, thinking the person was being offensive and rude? Then, when you bring it up to a coworker, expecting them to agree, they took the email in a whole different meaning. Communication is hard. We don’t always say what we mean. We don’t always mean what we say. Putting things in the written word is even more difficult. Whether it is an email or a project charter, stating something in words that is clear and succinct is always challenging. What are we trying to accomplish? When a project manager develops a statement of work or a project charter, there is usually some summary information for the team. These documents generally state the purpose of the project, the expected deliverables, and at least a high-level timeline for the work to be completed. Once this information has been signed off by all of the critical stakeholders, the project manager will begin developing a more detailed project plan. The nature of that plan will vary depending on whether that project is agile or waterfall and many other factors. Once a plan or a task list is in place, the project participants will provide input on duration and effort. People will agree and the project begins. Periodic status meetings will verify that the project is on track with the plan. That’s how it should generally work on a large, organized project. The small project Every once in a while there is a small project with only 3 or 4 participants. Maybe it’s only a three-month duration. This is so manageable that management doesn’t see a need or a project manager. The statement of work listed out the deliverables. The team should know what to do. Within a few weeks it is clear that the team doesn’t know what they are doing. One participant thought that he was responsible for one set of deliverables. The other thought that she was responsible for many of the same items. Management lets the project progress a few weeks before checking in. In that first check-in, the team members are sufficiently vague about their accomplishments that the manager doesn’t realize that they’re doing dual work. A couple of weeks later, the manager does another check-in. Here, he has an expectation of progress. But when he asks the team what they’ve accomplished according to “the plan,” they don’t know what he’s talking about. “What plan?” they ask. “The plan I sent you from the statement of work at the beginning of the project.” “What was I supposed to do with that?” Getting on the same page No matter the size of a project, it is critical to make sure everyone understands the purpose of the project. All expected deliverables should be defined and broken down into tasks. The team should decide who will be responsible for each task and when they are expected to complete each task. Finally, periodic status meetings should be held. In each meeting, it is important to make sure everyone knows what they were expected to complete. They should know where their status sits within the plan and what their next task is. This can be difficult to communicate on a large project. It takes a full-time project manager to accomplish it. On smaller projects, it is often taken for granted. A manager doesn’t have time to manage the project. He assumes it is simple and the few team members will communicate and stay up to speed. Because of this, smaller projects can have just as much probability of failure as larger ones. All projects need to be managed. Someone needs to be in charge of making sure everyone knows what they are supposed to do and when they are supposed to do it. How many small projects have you seen fail because nobody bothered to manage it? If you would like to learn more about a career in Project Management, get Lew’s book Project Management 101: 101 Tips for Success in Project Management on Amazon. Please feel free to provide feedback in the comments section below. Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net The post What Are We Trying to Accomplish? appeared first on Project Management 101.

What Are We Trying to Accomplish Have you ever read an email and gotten upset, thinking the person was being offensive and rude? Then, when you bring it up to a coworker, expecting them to agree, they took the email in a whole different meaning. Communication is hard. We don’t always say what we mean. We don’t always mean what we say. Putting things in the written word is even more difficult. Whether it is an email or a project charter, stating something in words that is clear and succinct is always challenging. <h2>What are we trying to accomplish?</h2> When a project manager develops a statement of work or a project charter, there is usually some summary information for the team. These documents generally state the purpose of the project, the expected deliverables, and at least a high-level timeline for the work to be completed. Once this information has been signed off by all of the critical stakeholders, the project manager will begin developing a more detailed project plan. The nature of that plan will vary depending on whether that project is agile or waterfall and many other factors. Once a plan or a task list is in place, the project participants will provide input on duration and effort. People will agree and the project begins. Periodic status meetings will verify that the project is on track with the plan. That’s how it should generally work on a large, organized project. <h2>The small project</h2> Every once in a while there is a small project with only 3 or 4 participants. Maybe it’s only a three-month duration. This is so manageable that management doesn’t see a need or a project manager. The statement of work listed out the deliverables. The team should know what to do. Within a few weeks it is clear that the team doesn’t know what they are doing. One participant thought that he was responsible for one set of deliverables. The other thought that she was responsible for many of the same items. Management lets the project progress a few weeks before checking in. In that first check-in, the team members are sufficiently vague about their accomplishments that the manager doesn’t realize that they’re doing dual work. A couple of weeks later, the manager does another check-in. Here, he has an expectation of progress. But when he asks the team what they’ve accomplished according to “the plan,” they don’t know what he’s talking about. “What plan?” they ask. “The plan I sent you from the statement of work at the beginning of the project.” “What was I supposed to do with that?” <h2>Getting on the same page</h2> No matter the size of a project, it is critical to make sure everyone understands the purpose of the project. All expected deliverables should be defined and broken down into tasks. The team should decide who will be responsible for each task and when they are expected to complete each task. Finally, periodic status meetings should be held. In each meeting, it is important to make sure everyone knows what they were expected to complete. They should know where their status sits within the plan and what their next task is. This can be difficult to communicate on a large project. It takes a full-time project manager to accomplish it. On smaller projects, it is often taken for granted. A manager doesn’t have time to manage the project. He assumes it is simple and the few team members will communicate and stay up to speed. Because of this, smaller projects can have just as much probability of failure as larger ones. All projects need to be managed. Someone needs to be in charge of making sure everyone knows what they are supposed to do and when they are supposed to do it. How many small projects have you seen fail because nobody bothered to manage it? If you would like to learn more about a career in <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/project-management/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Project Management</a>, get Lew’s book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Project-Management-101-Tips-Success/dp/0983026688/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1405098819&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=project+management+101" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Project Management 101: 101 Tips for Success in Project Management</a> on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Project-Management-101-Tips-Success/dp/0983026688/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1405098819&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=project+management+101" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. Please feel free to provide feedback in the comments section below. Image courtesy of <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/stuart-miles/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Stuart Miles</a> at <a href="http://FreeDigitalPhotos.net" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a> The post <a href="http://blog.pm101book.com/what-are-we-trying-to-accomplish/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">What Are We Trying to Accomplish?</a> appeared first on <a href="http://blog.pm101book.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Project Management 101</a>.

What Are We Trying to Accomplish?

 Most consulting work is project based.  Whether a consultant is in charge of a project or simply a member of the project team, he or she needs to know what to do when a project goes bad to help the client get back on track.  In this week’s podcast, we will discuss the various causes and effects of bad projects and how consultants can help a client deal with it.  How do projects go bad?  There are many ways a project can go bad.  One of the most common is letting the scope of the project get out of control Scope is the amount of work that you’ve decided will be completed in the project.  It never fails that someone wants to add a little something here and a little there. Before you know it, the amount of work needed to complete the project is bigger than the amount of work hours you have available to do it. Companies don’t like to move project dates out, so they end up either adding people or working the existing staff more hours.  And both of those can be problematic. Adding people requires time to train them to get them up to speed.  There are other overhead needs for each team member that adds to the project effort. Working the team extra hours ends up killing morale and risks making the team members so exhausted that they start making stupid mistakes. Another thing that causes a project to go bad is when the team just doesn’t mesh.  You’ve got several individuals doing work, but they’re not working as a team. If you’ve ever watched an NBA basketball game, they generally play as a team.  But if you’ve ever watched the NBA all star game, they’re a bunch of individual players shooting whenever they get the ball.  There’s no defense played and the final score is about twice as high as an average game score. When that happens on a project, the thing you notice most is the lack of communication.  When there are communication breakdowns, nobody knows that anyone else is doing. The result of that is a lot of redundant work where two people do the same task because they didn’t know the other was doing it.  Or, maybe even worse and more common, many tasks don’t get done because everyone assumed someone else would do it.   What is the difference between a project going off track and a complete train wreck?  A lot of it has to do with the management of the project.  A good project manager will make sure to control the scope of the project and make sure that any new functionality added to the project allows for more time in the project or appropriate staffing increases. The project manager is also responsible for making sure everyone is communicating and that everyone knows who is responsible for every task. If the project manager monitors these items closely, you can avoid the train wreck.  The project may get off track every once in a while as the issues ebb and flow, but the project manager will jump in when things go off track and pull the project back on track. It’s also a matter of opinion.  I’ve seen some projects go off-track and an executive thinks it’s a complete mess. The thing about projects is they never go perfectly well all the time.  As a project manager I’ve gone through some very boring phases of projects while things are going quite well.  But that can cause a false sense of security. Before you know it, it can get will out of control if you’re not on top of things. You have to constantly monitor the status of the project, without getting in everyone’s way checking status.   What do you do as a consultant in charge of the project?  I’m a consulting project manager.  So my assignment at the client is generally to be the consultant in charge of the project. So I’m generally the one that has to monitor the status and determine if the project is going off track. Although we don’t follow a true Agile approach, we follow many agile principles.  And one of those principles is to have a daily stand-up meeting every morning. We start the day with the whole team spending 15 minutes giving an update that consists of three components:    i.      What they accomplished yesterday ii.      What they plan to accomplish today iii.      List anything that is blocking them from making progress.   This allows the whole team to know exactly what everyone is doing and gives everyone a forum to announce what is blocking them.  It’s my job to facilitate removing that obstacle.  I may not be able to remove it, but I need to find the person who can. The daily stand up is a great way to get the team communicating on a regular basis. I also report status to the client executives, usually on a weekly basis.  In this status meeting, among other things, I report the project in green-yellow-red status. If everything is going well, the status color is green. If for some reason we’re a little off track, tasks are running behind schedule or there are some big risks hovering over us, I report it as yellow.  This is just a heads-up for the executive that we’re monitoring things closely and there are some situations that could cause the project to fall behind. If we’ve fallen far behind on many tasks so that the entire project risks being delivered late, I report the status as red. This lets the executives know that the project is in trouble and we may need them to intervene to help us get it back on track.  What if you’re just a team member and the project is going bad?  It really depends on your role on the project.  The most important thing you can do is get your tasks done on time and ensure that you are communicating.  You have to make sure you do your job. If you’re not the project manager, you may not be able to influence other things very well.  If there is a very weak project manager, you may be able to coach them and help them get the communication going and help them monitor for risk and issues on the project. That’s all predicated on the project manager being open to being coached.  The only thing worse than a weak project manager is one who doesn’t know he’s weak. If they’re open to coaching, you can make suggestions within reason to help them in those areas. If you’re constantly giving advice and correcting their actions, they’ll begin to take offense to it and may end up seeing it as interfering rather than helping.  It can be a delicate balance. But also, depending on your role, you can do things that increase the communication.  You can copy people on emails or maybe forward them to people who need to know what’s going on. Even if you have a strong project manager, they aren’t going to catch everything that happens.  You can help by being another set of eyes and ears for the project manager so that they can be made aware of things they wouldn’t otherwise be aware of. It can be a delicate balance.  You want to do your best to help the project out, but you want to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes and giving the impression that you’re trying to take over.  If you aren’t careful, they could end up pointing their fingers at you for interfering too much in their management of the project.   How does a project that’s gone badly reflect on the consultant?  Again, it depends on your role on the project.  If you’re the project manager, it will reflect heavily on you.  As project manager, you’re charged with keeping the project on track.  And in the inevitable moment when the project goes off-track, you’re expected to communicate that it is, why it is, and how you suggest getting it back on track. That’s why I like the green-yellow-red indications.  It allows me to report the project in yellow and a heads-up before announcing a red status. But it also depends on what caused the project to go bad. Sometimes it can be because of one person that’s causing a problem.  This could be a client employee or one of the consultants. And it can be for any number of reasons. Maybe someone is consistently late getting their work done which brings down the whole team. Sometimes it’s just a personality clash.  I’ve been on projects where one team member just can’t get along with a couple of people on the team preventing any chemistry to gel for the entire team. If it’s one of our own consultants, we can do some coaching and work with the individual. If it’s a client employee, it’s a little harder.  If the client is already aware that this person is a problem, they may have assigned them to us so that he’d be our problem.  But it can be a sensitive issue if it’s one of their people causing the problem. If coaching won’t work, sometimes the project is better off just taking that person off of the project.   On one hand, it’s a good thing.  Sometimes you just need to do some addition by subtraction if the person is that distracting for the project team. But it can cause some hard feelings.  If you have a good consultant that just doesn’t fit in, you may think they just need a change of scenery so you just pull them off the project and put them on another one. But they may take it personally and feel that you didn’t support them enough.  In that case, you’ve damaged their morale and you risk losing them as an employee. But the bottom line is that you need to find out the root cause of the issues causing the project to go south and have some solutions in hand. Otherwise, you and your firm may be held accountable.   Have you ever seen consultants be the scapegoats for projects that go bad?  I’ve seen that many times.  Any time there is a big project with consultants, you’re going to have nervous client executives.  They’ve got this big budget allocation that they’re responsible for, and if things go wrong, it could severely limit their career advancement. So they know in the back of their minds that they can hold the consultants responsible if things go too bad.  They may still have to face some music since they are responsible, but booting out the consulting firm tends to offset some of that blame.   Any final thoughts on projects gone bad?  We’ve talked about how any project that goes bad can affect the consultant.  They can be held responsible as a scapegoat or because they’re actually responsible. Whether you are the project manager responsible for the entire project or just a team member that’s accountable for a few tasks in the project plan, it’s imperative that you complete all tasks that you’re responsible for on time and that you communicate your appropriate status to everyone that needs to know. And when you communicate, there’s a fair amount of CYA (cover your ass) involved.  You want to let as many people as possible know your status.  And you want to document it, usually in an email that has a time and date stamp so that if anyone claims they didn’t know, you’ve got documented evidence of your update. But to really insure client satisfaction, you want to focus more on solutions.  When a project goes bad, you always run the risk of blame. If you focus on how to turn things around, the client doesn’t remember who was to blame as much as they remember who helped fix it and avoid a major failure.    Next week’s topic: When a consultant doesn’t fit. Recommended Books:

Most consulting work is project based.  Whether a consultant is in charge of a project or simply a member of the project team, he or she needs to know what to do when a project goes bad to help the client get back on track.  In this week’s podcast, we will discuss the various causes and effects of bad projects and how consultants can help a client deal with it. <ol> <li>How do projects go bad? <ol> <li>There are many ways a project can go bad.  One of the most common is letting the scope of the project get out of control</li> <li>Scope is the amount of work that you’ve decided will be completed in the project.  It never fails that someone wants to add a little something here and a little there.</li> <li>Before you know it, the amount of work needed to complete the project is bigger than the amount of work hours you have available to do it.</li> <li>Companies don’t like to move project dates out, so they end up either adding people or working the existing staff more hours.  And both of those can be problematic.</li> <li>Adding people requires time to train them to get them up to speed.  There are other overhead needs for each team member that adds to the project effort.</li> <li>Working the team extra hours ends up killing morale and risks making the team members so exhausted that they start making stupid mistakes.</li> <li>Another thing that causes a project to go bad is when the team just doesn’t mesh.  You’ve got several individuals doing work, but they’re not working as a team.</li> <li>If you’ve ever watched an <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/nba/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">NBA</a> basketball game, they generally play as a team.  But if you’ve ever watched the <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/nba/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">NBA</a> all star game, they’re a bunch of individual players shooting whenever they get the ball.  There’s no defense played and the final score is about twice as high as an average game score.</li> <li>When that happens on a project, the thing you notice most is the lack of communication.  When there are communication breakdowns, nobody knows that anyone else is doing.</li> <li>The result of that is a lot of redundant work where two people do the same task because they didn’t know the other was doing it.  Or, maybe even worse and more common, many tasks don’t get done because everyone assumed someone else would do it.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What is the difference between a project going off track and a complete train wreck? <ol> <li>A lot of it has to do with the management of the project.  A good project manager will make sure to control the scope of the project and make sure that any new functionality added to the project allows for more time in the project or appropriate staffing increases.</li> <li>The project manager is also responsible for making sure everyone is communicating and that everyone knows who is responsible for every task.</li> <li>If the project manager monitors these items closely, you can avoid the train wreck.  The project may get off track every once in a while as the issues ebb and flow, but the project manager will jump in when things go off track and pull the project back on track.</li> <li>It’s also a matter of opinion.  I’ve seen some projects go off-track and an executive thinks it’s a complete mess.</li> <li>The thing about projects is they never go perfectly well all the time.  As a project manager I’ve gone through some very boring phases of projects while things are going quite well.  But that can cause a false sense of security.</li> <li>Before you know it, it can get will out of control if you’re not on top of things. You have to constantly monitor the status of the project, without getting in everyone’s way checking status.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What do you do as a consultant in charge of the project? <ol> <li>I’m a consulting project manager.  So my assignment at the client is generally to be the consultant in charge of the project.</li> <li>So I’m generally the one that has to monitor the status and determine if the project is going off track.</li> <li>Although we don’t follow a true Agile approach, we follow many agile principles.  And one of those principles is to have a daily stand-up meeting every morning.</li> <li>We start the day with the whole team spending 15 minutes giving an update that consists of three components:</li> </ol> </li> </ol> i.      What they accomplished yesterday ii.      What they plan to accomplish today iii.      List anything that is blocking them from making progress. <ol> <ol> <li>This allows the whole team to know exactly what everyone is doing and gives everyone a forum to announce what is blocking them.  It’s my job to facilitate removing that obstacle.  I may not be able to remove it, but I need to find the person who can.</li> <li>The daily stand up is a great way to get the team communicating on a regular basis.</li> <li>I also report status to the client executives, usually on a weekly basis.  In this status meeting, among other things, I report the project in green-yellow-red status.</li> <li>If everything is going well, the status color is green. If for some reason we’re a little off track, tasks are running behind schedule or there are some big risks hovering over us, I report it as yellow.  This is just a heads-up for the executive that we’re monitoring things closely and there are some situations that could cause the project to fall behind.</li> <li>If we’ve fallen far behind on many tasks so that the entire project risks being delivered late, I report the status as red.</li> <li>This lets the executives know that the project is in trouble and we may need them to intervene to help us get it back on track.</li> </ol> <li>What if you’re just a team member and the project is going bad? <ol> <li>It really depends on your role on the project.  The most important thing you can do is get your tasks done on time and ensure that you are communicating.  You have to make sure you do your job.</li> <li>If you’re not the project manager, you may not be able to influence other things very well.  If there is a very weak project manager, you may be able to coach them and help them get the communication going and help them monitor for risk and issues on the project.</li> <li>That’s all predicated on the project manager being open to being coached.  The only thing worse than a weak project manager is one who doesn’t know he’s weak.</li> <li>If they’re open to coaching, you can make suggestions within reason to help them in those areas.</li> <li>If you’re constantly giving advice and correcting their actions, they’ll begin to take offense to it and may end up seeing it as interfering rather than helping.  It can be a delicate balance.</li> <li>But also, depending on your role, you can do things that increase the communication.  You can copy people on emails or maybe forward them to people who need to know what’s going on.</li> <li>Even if you have a strong project manager, they aren’t going to catch everything that happens.  You can help by being another set of eyes and ears for the project manager so that they can be made aware of things they wouldn’t otherwise be aware of.</li> <li>It can be a delicate balance.  You want to do your best to help the project out, but you want to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes and giving the impression that you’re trying to take over.  If you aren’t careful, they could end up pointing their fingers at you for interfering too much in their management of the project.</li> </ol> </li> <li>How does a project that’s gone badly reflect on the consultant? <ol> <li>Again, it depends on your role on the project.  If you’re the project manager, it will reflect heavily on you.  As project manager, you’re charged with keeping the project on track.  And in the inevitable moment when the project goes off-track, you’re expected to communicate that it is, why it is, and how you suggest getting it back on track.</li> <li>That’s why I like the green-yellow-red indications.  It allows me to report the project in yellow and a heads-up before announcing a red status.</li> <li>But it also depends on what caused the project to go bad.</li> <li>Sometimes it can be because of one person that’s causing a problem.  This could be a client employee or one of the consultants.</li> <li>And it can be for any number of reasons. Maybe someone is consistently late getting their work done which brings down the whole team.</li> <li>Sometimes it’s just a personality clash.  I’ve been on projects where one team member just can’t get along with a couple of people on the team preventing any chemistry to gel for the entire team.</li> <li>If it’s one of our own consultants, we can do some coaching and work with the individual. If it’s a client employee, it’s a little harder.  If the client is already aware that this person is a problem, they may have assigned them to us so that he’d be our problem.  But it can be a sensitive issue if it’s one of their people causing the problem.</li> <li>If coaching won’t work, sometimes the project is better off just taking that person off of the project.   On one hand, it’s a good thing.  Sometimes you just need to do some addition by subtraction if the person is that distracting for the project team.</li> <li>But it can cause some hard feelings.  If you have a good consultant that just doesn’t fit in, you may think they just need a change of scenery so you just pull them off the project and put them on another one.</li> <li>But they may take it personally and feel that you didn’t support them enough.  In that case, you’ve damaged their morale and you risk losing them as an employee.</li> <li>But the bottom line is that you need to find out the root cause of the issues causing the project to go south and have some solutions in hand.</li> <li>Otherwise, you and your firm may be held accountable.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Have you ever seen consultants be the scapegoats for projects that go bad? <ol> <li>I’ve seen that many times.  Any time there is a big project with consultants, you’re going to have nervous client executives.  They’ve got this big budget allocation that they’re responsible for, and if things go wrong, it could severely limit their career advancement.</li> <li>So they know in the back of their minds that they can hold the consultants responsible if things go too bad.  They may still have to face some music since they are responsible, but booting out the consulting firm tends to offset some of that blame.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any final thoughts on projects gone bad? <ol> <li>We’ve talked about how any project that goes bad can affect the consultant.  They can be held responsible as a scapegoat or because they’re actually responsible.</li> <li>Whether you are the project manager responsible for the entire project or just a team member that’s accountable for a few tasks in the project plan, it’s imperative that you complete all tasks that you’re responsible for on time and that you communicate your appropriate status to everyone that needs to know.</li> <li>And when you communicate, there’s a fair amount of <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/cya/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">CYA</a> (cover your ass) involved.  You want to let as many people as possible know your status.  And you want to document it, usually in an email that has a time and date stamp so that if anyone claims they didn’t know, you’ve got documented evidence of your update.</li> <li>But to really insure client satisfaction, you want to focus more on solutions.  When a project goes bad, you always run the risk of blame.</li> <li>If you focus on how to turn things around, the client doesn’t remember who was to blame as much as they remember who helped fix it and avoid a major failure.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: When a consultant doesn’t fit. Recommended Books:

When Projects Go Bad

When a consultant begins working with a client, he can face significant resistance to the changes he has been hired to implement.  It becomes a balance of diplomacy and change management when this occurs.  In this week’s podcast, we will explore the types of resistance a consultant can face and some strategies for dealing with it.  What types of resistance do you most commonly face from clients?  In most cases the decision to bring in a consultant is a decision made by higher level management at the client.  They see issues with profitability or productivity and want the consultant to come in with ideas for improvement. Those that weren’t involved in the decision making often see this as just an interruption in their daily routines. They often think things are moving smoothly and the consultants are simply here disturbing their peace.  We’ve heard the old joke “Hi, I’m from corporate and I’m here to help.” It’s a similar situation. If you stop and think of the situation from the average Joe Employee’s perspective, he doesn’t see the drop in profitability or even recognize when productivity is low. He has a job and gets into a daily routine for how he does it.  Suddenly management comes in and says “We’re not satisfied with how things are going and these guys are going to come in, do some analysis and make some changes. At best, the employee isn’t going to like being under a microscope and having some outsiders come in and disrupt everything they’re doing. At worst, they begin to get paranoid because many people see consultants and productivity and profitability improvement as management trying to start eliminating jobs. So you can just see the rumor mill starting and pretty soon the entire company or department is talking about impending cutbacks and when the axe is going to fall. About the time this starts gaining a little momentum within the office is when the consultants come in and start setting up “information gathering” meetings. I’ve seen client employees hide information and even give misinformation to avoid cooperating.  I’ve had them miss meetings and we would have to go through multiple iterations of rescheduling. That’s in a scenario where management consulting is being performed. Another example is in my field of IT consulting.  We’re usually hired to write or implement a new IT application for the client.  I’ve seen some employees who, although they hate their current system, don’t want to go through the training and other switching costs of learning a new system. So they find reasons to criticize the new system and essentially launch a negative marketing campaign to the point where everything you try to do at that client becomes a fight. I’ve seen client employees withhold important information or business requirements causing extensive rework late in the project. Most of these projects are set up under tight deadlines. So they can figure out lots of ways to cause delays.  This of course makes the project experience cost overruns.  And I’ve seen it to the point where the project gets so expensive that they exceed their budget and management scraps the project.   How do you deal with this type of resistance?  We try to keep an eye open for it from the beginning.  We’ll even talk to client management to find out who might be our biggest risk when it comes to resistors. Managers often know who within their ranks have power and could start pushing back.  But sometimes it’s a surprise where it comes from. We recommend to client management to be as transparent as possible to their people.  Any time you start keeping secrets from them, that’s when the rumors start.  Something’s got to fill in those information gaps. Part of that transparency in making sure the employees know what’s going on is letting them know what is driving the project.  If productivity is down or lower than your industry average, show them statistics.  If your profitability is down you can show that too. They need to understand that it’s not just about head-count and cutting back on costs.  If there is a driving need for the organization to survive they will understand it much better. We used to call this the burning platform.  The example we always used was on an oil rig out in the middle of the ocean.  If you’re out there on that platform in the middle of the ocean, you’re in a safe place.  You have no reason to jump into the ocean. But if the platform starts on fire, that burning platform makes it more unsafe to stay put.  You’ve got a reason to jump onto the water.  We try to create the burning platform to get them to leave their comfort zone and recognize the need to jump into an area where they’re less comfortable. We also do some visualization.  We have them visualize a world where their job is easier with fewer obstacles.  Where information is more readily available and they can be more productive. This makes it about the employees and the effect a new software system – or whatever type of project you’re implementing – will have on their everyday lives.  This type of visioning allows the employee to see the finish line and do kind of a cost/benefit analysis in their mind. They hopefully will realize that by committing to the project, the pain of change and all of the implementation work will remove some of their everyday pain and eventually be worth it. Another approach I’ve seen be successful is when the client management implement incentives.  That can be in monetary form by awarding people for going above and beyond in helping advance the project. I also have seen clients put people in leadership roles on the project.  This gives them the incentive that, if they help make the project a success, they will be more likely to be considered for a permanent leadership role once the project is in production. This is actually one of the most effective ways to get potential nay-sayers on board and leading people in a positive way rather than a negative one.   Do you ever face resistance from the very people that brought you in to facilitate change?  It’s more common than you would think.  I’ve met people who talk a great story about being open to change.  But it’s often a not-in-my-backyard situation. Change is great for everyone else, but don’t expect me to have to deal with it.  I once had a client that hired us to implement a new software package. We dealt with three executives in charge of the project.  Any changes we suggested for their employees were fine.  But any time we suggested a change in process or in how they perform their work, that just wouldn’t work there. For example, one executive had a special report that he was used to receiving.  This had been custom developed by the IT team with tweaks for him whenever he wanted. The software package had a similar report with all of the same information, but he would have nothing to do with it.  He needed his custom report to be the same. I remember every time we suggested a change, they would shoot it down with a very thin reason why it just wouldn’t work there. And then they would add, “And I’m open to change.  Just imagine how these employees will react who aren’t as open to it as I am.” Because of several other examples like that, they ended up killing the project.  The executives rationalized that the package wasn’t a good enough fit and didn’t meet their needs. The reality was that the executives were just too resistant to the change that the new software system brought.  It would have served their purposes and improved the whole organization’s productivity if they had just been a little more flexible and open minded and moved forward with it. This is common among executives actually.  They only think about the benefits and think that the employees are the only ones that need to change, but changes like this are big and can affect virtually every person in the company.   How do you deal with the resistance from the actual sponsor?  You use some of the same approaches as we talked before.  We discuss the benefits, but they’re already aware of those which is why they went forward with the project. We try to stress that change is going to be prevalent throughout the organization from the bottom to the top. We stress with them, not only that they will have to be open to change, but give them examples of the change. I try to be very specific.  I would suggest trying to find out what is most important to them.  Do they have specialty reports or do they like their current reporting structure. No matter what the person’s level is, whether they do clerical work or are the CEO, everyone likes their comfort zone and doesn’t want to change all that they’re comfortable with. So it’s important to identify those things up front and gauge their resistance levels before you start.  It gives them the heads up that aspects within their comfort zone will change and it gives you a heads up on their resistance to change. It’s a matter of expectation setting, education and a fairly persistent marketing campaign to get them to realize that everyone has to deal with change, not just their employees. But they have to see the value of it.  That’s part of the marketing campaign.  There’s a fair amount of psychology to it too.  You have to balance the right amount of pushing them to change without putting too much pressure on them. One of the approaches I’ve seen used is to only implement incremental changes. A little change here and a little there allows them to change gradually and developing a new comfort zone before another one goes away. For example, I’ve seen clients say they don’t want to do away with some aspect of their current system, like the report I mentioned earlier.  We might suggest, “How about if we implement the new one temporarily.  Then after we go live, we address developing one like the one you had before.” Nine times out of ten, they learn to work with the new report and end up liking it.  When you address creating their old report weeks later, they realize they really didn’t need it. I’ve also seen companies that don’t develop any of the old reports.  They wait until they go live and see which reports actually get requested during production.  Most of the reports aren’t even asked for, which shows how people just get used to receiving them and don’t stop to think about their practical use. People become creatures of habit and just do things because they’ve always done them that way.   In what other ways do you deal with resistance to change?  Well it’s not always about what you’re implementing.  Sometimes it can be about your approach.  I’ve been at clients where we’ve been contracted, in part for our methodology or project management approach. It’s different from how they’ve always done it and they want to go back to their bad habits. Sometimes it’s just passive resistance, where they just don’t do something unless you specifically request it. The kind of work this under the radar resistance that you don’t notice until it’s too late. I’ve found that those who are just not on board, they go through the motions.  So you have to stay on top of things and make sure they don’t slip back into old habits. But that’s definitely the hardest resistance to monitor because they give the outward appearance of cooperation. But in the back of their mind they’re not bought-in and when you’re not looking, they’re doing things the way they’ve always done them.   Final thoughts on resistance to change?  Anyone who has raised children has learned the concept of picking your battles.  If all you do is inflict your will on the child, they just end up being more and more rebellious. It’s similar when implementing change at a client.  They’re bound to be resistant.  Your job is to make sure the resistance doesn’t turn into rebellion. If you just cram the changes down the organization’s throat, they’re apt to just push back even further. But if you implement change in a cooperative environment that takes their needs and input into account, you’re more apt to get their buy-in and cooperation. It can be something of a psychological game to gradually get them to jump off that platform outside of their comfort level, so they can develop a new comfort level with a new system or a new approach.    Next week’s topic: When Projects Go Bad Recommended Books:  Change Management: The People Side of Change  Visual Leaders: New Tools for Visioning, Management, and Organization Change

When a consultant begins working with a client, he can face significant resistance to the changes he has been hired to implement.  It becomes a balance of diplomacy and change management when this occurs.  In this week’s podcast, we will explore the types of resistance a consultant can face and some strategies for dealing with it.<a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Stop.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> <ol> <li>What types of resistance do you most commonly face from clients? <ol> <li>In most cases the decision to bring in a consultant is a decision made by higher level management at the client.  They see issues with profitability or productivity and want the consultant to come in with ideas for improvement.</li> <li>Those that weren’t involved in the decision making often see this as just an interruption in their daily routines.</li> <li>They often think things are moving smoothly and the consultants are simply here disturbing their peace.  We’ve heard the old joke “Hi, I’m from corporate and I’m here to help.” It’s a similar situation.</li> <li>If you stop and think of the situation from the average Joe Employee’s perspective, he doesn’t see the drop in profitability or even recognize when productivity is low.</li> <li>He has a job and gets into a daily routine for how he does it.  Suddenly management comes in and says “We’re not satisfied with how things are going and these guys are going to come in, do some analysis and make some changes.</li> <li>At best, the employee isn’t going to like being under a microscope and having some outsiders come in and disrupt everything they’re doing.</li> <li>At worst, they begin to get paranoid because many people see consultants and productivity and profitability improvement as management trying to start eliminating jobs.</li> <li>So you can just see the rumor mill starting and pretty soon the entire company or department is talking about impending cutbacks and when the axe is going to fall.</li> <li>About the time this starts gaining a little momentum within the office is when the consultants come in and start setting up “information gathering” meetings.</li> <li>I’ve seen client employees hide information and even give misinformation to avoid cooperating.  I’ve had them miss meetings and we would have to go through multiple iterations of rescheduling.</li> <li>That’s in a scenario where management consulting is being performed.</li> <li>Another example is in my field of <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/it/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">IT</a> consulting.  We’re usually hired to write or implement a new <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/it/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">IT</a> application for the client.  I’ve seen some employees who, although they hate their current system, don’t want to go through the training and other switching costs of learning a new system.</li> <li>So they find reasons to criticize the new system and essentially launch a negative marketing campaign to the point where everything you try to do at that client becomes a fight.</li> <li>I’ve seen client employees withhold important information or business requirements causing extensive rework late in the project.</li> <li>Most of these projects are set up under tight deadlines. So they can figure out lots of ways to cause delays.  This of course makes the project experience cost overruns.  And I’ve seen it to the point where the project gets so expensive that they exceed their budget and management scraps the project.</li> </ol> </li> <li>How do you deal with this type of resistance? <ol> <li>We try to keep an eye open for it from the beginning.  We’ll even talk to client management to find out who might be our biggest risk when it comes to resistors.</li> <li>Managers often know who within their ranks have power and could start pushing back.  But sometimes it’s a surprise where it comes from.</li> <li>We recommend to client management to be as transparent as possible to their people.  Any time you start keeping secrets from them, that’s when the rumors start.  Something’s got to fill in those information gaps.</li> <li>Part of that transparency in making sure the employees know what’s going on is letting them know what is driving the project.  If productivity is down or lower than your industry average, show them statistics.  If your profitability is down you can show that too.</li> <li>They need to understand that it’s not just about head-count and cutting back on costs.  If there is a driving need for the organization to survive they will understand it much better.</li> <li>We used to call this the burning platform.  The example we always used was on an oil rig out in the middle of the ocean.  If you’re out there on that platform in the middle of the ocean, you’re in a safe place.  You have no reason to jump into the ocean.</li> <li>But if the platform starts on fire, that burning platform makes it more unsafe to stay put.  You’ve got a reason to jump onto the water.  We try to create the burning platform to get them to leave their comfort zone and recognize the need to jump into an area where they’re less comfortable.</li> <li>We also do some visualization.  We have them visualize a world where their job is easier with fewer obstacles.  Where information is more readily available and they can be more productive.</li> <li>This makes it about the employees and the effect a new software system – or whatever type of project you’re implementing – will have on their everyday lives.  This type of visioning allows the employee to see the finish line and do kind of a cost/benefit analysis in their mind.</li> <li>They hopefully will realize that by committing to the project, the pain of change and all of the implementation work will remove some of their everyday pain and eventually be worth it.</li> <li>Another approach I’ve seen be successful is when the client management implement incentives.  That can be in monetary form by awarding people for going above and beyond in helping advance the project.</li> <li>I also have seen clients put people in leadership roles on the project.  This gives them the incentive that, if they help make the project a success, they will be more likely to be considered for a permanent leadership role once the project is in production.</li> <li>This is actually one of the most effective ways to get potential nay-sayers on board and leading people in a positive way rather than a negative one.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Do you ever face resistance from the very people that brought you in to facilitate change? <ol> <li>It’s more common than you would think.  I’ve met people who talk a great story about being open to change.  But it’s often a not-in-my-backyard situation.</li> <li>Change is great for everyone else, but don’t expect me to have to deal with it.  I once had a client that hired us to implement a new software package.</li> <li>We dealt with three executives in charge of the project.  Any changes we suggested for their employees were fine.  But any time we suggested a change in process or in how they perform their work, that just wouldn’t work there.</li> <li>For example, one executive had a special report that he was used to receiving.  This had been custom developed by the <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/it/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">IT</a> team with tweaks for him whenever he wanted.</li> <li>The software package had a similar report with all of the same information, but he would have nothing to do with it.  He needed his custom report to be the same.</li> <li>I remember every time we suggested a change, they would shoot it down with a very thin reason why it just wouldn’t work there.</li> <li>And then they would add, “And I’m open to change.  Just imagine how these employees will react who aren’t as open to it as I am.”</li> <li>Because of several other examples like that, they ended up killing the project.  The executives rationalized that the package wasn’t a good enough fit and didn’t meet their needs.</li> <li>The reality was that the executives were just too resistant to the change that the new software system brought.  It would have served their purposes and improved the whole organization’s productivity if they had just been a little more flexible and open minded and moved forward with it.</li> <li>This is common among executives actually.  They only think about the benefits and think that the employees are the only ones that need to change, but changes like this are big and can affect virtually every person in the company.</li> </ol> </li> <li>How do you deal with the resistance from the actual sponsor? <ol> <li>You use some of the same approaches as we talked before.  We discuss the benefits, but they’re already aware of those which is why they went forward with the project.</li> <li>We try to stress that change is going to be prevalent throughout the organization from the bottom to the top.</li> <li>We stress with them, not only that they will have to be open to change, but give them examples of the change.</li> <li>I try to be very specific.  I would suggest trying to find out what is most important to them.  Do they have specialty reports or do they like their current reporting structure. No matter what the person’s level is, whether they do clerical work or are the <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/ceo/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">CEO</a>, everyone likes their comfort zone and doesn’t want to change all that they’re comfortable with.</li> <li>So it’s important to identify those things up front and gauge their resistance levels before you start.  It gives them the heads up that aspects within their comfort zone will change and it gives you a heads up on their resistance to change.</li> <li>It’s a matter of expectation setting, education and a fairly persistent marketing campaign to get them to realize that everyone has to deal with change, not just their employees.</li> <li>But they have to see the value of it.  That’s part of the marketing campaign.  There’s a fair amount of psychology to it too.  You have to balance the right amount of pushing them to change without putting too much pressure on them.</li> <li>One of the approaches I’ve seen used is to only implement incremental changes. A little change here and a little there allows them to change gradually and developing a new comfort zone before another one goes away.</li> <li>For example, I’ve seen clients say they don’t want to do away with some aspect of their current system, like the report I mentioned earlier.  We might suggest, “How about if we implement the new one temporarily.  Then after we go live, we address developing one like the one you had before.”</li> <li>Nine times out of ten, they learn to work with the new report and end up liking it.  When you address creating their old report weeks later, they realize they really didn’t need it.</li> <li>I’ve also seen companies that don’t develop any of the old reports.  They wait until they go live and see which reports actually get requested during production.  Most of the reports aren’t even asked for, which shows how people just get used to receiving them and don’t stop to think about their practical use.</li> <li>People become creatures of habit and just do things because they’ve always done them that way.</li> </ol> </li> <li>In what other ways do you deal with resistance to change? <ol> <li>Well it’s not always about what you’re implementing.  Sometimes it can be about your approach.  I’ve been at clients where we’ve been contracted, in part for our methodology or project management approach.</li> <li>It’s different from how they’ve always done it and they want to go back to their bad habits.</li> <li>Sometimes it’s just passive resistance, where they just don’t do something unless you specifically request it.</li> <li>The kind of work this under the radar resistance that you don’t notice until it’s too late.</li> <li>I’ve found that those who are just not on board, they go through the motions.  So you have to stay on top of things and make sure they don’t slip back into old habits.</li> <li>But that’s definitely the hardest resistance to monitor because they give the outward appearance of cooperation. But in the back of their mind they’re not bought-in and when you’re not looking, they’re doing things the way they’ve always done them.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Final thoughts on resistance to change? <ol> <li>Anyone who has raised children has learned the concept of picking your battles.  If all you do is inflict your will on the child, they just end up being more and more rebellious.</li> <li>It’s similar when implementing change at a client.  They’re bound to be resistant.  Your job is to make sure the resistance doesn’t turn into rebellion.</li> <li>If you just cram the changes down the organization’s throat, they’re apt to just push back even further.</li> <li>But if you implement change in a cooperative environment that takes their needs and input into account, you’re more apt to get their buy-in and cooperation.</li> <li>It can be something of a psychological game to gradually get them to jump off that platform outside of their comfort level, so they can develop a new comfort level with a new system or a new approach.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: When Projects Go Bad Recommended Books: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/193088561X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=193088561X&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/193088561X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=193088561X&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Change Management: The People Side of Change</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118471652/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1118471652&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118471652/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1118471652&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Visual Leaders: New Tools for Visioning, Management, and Organization Change</a>

Dealing with Resistance to Change

One of the age-old debates for a consultant is whether to specialize in certain industries or areas of study, or to be a generalist across many industries and/or technologies.  In this week’s podcast, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each approach and discuss the balance between them.  What are the areas of specialty that a consultant can focus on? A consultant can focus on a specific industry.  For instance, you can focus on the retail or insurance or finance industries. Even those are fairly broad considerations so you might even focus on a sub-industry within an industry.  Within the insurance industry, you could focus specifically on healthcare insurance. Or if you’re a healthcare consultant, you might focus on implementation of electronic medical records systems.  A consultant may help healthcare organizations in specific areas like improving operational efficiencies. Alternatively, you can be an industry generalist and focus on some knowledge area such as marketing, finance or information technology.  For instance, if your specialty area is as a strategy consultant, you may work in healthcare, retail, finance, all over the board as far as industries, but you help all of those industries improve their strategic planning processes. Even those areas can be broken down into separate specialties.  Let’s say you’re an IT consultant.  You might focus specifically on internet security.  That can be applied to any number of industries. A retail company with a website and a finance company with a website will both have similar needs when it comes to internet security. If you’re a marketing consultant, you may focus on national marketing campaigns.  That can be applied to a number of different industries.   What are the benefits of specializing? The primary advantage is the depth of knowledge you have in that area.  When a retail company looks for a strategy consultant, they want to know they’re hiring someone who has depth of knowledge in strategy within their industry. If the same retail company is looking to develop a website, they want a consultant that knows how to do web development and they often prefer that they’ve done it in a retail environment. The more specific your past experience matches to what they want is usually better.  For instance, if a company like Home Depot is looking for a strategy consultant, they may look for someone who specializes in strategy consulting with a strong retail background. So a firm that has a strong specialization in strategy consulting but their experience is across a broad swath of industries sends them a proposal. That firm’s competitor has a deep experience working with retail companies, but they’re all over the board in strategy, marketing, IT and finance consulting. Home Depot has to decide which specialization is more important to them.  Is their greater need retail experience or do they want someone who just knows strategy? Ideally, they would get a firm that specializes in both the retail industry and strategy.  And there are firms out there that have that focus.  But it’s often hard to find exactly what you need on all levels. What they’re looking for though is a depth of knowledge.  They want a consultant or a consulting team that has extensive experience in developing or redefining strategy for a large company.  They also want a consultant that had extensive experience with retail companies. I’ve had clients tell me “I’m looking for someone who has done it before and can do it again.”  If Home Depot finds a consulting firm that has successfully done the strategy type of work they’re looking for for a company like Wal-Mart, they know they’ve got someone that’s deep in experience for both strategy and within their own industry.   Why would a consultant want to be a generalist?  Well we talked about the advantage of having depth of knowledge with specialization.  Being a generalist is about having a breadth of knowledge. You do hear of consultants who are generalists who just offer business advice.  It’s more common for a firm to generalize in many industries and many knowledge areas.  Then they have lots of individual consultants that specialize in one of them. What we generally see with individual consultants, whether they’re independents or part of a firm, is that they specialize in an industry and generalize in the type of advice or work that they do such as IT or strategy. Or it can be the other way around, where they specialize in IT or strategy consulting and then generalize across a broad swath of industries. Whether you studied marketing in college or not, we’re all marketers.  We have to market ourselves either to find a job, or to sell projects as consultants. Generalizing is about positioning yourself to as broad of a market as possible.  Take a consultant that has ten or fifteen years of consulting experience.  He or she may have specialized in strategy consulting.  And let’s say most of that was in the insurance industry. If that consultant is trying to sell a project to another insurance company, they’re probably going to focus on that experience as a specialty. If the same consultant is trying to sell a project in retail, their focus will be on their broad industry knowledge.  That can be an advantage too.  They can point out how the knowledge is transferable from one industry to another. And they can sell it on the basis that they bring a different perspective to the table.  They can sell to the client how their breadth of knowledge in other industries would be beneficial to them. So it’s really about how a consultant positions himself or herself for either the job market or the consulting market. You can make either your depth of knowledge and advantage or your breadth of knowledge an advantage. And as I said, you usually see a combination of specialization in something with a generalization in some other aspect.   What would you recommend to a young consultant starting out and debating whether to be a specialist or generalist? I would recommend what most people do and that’s a hybrid approach.  Specialize in either an industry or a knowledge base and then generalize in the other aspect. If you specialize in IT, don’t limit it to an industry like retail. One thing to keep in mind if you work with a firm is that you don’t have a lot of choice. It’s the luck of the draw for what you end up getting assigned to. My undergrad major was in computer science.  So I’ve always been an IT consultant.  But I worked in many different industries including manufacturing, distribution, retail and insurance. So I considered myself an IT specialist and an industry generalist. I’ve been assigned to projects in all kinds of industries, but looking back, a majority of it has been in health care related industry work. I wouldn’t say I’ve necessarily specialized in it.  I’ve just done a lot of work in it. In the process, I got a business degree to be able to relate the business language to IT, but I still am in IT consulting. I know some consultants who specialize in IT like me and have only worked in healthcare consulting.  They’re specialized in both industry and knowledge area.  But I don’t think consultants necessarily set out to do that.  They got assigned to a healthcare consulting project and then another. Before they knew it, that’s all they had done.  I’m sure they could have requested a different industry if they wanted, but it would have to be a conscious effort on their part and their firm would have to comply. There are other ways to steer your career.  You can leave that firm if they don’t give you any other options to focus your career. You have to decide whether it’s a limiting factor or not.  Right now, IT consulting and healthcare consulting are in huge demand.  And I – along with many others – think that that trend will continue for a long time to come. The combination of aging baby boomers along with the Affordable Care Act here in the United States; and the volume of healthcare organizations that need to significantly upgrade their technology systems have combined for an almost perfect storm of need for healthcare consulting. But in ten years after things die down from the affordable care act and millions of IT consultants jump on the healthcare consulting bandwagon, who knows?  Maybe there will be a glut of healthcare consultants on the market and their stock will go way down. Today’s shortage can become tomorrow’s surplus.  I remember ten years ago, they were saying that there would be a huge demand for teachers.  A lot of people went to college to become teachers here in the US. Then, the housing market went to hell in 2007 and 2008.  Property taxes are what generally support school districts.  Suddenly, schools are cutting back, increasing classroom sizes and not hiring many new teachers. So just because people see a trend around the corner – and ironically, it’s usually consultants that identify these trends, a consultant needs to think about the long term viability of those trends. Just one more point about that.  If you become a great consultant and create great demand for your knowledge and skill, you can become glut-proof. If you specialize in healthcare consulting and down the road it becomes a very competitive market, it doesn’t mean you need to get out.  It just means you need to be competitive. Greater supply doesn’t mean there will be less demand.  It just means you’re competing with a lot more people.  If you happen to be among the best out there, you should still be able to find consulting work.   Any final thoughts on specialization or generalization in consulting? I just want to stress the need for balance.  If you specialize too narrowly, you run the risk of targeting too narrow of a market. If someone wants that specific set of skills you specialize in, you can demand bigger money, but the chances of it being a large market are significantly low. Conversely, if you generalize too much, you may not be able to define enough of a niche.  You become the Jack of all trades but the master of none. You end up targeting too broad of a market and no one sees you as a fit for any specific work. I mentioned that there’s a level of chance involved based on what projects a firm assigns you to.  If they assign you to one industry over and over, that by default becomes your specialty. But if you have a certain interest in some specialty, you can request specific training, or train on your own dime to start developing that.  You’ll increase your chances of getting assigned to a project in that specialty. You can also try to focus on employment at a firm that specializes in the area you’re interested in. But I think the key is once you decide on a specialty, make sure you’re deep in that specialty and build general capabilities around that.    Next week’s topic: Recommended Books:

One of the age-old debates for a consultant is whether to specialize in certain industries or areas of study, or to be a generalist across many industries and/or technologies.  In this week’s podcast, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each approach and discuss the balance between them. <ol> <li>What are the areas of specialty that a consultant can focus on? <ol> <li>A consultant can focus on a specific industry.  For instance, you can focus on the retail or insurance or finance industries.</li> <li>Even those are fairly broad considerations so you might even focus on a sub-industry within an industry.  Within the insurance industry, you could focus specifically on healthcare insurance.</li> <li>Or if you’re a healthcare consultant, you might focus on implementation of electronic medical records systems.  A consultant may help healthcare organizations in specific areas like improving operational efficiencies.</li> <li>Alternatively, you can be an industry generalist and focus on some knowledge area such as marketing, finance or information technology.  For instance, if your specialty area is as a strategy consultant, you may work in healthcare, retail, finance, all over the board as far as industries, but you help all of those industries improve their strategic planning processes.</li> <li>Even those areas can be broken down into separate specialties.  Let’s say you’re an <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/it/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">IT</a> consultant.  You might focus specifically on internet security.  That can be applied to any number of industries.</li> <li>A retail company with a website and a finance company with a website will both have similar needs when it comes to internet security.</li> <li>If you’re a marketing consultant, you may focus on national marketing campaigns.  That can be applied to a number of different industries.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What are the benefits of specializing? <ol> <li>The primary advantage is the depth of knowledge you have in that area.  When a retail company looks for a strategy consultant, they want to know they’re hiring someone who has depth of knowledge in strategy within their industry.</li> <li>If the same retail company is looking to develop a website, they want a consultant that knows how to do web development and they often prefer that they’ve done it in a retail environment.</li> <li>The more specific your past experience matches to what they want is usually better.  For instance, if a company like Home Depot is looking for a strategy consultant, they may look for someone who specializes in strategy consulting with a strong retail background.</li> <li>So a firm that has a strong specialization in strategy consulting but their experience is across a broad swath of industries sends them a proposal. That firm’s competitor has a deep experience working with retail companies, but they’re all over the board in strategy, marketing, <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/it/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">IT</a> and finance consulting.</li> <li>Home Depot has to decide which specialization is more important to them.  Is their greater need retail experience or do they want someone who just knows strategy?</li> <li>Ideally, they would get a firm that specializes in both the retail industry and strategy.  And there are firms out there that have that focus.  But it’s often hard to find exactly what you need on all levels.</li> <li>What they’re looking for though is a depth of knowledge.  They want a consultant or a consulting team that has extensive experience in developing or redefining strategy for a large company.  They also want a consultant that had extensive experience with retail companies.</li> <li>I’ve had clients tell me “I’m looking for someone who has done it before and can do it again.”  If Home Depot finds a consulting firm that has successfully done the strategy type of work they’re looking for for a company like Wal-Mart, they know they’ve got someone that’s deep in experience for both strategy and within their own industry.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Why would a consultant want to be a generalist? <ol> <li> Well we talked about the advantage of having depth of knowledge with specialization.  Being a generalist is about having a breadth of knowledge.</li> <li>You do hear of consultants who are generalists who just offer business advice.  It’s more common for a firm to generalize in many industries and many knowledge areas.  Then they have lots of individual consultants that specialize in one of them.</li> <li>What we generally see with individual consultants, whether they’re independents or part of a firm, is that they specialize in an industry and generalize in the type of advice or work that they do such as <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/it/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">IT</a> or strategy.</li> <li>Or it can be the other way around, where they specialize in IT or strategy consulting and then generalize across a broad swath of industries.</li> <li>Whether you studied marketing in college or not, we’re all marketers.  We have to market ourselves either to find a job, or to sell projects as consultants.</li> <li>Generalizing is about positioning yourself to as broad of a market as possible.  Take a consultant that has ten or fifteen years of consulting experience.  He or she may have specialized in strategy consulting.  And let’s say most of that was in the insurance industry.</li> <li>If that consultant is trying to sell a project to another insurance company, they’re probably going to focus on that experience as a specialty.</li> <li>If the same consultant is trying to sell a project in retail, their focus will be on their broad industry knowledge.  That can be an advantage too.  They can point out how the knowledge is transferable from one industry to another.</li> <li>And they can sell it on the basis that they bring a different perspective to the table.  They can sell to the client how their breadth of knowledge in other industries would be beneficial to them.</li> <li>So it’s really about how a consultant positions himself or herself for either the job market or the consulting market. You can make either your depth of knowledge and advantage or your breadth of knowledge an advantage.</li> <li>And as I said, you usually see a combination of specialization in something with a generalization in some other aspect.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What would you recommend to a young consultant starting out and debating whether to be a specialist or generalist? <ol> <li>I would recommend what most people do and that’s a hybrid approach.  Specialize in either an industry or a knowledge base and then generalize in the other aspect.</li> <li>If you specialize in IT, don’t limit it to an industry like retail.</li> <li>One thing to keep in mind if you work with a firm is that you don’t have a lot of choice. It’s the luck of the draw for what you end up getting assigned to.</li> <li>My undergrad major was in computer science.  So I’ve always been an IT consultant.  But I worked in many different industries including manufacturing, distribution, retail and insurance.</li> <li>So I considered myself an IT specialist and an industry generalist.</li> <li>I’ve been assigned to projects in all kinds of industries, but looking back, a majority of it has been in health care related industry work. I wouldn’t say I’ve necessarily specialized in it.  I’ve just done a lot of work in it.</li> <li>In the process, I got a business degree to be able to relate the business language to IT, but I still am in IT consulting.</li> <li>I know some consultants who specialize in IT like me and have only worked in healthcare consulting.  They’re specialized in both industry and knowledge area.  But I don’t think consultants necessarily set out to do that.  They got assigned to a healthcare consulting project and then another.</li> <li>Before they knew it, that’s all they had done.  I’m sure they could have requested a different industry if they wanted, but it would have to be a conscious effort on their part and their firm would have to comply.</li> <li>There are other ways to steer your career.  You can leave that firm if they don’t give you any other options to focus your career.</li> <li>You have to decide whether it’s a limiting factor or not.  Right now, IT consulting and healthcare consulting are in huge demand.  And I – along with many others – think that that trend will continue for a long time to come.</li> <li>The combination of aging baby boomers along with the Affordable Care Act here in the United States; and the volume of healthcare organizations that need to significantly upgrade their technology systems have combined for an almost perfect storm of need for healthcare consulting.</li> <li>But in ten years after things die down from the affordable care act and millions of IT consultants jump on the healthcare consulting bandwagon, who knows?  Maybe there will be a glut of healthcare consultants on the market and their stock will go way down.</li> <li>Today’s shortage can become tomorrow’s surplus.  I remember ten years ago, they were saying that there would be a huge demand for teachers.  A lot of people went to college to become teachers here in the <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/us/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">US</a>.</li> <li>Then, the housing market went to hell in 2007 and 2008.  Property taxes are what generally support school districts.  Suddenly, schools are cutting back, increasing classroom sizes and not hiring many new teachers.</li> <li>So just because people see a trend around the corner – and ironically, it’s usually consultants that identify these trends, a consultant needs to think about the long term viability of those trends.</li> <li>Just one more point about that.  If you become a great consultant and create great demand for your knowledge and skill, you can become glut-proof.</li> <li>If you specialize in healthcare consulting and down the road it becomes a very competitive market, it doesn’t mean you need to get out.  It just means you need to be competitive.</li> <li>Greater supply doesn’t mean there will be less demand.  It just means you’re competing with a lot more people.  If you happen to be among the best out there, you should still be able to find consulting work.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any final thoughts on specialization or generalization in consulting? <ol> <li>I just want to stress the need for balance.  If you specialize too narrowly, you run the risk of targeting too narrow of a market.</li> <li>If someone wants that specific set of skills you specialize in, you can demand bigger money, but the chances of it being a large market are significantly low.</li> <li>Conversely, if you generalize too much, you may not be able to define enough of a niche.  You become the Jack of all trades but the master of none.</li> <li>You end up targeting too broad of a market and no one sees you as a fit for any specific work.</li> <li>I mentioned that there’s a level of chance involved based on what projects a firm assigns you to.  If they assign you to one industry over and over, that by default becomes your specialty.</li> <li>But if you have a certain interest in some specialty, you can request specific training, or train on your own dime to start developing that.  You’ll increase your chances of getting assigned to a project in that specialty.</li> <li>You can also try to focus on employment at a firm that specializes in the area you’re interested in.</li> <li>But I think the key is once you decide on a specialty, make sure you’re deep in that specialty and build general capabilities around that.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/recommended-books/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Recommended Books</a>:

Should I Specialize or Generalize?

Fresh off of the last podcast on reporting status to the client, we thought we would delve in a little deeper with the concept of reporting bad news to the client.  There are definitely some dos and don’ts involved with this delicate situation and we will explain it from several vantage points.  What are some of aspects of breaking bad news that needs to be considered that are different from simply reporting status? You want to reveal bad news the earlier the better.  I’ve heard of people who wait until a planned meeting like a weekly status meeting with the client management. Then they drop a bomb like the project is going to be delayed. Not only did you hold onto critical information.  But you also surprised them in a status meeting. I think that’s the second biggest rule is no surprises.  When you spring that on them in the status meeting, perhaps with other executives or other employees present, they have to react to this news in front of them. I’ve never met an executive that liked being surprised in an environment like that.  So I would recommend that if you’re going to report any type of bad news like a project delay, you give all of the executives involved some heads up so they can be prepared for it and perhaps even have a response for it in the meeting. One other consideration for giving bad news to a client is diplomacy. When you tell them, you definitely don’t want to sugar coat it, but you want to make sure you present it in a non accusative way.  Especially if the bad news was caused by one of their team members. You need to be careful to give them information on the situation and how you recommend going forward.  Whether it was caused by someone from your own firm or a client employee, the focus should be on moving forward rather than passing blame. The goal is not to throw someone under the bus.   Sometimes bad news can’t help but be a surprise.  How do you deal with those sudden situations? Well it’s true that anytime you give an executive bad news, it may surprise them.  On the topic of not surprising them in a meeting, even if you hear something right before a big meeting, I would try to either head the executive off before hand to warn them, even if it’s a hallway conversation prior to the meeting. You also should be able to give an executive a heads up through your risk analysis.  If there is a chance of something going wrong, you should have a risk open for it and have some idea how you’ll deal with it through your risk mitigation plans. But you can’t think of everything that could possibly go wrong.  That’s one reason that I recommend reviewing possible risks on a regular basis.  You can think of a lot of risks early on at the beginning of the project.  But if you consider risks regularly, you’re more apt to think of additional things that may cause problems. Then you can increase your chances of being able to give a client executive the heads up of the possibility of something going wrong. Outside of that, I think the key is not to surprise an executive in a meeting.  Find them alone and hopefully in a situation where you have time to discuss the issue so that you’re not rushed.  It’s also best to approach them with some possible alternatives for how to correct the situation. That shows that you’re not just running to them with problems, but also have thought of some solutions.  Even if they don’t take the solution options, it shows you’ve thought about it and some of your ideas may give them an idea for something they will like. The advantage of giving them the heads up prior to the status meeting, is that when you do report it in the status meeting to the larger group, you can potentially have the resolution to present to them at the same time.  The executive will be on board with it.  It makes you look better and it makes the executive look better.   What’s the worse bad news you’ve had to report and how did you deal with it? I was on a project once in healthcare consulting where the person we had managing the project was failing miserably.  He was in way over his head and he didn’t even know it. He reported the project as green on a weekly basis.  And he wasn’t just trying to cover up the fact that we were behind.  He didn’t realize how bad things were.  He had fooled himself more than anyone on the project. I was only in a support role on that project at the time.  I remember the firm’s management coming in to talk to the team and talking to each individual on the project to find out where we stood and what the true status was. After they had talked to a couple of key people, they realized that we were in much worse shape than the project manager had been reporting. They found another project manager within our company, one of our best, and prepped him on the project as much as they could. They released the first project manager from his responsibilities and then went into the client executive’s office. They explained the state of the project, told him that they had let the first project manager go and offered this new one to them.  That was important because we didn’t say, ‘this is your guy’. We offered him to them to interview and approve. As part of the interview process, the new project manager presented to him what he knew about the project, the plan he had in mind to turn things around and what he thought it would take in terms of cost and time. Our firm agreed to provide the additional hours that it would take for our team for free to assist in turning the project around. Also as part of the turnaround plan, our firm’s president would fly in every other week from New York to attend the weekly status meetings to learn firsthand how things were going and to allow the client face-to-face access to him for any issues. The client accepted the new project manager and his new plan, which included a fairly large revamp of our own team. We learned later that we were dangerously close to getting kicked out of that client because of how badly things had gone without the client knowing. But because of how we reported that bad news to them and how we went about fixing it at the same time we were reporting it, we essentially preempted their ability to come down on us too badly.   How do you get your own firm’s management involved for reporting bad news to the client? As much as I’m a proponent of being honest and transparent with the client, in most cases, I advocate working with the management of your firm to make sure you’ve got your messaging correct. Even in my position as a project manager, I’m in charge of the project and the first line of communication with the client. But if I’ve got bad news to present to the client, I usually work with the management of my firm to, at the very minimum, give them a heads up on it. We may discuss the most diplomatic way to present it or brainstorm about the possible options.  Other times they just thank me for letting them know and tell me to let them know how it goes. One of the little benefits of that is, if the client manager calls them after I talk to them, they aren’t surprised.  You don’t want to surprise your manager any more than you want to surprise your client. Keeping them in the loop keeps them from being surprised, but it also gives you a good sounding board for how to address the client and which options you want to present to them. The management at your firm may want to be with you to present the bad news.  I’m not always a big fan of this approach.  The higher the rank of firm management that attends, the worse your client is bound to think the problem is. Going back to my example where the president of our firm came to the meeting, the client knew well how important it was as soon as he walked in. You just want to make sure the rank is appropriate to the problem or you risk them making a bigger deal out of it than it needs to be.   What kind of ramifications will you face with bad news? Depending on the nature of the bad news and the mood of the client, it can vary. As I mentioned in the example before, we very nearly got kicked out of that client. That’s a very extreme situation because it can be very costly.  If a firm has invested a lot of time and money with a firm, they may require them to stay and fix whatever problem has been caused, even if they have to do it for free. The only time a client will kick the entire firm out is if they feel the need to cut their losses, do away with any sunk costs they’ve had to date and are just willing to start all over with another firm. That makes the client manage who selected the firm look bad, so most companies will try to do whatever they can to salvage the project. I think the bigger issue is that the client may ask a key individual or individuals to be replaced.  It’s often the project manager but there can be other team members that the client thinks are ineffective. In the example I explained before, we had an ineffective project manager, but there were business analysts and some developers that the client didn’t think were at the right level of expertise.  So the firm agreed to replace them. Other ramifications include the expectation of free or unbilled hours.  If the firm is at fault for a project delay, it seems unfair to the client that they should pay extra for the time the firm spends fixing the problem. Ultimately, if the firm does a poor job of winning the client back, the ramification is that you lose that client after that project.  Sometimes giving the client bad news is a huge opportunity.  You have the chance to show them how you can roll up your sleeves and fly the phoenix out of the fire. And if you’re able to do that, you may win that client back and develop a great loyalty from them. But if you just limp the project across the finish line and barely get things back on track, they may not be willing to take a chance on you for another project. As a consultant, you want to continue getting larger and more mission-critical projects from the client.  If they don’t call you back or only give you very small low-risk projects, you’re not being successful there.   Have you ever hidden bad news from a client? I’ve never hidden bad news intentionally. But I have had a problem that was kind of lurking out there where I didn’t realize the risk.  I would report the project at a green status. Then something would come out of nowhere and the project is red.  You want to report projects as yellow to give them a heads up.  But if you go from green one week to red the next, they start wondering how you didn’t see this coming. Sometimes there are risks that I should have foreseen but didn’t.  And that’s what risk analysis is all about.  So sometimes when that happens, they may accuse you of hiding issues hoping they would go away. I have heard of project managers that try to sweep things under the rug, hoping that bad news will just go away.  Every once in a while, an issue gets resolved before becoming too big, but more often than not, you get burned by hiding any information from the client.   Any final thoughts on reporting bad news to the client? Reporting bad news, no matter what the situation, is no fun.  It can be a bit scary reporting it to your client. Whether it’s the fault of your firm or of someone at the client, or no one’s fault, you want to make sure you’re honest and forthcoming.  State to them in clear terms what the problem is. Then have a couple of options for a solution.  That allows you to put a bit of a positive spin on the situation and start directing the conversation to how to resolve the problem rather than focusing on the actual problem.    Next week’s topic: Should I Specialize or Generalize? Recommended Books: Confrontational Communication: Delivering Negative Feedback, Bad News, and Other Straight Talk

Fresh off of the last podcast on reporting status to the client, we thought we would delve in a little deeper with the concept of reporting bad news to the client.  There are definitely some dos and don’ts involved with this delicate situation and we will explain it from several vantage points. <ol> <li>What are some of aspects of breaking bad news that needs to be considered that are different from simply reporting status? <ol> <li>You want to reveal bad news the earlier the better.  I’ve heard of people who wait until a planned meeting like a weekly status meeting with the client management.</li> <li>Then they drop a bomb like the project is going to be delayed. Not only did you hold onto critical information.  But you also surprised them in a status meeting.</li> <li>I think that’s the second biggest rule is no surprises.  When you spring that on them in the status meeting, perhaps with other executives or other employees present, they have to react to this news in front of them.</li> <li>I’ve never met an executive that liked being surprised in an environment like that.  So I would recommend that if you’re going to report any type of bad news like a project delay, you give all of the executives involved some heads up so they can be prepared for it and perhaps even have a response for it in the meeting.</li> <li>One other consideration for giving bad news to a client is diplomacy. When you tell them, you definitely don’t want to sugar coat it, but you want to make sure you present it in a non accusative way.  Especially if the bad news was caused by one of their team members.</li> <li>You need to be careful to give them information on the situation and how you recommend going forward.  Whether it was caused by someone from your own firm or a client employee, the focus should be on moving forward rather than passing blame.</li> <li>The goal is not to throw someone under the bus.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Sometimes bad news can’t help but be a surprise.  How do you deal with those sudden situations? <ol> <li>Well it’s true that anytime you give an executive bad news, it may surprise them.  On the topic of not surprising them in a meeting, even if you hear something right before a big meeting, I would try to either head the executive off before hand to warn them, even if it’s a hallway conversation prior to the meeting.</li> <li>You also should be able to give an executive a heads up through your risk analysis.  If there is a chance of something going wrong, you should have a risk open for it and have some idea how you’ll deal with it through your risk mitigation plans.</li> <li>But you can’t think of everything that could possibly go wrong.  That’s one reason that I recommend reviewing possible risks on a regular basis.  You can think of a lot of risks early on at the beginning of the project.  But if you consider risks regularly, you’re more apt to think of additional things that may cause problems.</li> <li>Then you can increase your chances of being able to give a client executive the heads up of the possibility of something going wrong.</li> <li>Outside of that, I think the key is not to surprise an executive in a meeting.  Find them alone and hopefully in a situation where you have time to discuss the issue so that you’re not rushed.  It’s also best to approach them with some possible alternatives for how to correct the situation.</li> <li>That shows that you’re not just running to them with problems, but also have thought of some solutions.  Even if they don’t take the solution options, it shows you’ve thought about it and some of your ideas may give them an idea for something they will like.</li> <li>The advantage of giving them the heads up prior to the status meeting, is that when you do report it in the status meeting to the larger group, you can potentially have the resolution to present to them at the same time.  The executive will be on board with it.  It makes you look better and it makes the executive look better.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What’s the worse bad news you’ve had to report and how did you deal with it? <ol> <li>I was on a project once in healthcare consulting where the person we had managing the project was failing miserably.  He was in way over his head and he didn’t even know it.</li> <li>He reported the project as green on a weekly basis.  And he wasn’t just trying to cover up the fact that we were behind.  He didn’t realize how bad things were.  He had fooled himself more than anyone on the project.</li> <li>I was only in a support role on that project at the time.  I remember the firm’s management coming in to talk to the team and talking to each individual on the project to find out where we stood and what the true status was.</li> <li>After they had talked to a couple of key people, they realized that we were in much worse shape than the project manager had been reporting.</li> <li>They found another project manager within our company, one of our best, and prepped him on the project as much as they could.</li> <li>They released the first project manager from his responsibilities and then went into the client executive’s office.</li> <li>They explained the state of the project, told him that they had let the first project manager go and offered this new one to them.  That was important because we didn’t say, ‘this is your guy’. We offered him to them to interview and approve.</li> <li>As part of the interview process, the new project manager presented to him what he knew about the project, the plan he had in mind to turn things around and what he thought it would take in terms of cost and time.</li> <li>Our firm agreed to provide the additional hours that it would take for our team for free to assist in turning the project around.</li> <li>Also as part of the turnaround plan, our firm’s president would fly in every other week from <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/new-york/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">New York</a> to attend the weekly status meetings to learn firsthand how things were going and to allow the client face-to-face access to him for any issues.</li> <li>The client accepted the new project manager and his new plan, which included a fairly large revamp of our own team.</li> <li>We learned later that we were dangerously close to getting kicked out of that client because of how badly things had gone without the client knowing.</li> <li>But because of how we reported that bad news to them and how we went about fixing it at the same time we were reporting it, we essentially preempted their ability to come down on us too badly.</li> </ol> </li> <li>How do you get your own firm’s management involved for reporting bad news to the client? <ol> <li>As much as I’m a proponent of being honest and transparent with the client, in most cases, I advocate working with the management of your firm to make sure you’ve got your messaging correct.</li> <li>Even in my position as a project manager, I’m in charge of the project and the first line of communication with the client.</li> <li>But if I’ve got bad news to present to the client, I usually work with the management of my firm to, at the very minimum, give them a heads up on it.</li> <li>We may discuss the most diplomatic way to present it or brainstorm about the possible options.  Other times they just thank me for letting them know and tell me to let them know how it goes.</li> <li>One of the little benefits of that is, if the client manager calls them after I talk to them, they aren’t surprised.  You don’t want to surprise your manager any more than you want to surprise your client.</li> <li>Keeping them in the loop keeps them from being surprised, but it also gives you a good sounding board for how to address the client and which options you want to present to them.</li> <li>The management at your firm may want to be with you to present the bad news.  I’m not always a big fan of this approach.  The higher the rank of firm management that attends, the worse your client is bound to think the problem is.</li> <li>Going back to my example where the president of our firm came to the meeting, the client knew well how important it was as soon as he walked in.</li> <li>You just want to make sure the rank is appropriate to the problem or you risk them making a bigger deal out of it than it needs to be.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What kind of ramifications will you face with bad news? <ol> <li>Depending on the nature of the bad news and the mood of the client, it can vary. As I mentioned in the example before, we very nearly got kicked out of that client.</li> <li>That’s a very extreme situation because it can be very costly.  If a firm has invested a lot of time and money with a firm, they may require them to stay and fix whatever problem has been caused, even if they have to do it for free.</li> <li>The only time a client will kick the entire firm out is if they feel the need to cut their losses, do away with any sunk costs they’ve had to date and are just willing to start all over with another firm.</li> <li>That makes the client manage who selected the firm look bad, so most companies will try to do whatever they can to salvage the project.</li> <li>I think the bigger issue is that the client may ask a key individual or individuals to be replaced.  It’s often the project manager but there can be other team members that the client thinks are ineffective.</li> <li>In the example I explained before, we had an ineffective project manager, but there were business analysts and some developers that the client didn’t think were at the right level of expertise.  So the firm agreed to replace them.</li> <li>Other ramifications include the expectation of free or unbilled hours.  If the firm is at fault for a project delay, it seems unfair to the client that they should pay extra for the time the firm spends fixing the problem.</li> <li>Ultimately, if the firm does a poor job of winning the client back, the ramification is that you lose that client after that project.  Sometimes giving the client bad news is a huge opportunity.  You have the chance to show them how you can roll up your sleeves and fly the phoenix out of the fire.</li> <li>And if you’re able to do that, you may win that client back and develop a great loyalty from them.</li> <li>But if you just limp the project across the finish line and barely get things back on track, they may not be willing to take a chance on you for another project.</li> <li>As a consultant, you want to continue getting larger and more mission-critical projects from the client.  If they don’t call you back or only give you very small low-risk projects, you’re not being successful there.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Have you ever hidden bad news from a client? <ol> <li>I’ve never hidden bad news intentionally. But I have had a problem that was kind of lurking out there where I didn’t realize the risk.  I would report the project at a green status.</li> <li>Then something would come out of nowhere and the project is red.  You want to report projects as yellow to give them a heads up.  But if you go from green one week to red the next, they start wondering how you didn’t see this coming.</li> <li>Sometimes there are risks that I should have foreseen but didn’t.  And that’s what risk analysis is all about.  So sometimes when that happens, they may accuse you of hiding issues hoping they would go away.</li> <li>I have heard of project managers that try to sweep things under the rug, hoping that bad news will just go away.  Every once in a while, an issue gets resolved before becoming too big, but more often than not, you get burned by hiding any information from the client.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any final thoughts on reporting bad news to the client? <ol> <li>Reporting bad news, no matter what the situation, is no fun.  It can be a bit scary reporting it to your client.</li> <li>Whether it’s the fault of your firm or of someone at the client, or no one’s fault, you want to make sure you’re honest and forthcoming.  State to them in clear terms what the problem is.</li> <li>Then have a couple of options for a solution.  That allows you to put a bit of a positive spin on the situation and start directing the conversation to how to resolve the problem rather than focusing on the actual problem.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/specialize-or-generalize/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Should I Specialize or Generalize?</a> Recommended Books: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CTLYD2O/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00CTLYD2O&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Confrontational Communication: Delivering Negative Feedback, Bad News, and Other Straight Talk</a>

Reporting Bad News to the Client

One of the critical skills a consultant must have is the ability to communicate.  Those skills are put to the test frequently, but rarely as much as when the consultant reports project status to the client.  This week we will discuss some of the specific approaches a consultant should use when reporting status to the client.  What does a consultant need to be aware of when reporting status to a client? First of all, they need to have the ability to summarize.  In most cases, you’re talking to an executive, or at least a high level manager.  Although some may be detail people and want to get into the weeds, for the most part, they’re most interested in high level status. They are in a much more strategic situation where the project the consultant is reporting on is one of the tactical aspects of their grand strategic approach So it’s important to provide them a status based on how the project is progressing from their strategic perspective – based on how it affects them. They want to know how it affects their strategic direction. In addition to that, you want to make sure you talk in their terms.  That can apply to using the industry terms that they use.  I was just in a meeting recently where we were talking about health insurance.  Someone used a term and the project management consultant asked what the difference was between that term and another she had heard. The client manager answered that they’re essentially synonymous, but that he used the other term.  That prompted a mental note that we should use his term moving forward. Speaking in their terms also applies to their preferences for any other terminology.  You may refer to a project’s utilization referring to how many hours are being used to date on the project.  The client may call it burn-down.  It’s important to use their term to make sure they understand what you’re talking about. Finally, related to talking to them in more strategic terms, most status reports list accomplishments from the past week and tasks planned for the following week. In order to make it meaningful for the client manager, do not just list tasks completed.  You need to think in terms of what it means to them. For example, early in my career, I managed projects based on a Microsoft Project plan and any tasks in the plan that were finished by Friday, I listed in the accomplishments for the week.  I did the same for any tasks in the plan that I planned on completing by the next Friday. I sat down with the client manager in the status meeting and went through all these great accomplishments and he turned to me and rather bluntly asked “What the hell does that mean to me?” I was a little dumbfounded.  Well these are tasks in the project plan that we accomplished.  I even started to bring up the project plan in my laptop to show him. He was quick to explain to me that he wasn’t interested in reading a Microsoft Project plan.  He said, “That’s your tool to manage the project.  You need to translate what the accomplishment of these tasks means to me as far as project completion.  If John Smith finishes a programming task, how much closer are we to finishing the project?  Or, does it mean he can deploy that code for our users to start using it?” It opened my eyes to the purpose of the status meeting.  I wasn’t just regurgitating facts and tactical accomplishments.  I needed to tell him how our accomplishments translate to value to him.   How is it different than reporting status within any other company? Many of the differences are subtle.  If you work for the company that you’re reporting status to – instead of reporting as a consulting outsider – you want to consider those aspects of the status reporting. Consultants are supposed to be in the trusted advisor status.  If they aren’t, that’s what they should be striving towards. So the consultant is expected to be speaking and reporting status to the client executive as a peer.  And part of that is raising their view by a level or two to say “This is what was accomplished this past week, and this is what it means to you.” Also, as a consultant, you may be more likely to report to a steering committee level, which is usually comprised of higher level stakeholders.  This audience has no interest in the weeds of the project. What it really comes down to is knowing your audience and what they need to know in order to make decisions. So the difference is from a consultant reporting status and a project manager within their own company is often the audience that they usually report to.   What are the pitfalls of reporting status to the client? You’re an outsider at the client looking in.  This gives you a third-party view of the project and the client.  But it also can put you in the middle of their politics and blame. For instance, if you are reporting status and there have been significant delays by one group of people at the client, you need to come up with a way to communicate that without throwing that group under the bus. You want to make sure that group is aware of the status you’re reporting and that you are diplomatic about it.  You don’t want to sugarcoat the issue, but you can’t just say “This group screwed everything up”. You also want to give that group a heads up to say, I have to report this delay and I’ll be listing this as one of the root causes.  In some cases, this will give someone in a political organization just enough ammunition to deflect the blame – and they may direct it back at you as the consultant. Part of your preparation is being aware of that and being ready for it if and when it comes. But as a consultant, hopefully one of the reasons they chose an outside firm is for some objectivity.  If something is wrong, you need to diplomatically call it out.  Consultants need to be transparent and honest with the client on  the status. Peter Lencioni calls it speaking the kind truth.  That’s actually a big consulting skill of being able to tell it like it is without being accusative or making unnecessary waves.  And I stress unnecessary.  Sometimes you have to make waves to point things out, you just don’t want to do it unless it’s warranted. One final point about this is that executives don’t like to be surprised.  Status meetings are not the right place to spring things on executives. I like to use the Red-Yellow-Green approach for, not only the status of the project but of some other major components. I usually give a red-yellow-green status on budget, staffing and dependencies.  That way if the project is yellow or red, it helps to show where that is coming from. And getting away from the surprises, it’s important to call out a yellow when it’s necessary.  Too many people avoid the yellow hoping it gets better.  Then after, say, two weeks of green, it’s suddenly red, which is a surprise to the executive.   Do you prefer a specific format when you report to the client? I have a specific format that I use, but it’s more about the various pieces of information that I report.  If a client has a format that they prefer, I don’t have a problem with it. I just want to make sure it reports the status accurately so that it’s understandable to all of the stakeholders receiving the status. If they have a preferred status and it’s missing a key piece of information – for instance there’s no section to report the current risks of the project, I’ll ask if we can either add the section to the report, or at least figure out how we can communicate that information within their preferred parameters. I’ve found that both clients and consultants get hung up a little too much on formats and templates.  What they need to do is step back and realize that the status report and the status meeting are tools to communicate the status of a project up to the client’s executive stakeholders. And as long as you’re performing that communication and getting the right information across, you’re doing what you need to be doing.  The tool is just a container for the information – the information is the key component.   What are the key inputs that you make sure to include? I like to start with a red yellow green indicator.  (some people call them RAG indicators for red, amber and green) That’s an easy visual that the executive can look at and immediately know the general status before reading anything. You can do that for the whole project or my preference is to break it down.  I have red-yellow-green indicators for the schedule, resources and dependencies.  That way the executive can see immediately where the problem is if you have a yellow or red. The next section I have is an executive summary.  Again, I break it down by schedule, resources and dependencies so that if there’s a yellow or red, there’s an immediate explanation for the cause of that. Now one thing about the yellow and red.  Yellow should be used when there are big risks that need to be discussed that could cause project delays or additional costs to the project. I’m a little quicker to go to yellow than most, but I always want to avoid hiding any potential issues and I never want to surprise the executive.  Some people try to avoid yellow because it can just bring undue attention to a project that’s not late. You want to make sure you’re not always saying that the sky is falling, but the yellow is a warning sign and you need to make sure you’re warning them appropriately. For the red status, if anything has caused the project to fall behind schedule or if certain resources are pulled way or haven’t been assigned yet, I’m not afraid to set it to red and tell them we’re in trouble.  You should always have a plan for how you’ll pull it out of red, but you never want to hide true issues to the project. That’s the most important section.  After that, you provide information that supports that section.  I list the accomplishments over the last week – as I mentioned earlier, not just tasks completed, but true accomplishments that show we’re making progress.  I also list our major goals for the upcoming week. Then I list all of the project risks and issue that the executive needs to be aware of.  I don’t provide every risk and issue in the log, just the ones that should be on their radar. Then I list any change requests that have been approved or suggested. You should be able to get all of this information in two pages.  If it’s a huge project with a lot of risks and issues and changes, you may go over that, but in most cases I try to keep it to two pages.   What is the ultimate goal of a status report to the client? Visibility and transparency.  Many times, this is the executive’s only access to the status of the project.  You need to make sure they know exactly where the project stands and what they need to do. And that may be difficult because sometimes you have to tell them that you screwed up.  Some project managers try to hide things and just report that everything is fine.  Then when it gets so out of hand, you report red without any reportings of yellow. With that in mind you need to make sure the executive and any of the interested stakeholders attend the status meeting.  I’ve been on projects where the executive has so many meetings throughout each day, that they bow out of the status meetings. You need to at least make sure they read the status report and they should attend the meeting.  That’s sometimes easier said than done though.   Any final thoughts on reporting status to the client? One thing you want to do is avoid surprises.  Yellow should be a warning before you report a red status.  There are situations where things happen that cause a project to go from green to red in one week. When that does happen, they should not find out in the meeting or when the status is emailed to them right before the meeting. It’s important to get the executives involved so that they’re informed prior to the meeting that they’re facing a red status for the project. So the more communication you can do the better.  You don’t get anywhere hiding information from the executive, so make sure you’re clear and informative and don’t give them any undue surprises.    Next week’s topic: Reporting Bad News to the Client Recommended Books: The Lost Art of Project Status Reporting, by Thomas Ghantt http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Project-Status-Reporting-ebook/dp/B00ATGA1X6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1359669258&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=status+reporting

One of the critical skills a consultant must have is the ability to communicate.  Those skills are put to the test frequently, but rarely as much as when the consultant reports project status to the client.  This week we will discuss some of the specific approaches a consultant should use when reporting status to the client. <ol> <li>What does a consultant need to be aware of when reporting status to a client? <ol> <li>First of all, they need to have the ability to summarize.  In most cases, you’re talking to an executive, or at least a high level manager.  Although some may be detail people and want to get into the weeds, for the most part, they’re most interested in high level status.</li> <li>They are in a much more strategic situation where the project the consultant is reporting on is one of the tactical aspects of their grand strategic approach</li> <li>So it’s important to provide them a status based on how the project is progressing from their strategic perspective – based on how it affects them. They want to know how it affects their strategic direction.</li> <li>In addition to that, you want to make sure you talk in their terms.  That can apply to using the industry terms that they use.  I was just in a meeting recently where we were talking about health insurance.  Someone used a term and the project management consultant asked what the difference was between that term and another she had heard.</li> <li>The client manager answered that they’re essentially synonymous, but that he used the other term.  That prompted a mental note that we should use his term moving forward.</li> <li>Speaking in their terms also applies to their preferences for any other terminology.  You may refer to a project’s utilization referring to how many hours are being used to date on the project.  The client may call it burn-down.  It’s important to use their term to make sure they understand what you’re talking about.</li> <li>Finally, related to talking to them in more strategic terms, most status reports list accomplishments from the past week and tasks planned for the following week.</li> <li>In order to make it meaningful for the client manager, do not just list tasks completed.  You need to think in terms of what it means to them.</li> <li>For example, early in my career, I managed projects based on a <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/microsoft-project/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Microsoft Project</a> plan and any tasks in the plan that were finished by Friday, I listed in the accomplishments for the week.  I did the same for any tasks in the plan that I planned on completing by the next Friday.</li> <li>I sat down with the client manager in the status meeting and went through all these great accomplishments and he turned to me and rather bluntly asked “What the hell does that mean to me?”</li> <li>I was a little dumbfounded.  Well these are tasks in the project plan that we accomplished.  I even started to bring up the project plan in my laptop to show him.</li> <li>He was quick to explain to me that he wasn’t interested in reading a <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/microsoft-project/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Microsoft Project</a> plan.  He said, “That’s your tool to manage the project.  You need to translate what the accomplishment of these tasks means to me as far as project completion.  If John Smith finishes a programming task, how much closer are we to finishing the project?  Or, does it mean he can deploy that code for our users to start using it?”</li> <li>It opened my eyes to the purpose of the status meeting.  I wasn’t just regurgitating facts and tactical accomplishments.  I needed to tell him how our accomplishments translate to value to him.</li> </ol> </li> <li>How is it different than reporting status within any other company? <ol> <li>Many of the differences are subtle.  If you work for the company that you’re reporting status to – instead of reporting as a consulting outsider – you want to consider those aspects of the status reporting.</li> <li>Consultants are supposed to be in the trusted advisor status.  If they aren’t, that’s what they should be striving towards.</li> <li>So the consultant is expected to be speaking and reporting status to the client executive as a peer.  And part of that is raising their view by a level or two to say “This is what was accomplished this past week, and this is what it means to you.”</li> <li>Also, as a consultant, you may be more likely to report to a steering committee level, which is usually comprised of higher level stakeholders.  This audience has no interest in the weeds of the project.</li> <li>What it really comes down to is knowing your audience and what they need to know in order to make decisions.</li> <li>So the difference is from a consultant reporting status and a project manager within their own company is often the audience that they usually report to.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What are the pitfalls of reporting status to the client? <ol> <li>You’re an outsider at the client looking in.  This gives you a third-party view of the project and the client.  But it also can put you in the middle of their politics and blame.</li> <li>For instance, if you are reporting status and there have been significant delays by one group of people at the client, you need to come up with a way to communicate that without throwing that group under the bus.</li> <li>You want to make sure that group is aware of the status you’re reporting and that you are diplomatic about it.  You don’t want to sugarcoat the issue, but you can’t just say “This group screwed everything up”.</li> <li>You also want to give that group a heads up to say, I have to report this delay and I’ll be listing this as one of the root causes.  In some cases, this will give someone in a political organization just enough ammunition to deflect the blame – and they may direct it back at you as the consultant.</li> <li>Part of your preparation is being aware of that and being ready for it if and when it comes.</li> <li>But as a consultant, hopefully one of the reasons they chose an outside firm is for some objectivity.  If something is wrong, you need to diplomatically call it out.  Consultants need to be transparent and honest with the client on  the status.</li> <li><a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/peter-lencioni/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Peter Lencioni</a> calls it speaking the kind truth.  That’s actually a big consulting skill of being able to tell it like it is without being accusative or making unnecessary waves.  And I stress unnecessary.  Sometimes you have to make waves to point things out, you just don’t want to do it unless it’s warranted.</li> <li>One final point about this is that executives don’t like to be surprised.  Status meetings are not the right place to spring things on executives.</li> <li>I like to use the Red-Yellow-Green approach for, not only the status of the project but of some other major components. I usually give a red-yellow-green status on budget, staffing and dependencies.  That way if the project is yellow or red, it helps to show where that is coming from.</li> <li>And getting away from the surprises, it’s important to call out a yellow when it’s necessary.  Too many people avoid the yellow hoping it gets better.  Then after, say, two weeks of green, it’s suddenly red, which is a surprise to the executive.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Do you prefer a specific format when you report to the client? <ol> <li>I have a specific format that I use, but it’s more about the various pieces of information that I report.  If a client has a format that they prefer, I don’t have a problem with it.</li> <li>I just want to make sure it reports the status accurately so that it’s understandable to all of the stakeholders receiving the status.</li> <li>If they have a preferred status and it’s missing a key piece of information – for instance there’s no section to report the current risks of the project, I’ll ask if we can either add the section to the report, or at least figure out how we can communicate that information within their preferred parameters.</li> <li>I’ve found that both clients and consultants get hung up a little too much on formats and templates.  What they need to do is step back and realize that the status report and the status meeting are tools to communicate the status of a project up to the client’s executive stakeholders.</li> <li>And as long as you’re performing that communication and getting the right information across, you’re doing what you need to be doing.  The tool is just a container for the information – the information is the key component.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What are the key inputs that you make sure to include? <ol> <li>I like to start with a red yellow green indicator.  (some people call them <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/rag/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">RAG</a> indicators for red, amber and green) That’s an easy visual that the executive can look at and immediately know the general status before reading anything.</li> <li>You can do that for the whole project or my preference is to break it down.  I have red-yellow-green indicators for the schedule, resources and dependencies.  That way the executive can see immediately where the problem is if you have a yellow or red.</li> <li>The next section I have is an executive summary.  Again, I break it down by schedule, resources and dependencies so that if there’s a yellow or red, there’s an immediate explanation for the cause of that.</li> <li>Now one thing about the yellow and red.  Yellow should be used when there are big risks that need to be discussed that could cause project delays or additional costs to the project.</li> <li>I’m a little quicker to go to yellow than most, but I always want to avoid hiding any potential issues and I never want to surprise the executive.  Some people try to avoid yellow because it can just bring undue attention to a project that’s not late.</li> <li>You want to make sure you’re not always saying that the sky is falling, but the yellow is a warning sign and you need to make sure you’re warning them appropriately.</li> <li>For the red status, if anything has caused the project to fall behind schedule or if certain resources are pulled way or haven’t been assigned yet, I’m not afraid to set it to red and tell them we’re in trouble.  You should always have a plan for how you’ll pull it out of red, but you never want to hide true issues to the project.</li> <li>That’s the most important section.  After that, you provide information that supports that section.  I list the accomplishments over the last week – as I mentioned earlier, not just tasks completed, but true accomplishments that show we’re making progress.  I also list our major goals for the upcoming week.</li> <li>Then I list all of the project risks and issue that the executive needs to be aware of.  I don’t provide every risk and issue in the log, just the ones that should be on their radar.</li> <li>Then I list any change requests that have been approved or suggested.</li> <li>You should be able to get all of this information in two pages.  If it’s a huge project with a lot of risks and issues and changes, you may go over that, but in most cases I try to keep it to two pages.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What is the ultimate goal of a status report to the client? <ol> <li>Visibility and transparency.  Many times, this is the executive’s only access to the status of the project.  You need to make sure they know exactly where the project stands and what they need to do.</li> <li>And that may be difficult because sometimes you have to tell them that you screwed up.  Some project managers try to hide things and just report that everything is fine.  Then when it gets so out of hand, you report red without any reportings of yellow.</li> <li>With that in mind you need to make sure the executive and any of the interested stakeholders attend the status meeting.  I’ve been on projects where the executive has so many meetings throughout each day, that they bow out of the status meetings.</li> <li>You need to at least make sure they read the status report and they should attend the meeting.  That’s sometimes easier said than done though.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any final thoughts on reporting status to the client? <ol> <li>One thing you want to do is avoid surprises.  Yellow should be a warning before you report a red status.  There are situations where things happen that cause a project to go from green to red in one week.</li> <li>When that does happen, they should not find out in the meeting or when the status is emailed to them right before the meeting. It’s important to get the executives involved so that they’re informed prior to the meeting that they’re facing a red status for the project.</li> <li>So the more communication you can do the better.  You don’t get anywhere hiding information from the executive, so make sure you’re clear and informative and don’t give them any undue surprises.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: Reporting <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/bad-news/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bad News</a> to the <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/client/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Client</a> <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/recommended-books/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Recommended Books</a>: The Lost Art of Project Status Reporting, by Thomas Ghantt <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Project-Status-Reporting-ebook/dp/B00ATGA1X6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1359669258&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=status+reporting" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Project-Status-Reporting-ebook/dp/B00ATGA1X6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1359669258&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=status+reporting</a>

Reporting Status to the Client

Consultants often work with multiple clients at the same time.  Even when they work with a single client, they deal with a myriad of documents information and schedule issues.  In this week’s podcast we will discuss why it is imperative for one’s consulting career to be organized and to stay that way.  Is it more important for a consultant in particular to be organized?  As you mentioned, a consultant often times deals with multiple clients.  When that’s the case, the consultant needs to be able to keep these clients and their information separate. As an example, I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I had a situation once where I was in charge of five or six different clients. It was a very hectic day.  I need to gather some data in some spreadsheets for each client. It was the end of the day and I sent out each spreadsheet in separate emails to each client.  In my rush, I attached the spreadsheet of one client in the email of another. I was very fortunate that the client who got the wrong file graciously responded saying she didn’t think it was her data, but she could have escalated that to my management and notified the other client. If I had been in healthcare consulting I could have violated HIPAA laws.  Either way, that could have been what we used to call a CLM, or a career limiting move. Another reason that a consultant needs to be organized is the client’s expectation that they always be on top of things.  When a consultant is organized, they know where things are and can quickly refer to them.  Whether that’s paper files they have in their desk or electronic files on their laptop. And when you’re organized like that, you also are more organized in your head.  You can think more clearly and organize your thoughts as you communicate with your client. One final reason that organization is important to a consultant is that we tend to be nomads.  Even if we have a single client at a time, when we are at a client site, even when they give us an office or a cubicle, it’s a temporary site.  You never just move in.  So it’s important to be organized because of that mobility. My son is in high school and he has one teacher that doesn’t have a classroom.  They meet in another teacher’s classroom.  She teaches at two different high schools in the district and uses the classrooms of different teachers for her classes.  I was talking to him about that class and he said the teacher seems really disorganized.  I wasn’t too surprised about that once I heard she doesn’t have a classroom.  She’s mobile and always on the run. She needs to be more organized than the typical teacher because of that. And the same goes for mobile consultants.  They don’t have the luxury of the office with bookshelves and file cabinets.  They need to be much more nimble.   What consequences have you seen of a consultant being disorganized?  I once knew a woman whose desk was always literally covered with papers, strewn about to the point where you could not see the top of her desk.  When her manager commented about it, she defended herself that she knew where everything was. Over time, he realized that that wasn’t the case.  She consistently asked him to resend emails that he had sent before and if he stopped by to ask for something, she would dig through the piles, wasting her time as well as her boss’s time looking for it.  And it was a 50-50 chance she would find it. And it goes beyond just piles of paper.  I had a guy that worked for me once that kept all of his electronic documents in his ‘My Documents’ folder.  This is really the electronic version of the piles of paper on the desk. I would ask him for a document from a certain client and he would peruse through his one and only directory looking for it.  He’d open one and say ‘No, that’s not it’ and keep looking. Both of these people had a history of slow performance.  I heard complaints from clients that they were slow to respond.  They simply couldn’t serve their clients efficiently because it took so much additional time for them to do anything. One of the biggest consequences I see is that disorganized people are late on a consistent basis.  Now there are many reasons that people are late.  Some people are just inconsiderate of other peoples time and some people, I’ve learned just don’t have a concept of timeliness. Three o’clock to me means three o’clock.  But it’s meaningless to someone who just doesn’t have the concept down. But I’ve found that it’s almost impossible for disorganized people to be on time on a consistent basis. I’ve watched them.  They wait until the last minute to go to a meeting or wherever they need to go. Then they start gathering the things they need for the meeting, which takes longer because they haven’t thought about what they need and they don’t know where the hell it is once they think about it. Then they realize they need some input from someone else for the meeting, so they stop by their office and ask the question.  And all of this piles up causing them to be anywhere from five to fifteen minutes late for a meeting.   What are some tactics a consultant should follow to be more organized?  As an organized person, I break it down into some separate areas.  First, with paper documents, I try not to have too many of those.  Unless you need the document for a signature or to carry it around, I recommend getting rid of it.  If you need to keep the information on it for future reference, I recommend keeping a soft copy. If you have it in soft copy form that’s great, if you don’t, I recommend scanning it and storing it rather than storing the paper document. I used to file away bank statements and investment statements and even paid bills.  I came to a realization that if I ever needed to refer back to them, they’re available online. So I shred everything and scan anything I need to keep for records. If you feel you must keep the paper for future reference, have a filing strategy that makes sense.  Come up with a categorization that makes sense to you and use it. For electronic documents I recommend separate directories for each client and then subdirectories that make sense to you for quick access.  I used the same categories that I use for paper documents so that it’s consistent. I also use a two to three character prefix for files by client.  Even though they’re in the client’s subdirectory, it makes it that much clearer when I’m working with that document where it should be refilled and more explicit who that document goes to. One reason people like to have the paper documents and not keep them electronically is the fear of a disk crash or somehow losing the electronic copies.  I always recommend backing up to the cloud, or better yet, storing it on the cloud and taking it completely off your hard drive.  Regardless of how you do it, having a secure copy on the cloud is critical. One other area that requires good organization is with emails.  In my Outlook account, I create folders for each client and subfolders with the same categories as my electronic and paper files.  I rarely delete an email.  Once I’ve read it and performed whatever action I need to do, I file it away. Having a good filing system for paper, electronic records and emails allows me to quickly access whatever I need. Going back to my example where I sent one client’s spreadsheet to the wrong client, I’ve always considered myself to be organized, but I was in a rush.  And when you rush unnecessarily, you tend to make mistakes. Being organized allows you to be so much more efficient and to get things done faster.  But you have to slow down enough to stop to think about what you’re doing. I can be impatient and in a hurry.  I’ve got this to do list and I want to get through it all by the end of the day.  But there’s no point in getting anything done if I rush and do a poor job of every task. Since that time, I write a list of each email and client name and before I send it, I verify with the list and then check it off to show me exactly which client or which item in the list I’m on. The final major area of getting organized is with time management – I try to follow the 3 P’s of time management: planning, prioritization, and being proactive. Planning is the first thing I do.  I usually type up my to do list at the end of the day for the following day’s tasks.  It makes me think of what I need to do and plan out the day as much as possible.  I always know that things can change at a moment’s notice and I need to be flexible. Then, once I have everything listed I prioritize things as A and B items.  A items need to be done before the end of the day, B items could be put off if the day gets out of hand.  Then I number the A items in the order then should be done. As I said, things happen and you have to be flexible, so you always have to be ready to reprioritize as things happen, but at least you have a plan to go by that’s always open for changes. Finally, being proactive is the third step.  I find it helpful to always be looking ahead.  What do I need to do in the future that I have to plan for.  For instance, if I have something due by Friday and someone will need to review that deliverable.  I need to schedule a meeting with them for Friday.  If I wait until Friday, it will be too late to get on their calendar.  So being proactive and always thinking ahead is another critical step in managing your time and being well organized.   What do you think are the biggest factors that keep people from being organized  I think one big issue with some people is the aversion of throwing things away.  People tend to keep things just in case they’ll need them down the road.  Those things pile up on their desk or collect dust on shelves and tend to get in the way when they’re looking for the things they do need. Now I’ve been guilty of going through a purge process where I throw things away and it never fails that I need it a week later.  But for things that you rarely use that you may need, they need to be stored where they’re not in the way of your everyday things. For papers, store them away to get them out of the way.  Or better yet, digitize them and store them in separate sub-directories. Another factor is the effort and discipline involved up front, being proactive enough to stay organized.  I’ve seen people set New Year’s resolutions or decide one day that they’re going to get organized once and for all. They create all kinds of color coded filing systems and clear off their desk and get organized.  The only problem is that they don’t have the discipline to keep it up.  A new document comes across their desk and they go back to their old habits of printing it and laying it on the pile on their desk. Before they know it they’re back to the mess they started with. Finally, I think the cool factor gets in the way with some people.  There can be a certain amount of ostracizing from some people who accuse you of being the geeky accountant type for being so organized.  We all know that in the odd couple, Oscar was way cooler than Felix. I’ve been well aware of how not cool I am since about 3rd grade, so that hasn’t been a problem for me.  But some people shy away from being too organized for that very reason.   We’ve talked about the consequences of being disorganized, what do you see as the biggest benefits of being organized?  One of the biggest benefits is having more time.  It’s something of an irony that some people don’t want to take the time to be organized.  It takes that discipline of filing the document or the email in the proper folder so you can find it easier at a later date. It’s like I’ve told my kids about cleaning their room.  If they’d just hang the clothes up or put them away, they’d be able to find them easier.  Instead they waste time looking through piles of clothes. It’s the same with organizing your work.  It’s like an investment in time.  If you spend the time up front putting it where it belongs, you spend less time in the long run. I also think that when your stuff is well organized and you manage your time efficiently, your brain is less cluttered.  You think more clearly as you work and as you talk with your client. Some of it is confidence that you know you’re not forgetting anything.  But it’s also knowing that you have everything together.   Any final thoughts?  I want to clarify that simplification doesn’t necessarily mean less stuff.  It’s a matter of having a place for everything and everything in its place. I had a friend from high school who’s dad had a basement full of junk. But if you asked him for an issue of Time Magazine from July of 1962, he could go right up to it. So we talk of reducing clutter and eliminating unnecessary things.  We should be careful to clarify that you’ll likely be more disorganized if you throw everything away. You do need to keep some things. Part of organizing is simplifying and part of simplifying is organizing.    Next week’s topic: Reporting Status to the Client Recommended Books Getting Organized by Stephanie Winston:         Getting Things Done: The Art of  Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen:  Next week’s topic: Reporting Status to the client

Consultants often work with multiple clients at the same time.  Even when they work with a single client, they deal with a myriad of <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/organized_folders.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>documents information and schedule issues.  In this week’s podcast we will discuss why it is imperative for one’s consulting career to be organized and to stay that way. <ol> <li>Is it more important for a consultant in particular to be organized? <ol> <li>As you mentioned, a consultant often times deals with multiple clients.  When that’s the case, the consultant needs to be able to keep these clients and their information separate.</li> <li>As an example, I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I had a situation once where I was in charge of five or six different clients.</li> <li>It was a very hectic day.  I need to gather some data in some spreadsheets for each client.</li> <li>It was the end of the day and I sent out each spreadsheet in separate emails to each client.  In my rush, I attached the spreadsheet of one client in the email of another.</li> <li>I was very fortunate that the client who got the wrong file graciously responded saying she didn’t think it was her data, but she could have escalated that to my management and notified the other client.</li> <li>If I had been in healthcare consulting I could have violated <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/hipaa/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">HIPAA</a> laws.  Either way, that could have been what we used to call a <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/clm/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">CLM</a>, or a career limiting move.</li> <li>Another reason that a consultant needs to be organized is the client’s expectation that they always be on top of things.  When a consultant is organized, they know where things are and can quickly refer to them.  Whether that’s paper files they have in their desk or electronic files on their laptop.</li> <li>And when you’re organized like that, you also are more organized in your head.  You can think more clearly and organize your thoughts as you communicate with your client.</li> <li>One final reason that organization is important to a consultant is that we tend to be nomads.  Even if we have a single client at a time, when we are at a client site, even when they give us an office or a cubicle, it’s a temporary site.  You never just move in.  So it’s important to be organized because of that mobility.</li> <li>My son is in high school and he has one teacher that doesn’t have a classroom.  They meet in another teacher’s classroom.  She teaches at two different high schools in the district and uses the classrooms of different teachers for her classes.  I was talking to him about that class and he said the teacher seems really disorganized.</li> <li> I wasn’t too surprised about that once I heard she doesn’t have a classroom.  She’s mobile and always on the run. She needs to be more organized than the typical teacher because of that.</li> <li>And the same goes for mobile consultants.  They don’t have the luxury of the office with bookshelves and file cabinets.  They need to be much more nimble.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What consequences have you seen of a consultant being disorganized? <ol> <li>I once knew a woman whose desk was always literally covered with papers, strewn about to the point where you could not see the top of her desk.  When her manager commented about it, she defended herself that she knew where everything was.</li> <li>Over time, he realized that that wasn’t the case.  She consistently asked him to resend emails that he had sent before and if he stopped by to ask for something, she would dig through the piles, wasting her time as well as her boss’s time looking for it.  And it was a 50-50 chance she would find it.</li> <li>And it goes beyond just piles of paper.  I had a guy that worked for me once that kept all of his electronic documents in his ‘My Documents’ folder.  This is really the electronic version of the piles of paper on the desk.</li> <li>I would ask him for a document from a certain client and he would peruse through his one and only directory looking for it.  He’d open one and say ‘No, that’s not it’ and keep looking.</li> <li>Both of these people had a history of slow performance.  I heard complaints from clients that they were slow to respond.  They simply couldn’t serve their clients efficiently because it took so much additional time for them to do anything.</li> <li>One of the biggest consequences I see is that disorganized people are late on a consistent basis.  Now there are many reasons that people are late.  Some people are just inconsiderate of other peoples time and some people, I’ve learned just don’t have a concept of timeliness.</li> <li>Three o’clock to me means three o’clock.  But it’s meaningless to someone who just doesn’t have the concept down.</li> <li>But I’ve found that it’s almost impossible for disorganized people to be on time on a consistent basis.</li> <li>I’ve watched them.  They wait until the last minute to go to a meeting or wherever they need to go. Then they start gathering the things they need for the meeting, which takes longer because they haven’t thought about what they need and they don’t know where the hell it is once they think about it.</li> <li>Then they realize they need some input from someone else for the meeting, so they stop by their office and ask the question.  And all of this piles up causing them to be anywhere from five to fifteen minutes late for a meeting.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What are some tactics a consultant should follow to be more organized? <ol> <li>As an organized person, I break it down into some separate areas.  First, with paper documents, I try not to have too many of those.  Unless you need the document for a signature or to carry it around, I recommend getting rid of it.  If you need to keep the information on it for future reference, I recommend keeping a soft copy.</li> <li>If you have it in soft copy form that’s great, if you don’t, I recommend scanning it and storing it rather than storing the paper document.</li> <li>I used to file away bank statements and investment statements and even paid bills.  I came to a realization that if I ever needed to refer back to them, they’re available online.</li> <li>So I shred everything and scan anything I need to keep for records.</li> <li>If you feel you must keep the paper for future reference, have a filing strategy that makes sense.  Come up with a categorization that makes sense to you and use it.</li> <li>For electronic documents I recommend separate directories for each client and then subdirectories that make sense to you for quick access.  I used the same categories that I use for paper documents so that it’s consistent.</li> <li>I also use a two to three character prefix for files by client.  Even though they’re in the client’s subdirectory, it makes it that much clearer when I’m working with that document where it should be refilled and more explicit who that document goes to.</li> <li>One reason people like to have the paper documents and not keep them electronically is the fear of a disk crash or somehow losing the electronic copies.  I always recommend backing up to the cloud, or better yet, storing it on the cloud and taking it completely off your hard drive.  Regardless of how you do it, having a secure copy on the cloud is critical.</li> <li>One other area that requires good organization is with emails.  In my Outlook account, I create folders for each client and subfolders with the same categories as my electronic and paper files.  I rarely delete an email.  Once I’ve read it and performed whatever action I need to do, I file it away.</li> <li>Having a good filing system for paper, electronic records and emails allows me to quickly access whatever I need.</li> <li>Going back to my example where I sent one client’s spreadsheet to the wrong client, I’ve always considered myself to be organized, but I was in a rush.  And when you rush unnecessarily, you tend to make mistakes.</li> <li>Being organized allows you to be so much more efficient and to get things done faster.  But you have to slow down enough to stop to think about what you’re doing.</li> <li>I can be impatient and in a hurry.  I’ve got this to do list and I want to get through it all by the end of the day.  But there’s no point in getting anything done if I rush and do a poor job of every task.</li> <li>Since that time, I write a list of each email and client name and before I send it, I verify with the list and then check it off to show me exactly which client or which item in the list I’m on.</li> <li>The final major area of getting organized is with time management – I try to follow the 3 P’s of time management: planning, prioritization, and being proactive.</li> <li>Planning is the first thing I do.  I usually type up my to do list at the end of the day for the following day’s tasks.  It makes me think of what I need to do and plan out the day as much as possible.  I always know that things can change at a moment’s notice and I need to be flexible.</li> <li>Then, once I have everything listed I prioritize things as A and B items.  A items need to be done before the end of the day, B items could be put off if the day gets out of hand.  Then I number the A items in the order then should be done.</li> <li>As I said, things happen and you have to be flexible, so you always have to be ready to reprioritize as things happen, but at least you have a plan to go by that’s always open for changes.</li> <li>Finally, being proactive is the third step.  I find it helpful to always be looking ahead.  What do I need to do in the future that I have to plan for.  For instance, if I have something due by Friday and someone will need to review that deliverable.  I need to schedule a meeting with them for Friday.  If I wait until Friday, it will be too late to get on their calendar.  So being proactive and always thinking ahead is another critical step in managing your time and being well organized.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What do you think are the biggest factors that keep people from being organized <ol> <li>I think one big issue with some people is the aversion of throwing things away.  People tend to keep things just in case they’ll need them down the road.  Those things pile up on their desk or collect dust on shelves and tend to get in the way when they’re looking for the things they do need.</li> <li>Now I’ve been guilty of going through a purge process where I throw things away and it never fails that I need it a week later.  But for things that you rarely use that you may need, they need to be stored where they’re not in the way of your everyday things.</li> <li>For papers, store them away to get them out of the way.  Or better yet, digitize them and store them in separate sub-directories.</li> <li>Another factor is the effort and discipline involved up front, being proactive enough to stay organized.  I’ve seen people set <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/new-year/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">New Year</a>’s resolutions or decide one day that they’re going to get organized once and for all.</li> <li>They create all kinds of color coded filing systems and clear off their desk and get organized.  The only problem is that they don’t have the discipline to keep it up.  A new document comes across their desk and they go back to their old habits of printing it and laying it on the pile on their desk.</li> <li>Before they know it they’re back to the mess they started with.</li> <li>Finally, I think the cool factor gets in the way with some people.  There can be a certain amount of ostracizing from some people who accuse you of being the geeky accountant type for being so organized.  We all know that in the odd couple, Oscar was way cooler than Felix.</li> <li>I’ve been well aware of how not cool I am since about 3rd grade, so that hasn’t been a problem for me.  But some people shy away from being too organized for that very reason.</li> </ol> </li> <li>We’ve talked about the consequences of being disorganized, what do you see as the biggest benefits of being organized? <ol> <li>One of the biggest benefits is having more time.  It’s something of an irony that some people don’t want to take the time to be organized.  It takes that discipline of filing the document or the email in the proper folder so you can find it easier at a later date.</li> <li>It’s like I’ve told my kids about cleaning their room.  If they’d just hang the clothes up or put them away, they’d be able to find them easier.  Instead they waste time looking through piles of clothes.</li> <li>It’s the same with organizing your work.  It’s like an investment in time.  If you spend the time up front putting it where it belongs, you spend less time in the long run.</li> <li>I also think that when your stuff is well organized and you manage your time efficiently, your brain is less cluttered.  You think more clearly as you work and as you talk with your client.</li> <li>Some of it is confidence that you know you’re not forgetting anything.  But it’s also knowing that you have everything together.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any final thoughts? <ol> <li>I want to clarify that simplification doesn’t necessarily mean less stuff.  It’s a matter of having a place for everything and everything in its place.</li> <li>I had a friend from high school who’s dad had a basement full of junk. But if you asked him for an issue of Time Magazine from July of 1962, he could go right up to it.</li> <li>So we talk of reducing clutter and eliminating unnecessary things.  We should be careful to clarify that you’ll likely be more disorganized if you throw everything away.</li> <li>You do need to keep some things. Part of organizing is simplifying and part of simplifying is organizing.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/reporting-status/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Reporting Status</a> to the <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/client/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Client</a> <h2>Recommended Books</h2> Getting Organized by Stephanie Winston:  <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0046LUJPA/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B0046LUJPA&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> Getting Things Done: The Art of  Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142000280/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0142000280&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> Next week’s topic: Reporting Status to the client

The Importance of Being Organized

Looking Back In this episode Lew and I look back over the previous 49 episodes of this podcast sharing some thoughts on the genesis of the program based on my narration of Lew’s Book, Consulting 101: 101 Tips for Success in Consulting and some of the recurring themes that have come up in our consulting conversations. One of the most common themes has been Lew’s point that ‘Consulting isn’t for everyone’. Even though this theme is covered from time to time, these two episodes tend to capture the essence of the issues: Fears of Consulting What I love About Consulting While the above episodes tend to be focused mostly on experienced consultants, the following episodes were the most popular with recent  College graduates or those new to consulting: Managing your Consulting Career 5 Good Reasons Why Consulting is a Great Career The Consulting Case Interview Consulting Defined    – Our most downloaded episode! At the other end of the statistics spectrum, we noted these couple of episodes as being the least popular. The content is relevant to the Consulting profession in all cases but for some reason listeners didn’t consume as many episodes. This leads us to wonder was this an issue with the title of the episode, the timing / time of year or some other factor. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome. Here are our least downloaded episodes: The Importance of a Thick Skin for Consultants Balancing Firms Standards with the Clients Protecting Client Confidentiality We talked about some of our favorite episodes which were: Social Media in Consulting – This is a subject that Lew and I are both very interested in and will likely re-visit in future episodes. It plays into the episodes mentioned below and the Mentoring  subject covered later in this article. Developing a Professional Network – Another subject of passion and timeless in respect of the core methods that professionals need to apply to building relationships. This episode talks about the importance of relationship building and long term commitment to networking. Sales as a Consultant – We are all sales people. Regardless of your position in the firm, you are always a representative of your firms capabilities, professionalism, service etc. In essence whenever you are in front of the client you are ‘selling’ your firm. This is another subject that I’m sure Lew and I will cover again in future episodes. Our Favorite Books – Part 1 – Part 2 – Lew and I swapped thoughts early in 2013 on some of our favorite books that apply to Consulting and business in general. It was difficult to limit this to a concise list and it could have gone on for much longer. We split this into two episodes with some direction to a great collection of ‘must reads’. Again,  we welcome the involvement of others in this podcast, if you have some expertise to offer on any of these subjects or for that matter anything related to Consulting or Professional services, please Contact Us or leave a Voice Message using the tab on the right hand side of our website at CPSRadio.com Looking Forward Lew shared some thoughts on some of the upcoming subjects we will discuss in future episodes; Managing your career, Better Communications, Project Management and a collection of other, personal and professional growth subjects. I’ve been an advocate of spoken-word audio for many years as a means of motivating yourself or getting out of a slump by listening to basic messages about business and professionalism. The experience that Lew and I bring to these podcasts is based on more cumulative years than we are prepared to admit, and in many cases its obvious, your have heard it before but our intent is to help remind you of some of these basic truths that help make you a better and more productive and effective professional. As in Lews’ Book,  most of the messages we discuss in the podcasts apply to any professional business environment, not just consulting, so please feel free to share this program with your network. One subject we are working on at the moment is; Dealing with resistance to change – The ‘agent of change’ isn’t always the most popular, Consultants need to juggle the technical and human aspects of managing change in the workplace and the negatives that sometimes go with that role. Networking – Although we have been here before, Consultants are unique in many respects when it comes to business networking and Lew is covering some interesting aspects along that front. Importance of being organized – and portraying that image. It’s obviously important to be organized as a Consultant, but it’s equally important to portray and convey that organizational ability to your team and of course the client. Specialize vs generalize – by industry(retail, healthcare, IT etc.) and/or skill set verticals (Project Management, Finance.Change Management etc.) Mentoring Now to the reason why Lew and I have not been podcasting as regularly as we should have been. We have been working on a book called – The Reluctant Mentor. This book came about from a brief discussion about ‘Reverse Mentoring’ that we had awhile ago and the debate over who actually mentors whom in the modern workplace. Generation Y (GenY), those people born between the early 1980’s and the early 2000’s are hitting the workforce at a time when the Baby Boomers are in upper management and facing retirement. This disruption is unlike anything we have seen before and it’s creating both conflict and opportunity for all concerned. The Reluctant Mentor is a business novel, about a Baby Boomer who works with a recent College graduate. They both express frustration at the way the other does business with the ‘old school’ conservative business owner battling with the smart-phone addicted upstart. They eventually find ways to work together and be greater than the sum of the parts. It brings to the reader experiences that both Lew and I have lived through in the workplace and we are confident that it will be an eye-opener for anyone in a professional setting to help you deal with the Baby Boomer or GenY in your work life. The Reluctant Mentor will be available for sale soon – For pre-release notification and a chance to be featured on one of our web-sites and podcast episodes, register now at The ReluctantMentor.com

<h2>Looking Back<a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/sign_future_past.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></h2> In this episode Lew and I look back over the previous 49 episodes of this podcast sharing some thoughts on the genesis of the program based on my narration of Lew’s <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/book/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Book</a>, <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/consulting-101/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Consulting 101</a>: 101 Tips for Success in Consulting and some of the recurring themes that have come up in our consulting conversations. One of the most common themes has been Lew’s point that ‘Consulting isn’t for everyone’. Even though this theme is covered from time to time, these two episodes tend to capture the essence of the issues: <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2012/02/fears-of-consulting/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Fears of Consulting</a> <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2012/08/what-i-love-about-consulting/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">What I love About Consulting</a> While the above episodes tend to be focused mostly on experienced consultants, the following episodes were the most popular with recent  College graduates or those new to consulting: <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2012/08/career-management/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Managing your Consulting Career</a> <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2012/10/5reasons/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">5 Good Reasons Why Consulting is a Great Career</a> <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2012/10/the-consulting-case-interview/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Consulting Case Interview</a> <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2012/11/consulting-defined/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Consulting Defined</a>    – Our most downloaded episode! At the other end of the statistics spectrum, we noted these couple of episodes as being the least popular. The content is relevant to the Consulting profession in all cases but for some reason listeners didn’t consume as many episodes. This leads us to wonder was this an issue with the title of the episode, the timing / time of year or some other factor. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome. Here are our least downloaded episodes: <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2013/01/importance-of-a-thick-skin/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Importance of a Thick Skin for Consultants</a> <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2013/06/balancing-firm-standards-with-the-clients/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Balancing Firms Standards with the Clients</a> <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2013/05/protecting-client-confidentiality/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Protecting Client Confidentiality</a> We talked about some of our favorite episodes which were: <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2012/12/social-media-factors-in-consulting/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Social Media in Consulting</a> – This is a subject that Lew and I are both very interested in and will likely re-visit in future episodes. It plays into the episodes mentioned below and the Mentoring  subject covered later in this article. <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2013/09/developing-a-professional-network/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Developing a Professional Network</a> – Another subject of passion and timeless in respect of the core methods that professionals need to apply to building relationships. This episode talks about the importance of relationship building and long term commitment to networking. <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2012/04/sales/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sales as a Consultant</a> – We are all sales people. Regardless of your position in the firm, you are always a representative of your firms capabilities, professionalism, service etc. In essence whenever you are in front of the client you are ‘selling’ your firm. This is another subject that I’m sure Lew and I will cover again in future episodes. <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2013/02/our-favorite-consulting-books-1/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Our Favorite Books</a> – <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2013/02/our-favorite-consulting-books-1/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Part 1</a> – <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2013/02/our-favorite-consulting-books-2/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Part 2</a> – Lew and I swapped thoughts early in 2013 on some of our favorite books that apply to Consulting and business in general. It was difficult to limit this to a concise list and it could have gone on for much longer. We split this into two episodes with some direction to a great collection of ‘must reads’. Again,  we welcome the involvement of others in this podcast, if you have some expertise to offer on any of these subjects or for that matter anything related to Consulting or Professional services, please <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/about/contact/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Contact Us</a> or leave a Voice Message using the tab on the right hand side of our website at <a href="http://CPSRadio.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">CPSRadio.com</a> <h2>Looking Forward</h2> Lew shared some thoughts on some of the upcoming subjects we will discuss in future episodes; Managing your career, Better Communications, <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/project-management/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Project Management</a> and a collection of other, personal and professional growth subjects. I’ve been an advocate of spoken-word audio for many years as a means of motivating yourself or getting out of a slump by listening to basic messages about business and professionalism. The experience that Lew and I bring to these podcasts is based on more cumulative years than we are prepared to admit, and in many cases its obvious, your have heard it before but our intent is to help remind you of some of these basic truths that help make you a better and more productive and effective professional. As in <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/2012/02/consulting101/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lews’ Book</a>,  most of the messages we discuss in the podcasts apply to any professional business environment, not just consulting, so please feel free to share this program with your network. One subject we are working on at the moment is; Dealing with resistance to change – The ‘agent of change’ isn’t always the most popular, Consultants need to juggle the technical and human aspects of managing change in the workplace and the negatives that sometimes go with that role. Networking – Although we have been here before, Consultants are unique in many respects when it comes to business networking and Lew is covering some interesting aspects along that front. Importance of being organized – and portraying that image. It’s obviously important to be organized as a Consultant, but it’s equally important to portray and convey that organizational ability to your team and of course the client. Specialize vs generalize – by industry(retail, healthcare, <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/it/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">IT</a> etc.) and/or skill set verticals (<a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/project-management/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Project Management</a>, Finance.Change Management etc.) <h2>Mentoring</h2> Now to the reason why Lew and I have not been podcasting as regularly as we should have been. We have been working on a book called – The Reluctant Mentor. This book came about from a brief discussion about ‘Reverse Mentoring’ that we had awhile ago and the debate over who actually mentors whom in the modern workplace. Generation Y (GenY), those people born between the early 1980’s and the early 2000’s are hitting the workforce at a time when the Baby Boomers are in upper management and facing retirement. This disruption is unlike anything we have seen before and it’s creating both conflict and opportunity for all concerned. The Reluctant <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/mentor/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mentor</a> is a business novel, about a <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/baby-boomer/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Baby Boomer</a> who works with a recent College graduate. They both express frustration at the way the other does business with the ‘old school’ conservative business owner battling with the smart-phone addicted upstart. They eventually find ways to work together and be greater than the sum of the parts. It brings to the reader experiences that both Lew and I have lived through in the workplace and we are confident that it will be an eye-opener for anyone in a professional setting to help you deal with the <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/baby-boomer/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Baby Boomer</a> or GenY in your work life. The Reluctant <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/mentor/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mentor</a> will be available for sale soon – For pre-release notification and a chance to be featured on one of our web-sites and podcast episodes, register now at <a href="http://TheReluctantMentor.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The ReluctantMentor.com</a>

Looking Back – Looking Forward – Episode 50

As a consultant moves further up the ladder in his or her consulting career, the ability to sell the firm’s services becomes more important.  It’s difficult to develop trusting relationships with potential clients without having spent time getting to know them.  In this week’s podcast we will discuss the importance of developing a professional network of contacts and how to go about it.  Why is it important for a consultant to develop a professional network? As you mentioned, at some point as you move up in your consulting career, you begin to have some responsibility for selling those services. As I’ve explained in some podcasts in the past, when you start out in your consulting career, you’re primarily responsible for your billable hours.  You want to be so good that the managers in the office fight over you so they can get you assigned to your projects. As you begin moving up the ladder and getting more responsibility, you start to get involved in more sales efforts.  At first, you may just help out on a couple of sales proposals.  It’s a way to ease you in and learn the firm’s selling approach as kind of an apprentice. At some point you begin assisting in the presentation to the prospective client. And then, eventually, they will want you to start providing leads for new clients from your network. And if you get to that point in your career and you don’t have much of a network – no contacts for you to reconnect with that are potential clients, it’s hard to start catching up. You want to have people in your network who have known you for a while so that you have developed some form of trust with them. It’s hard to go to someone you just met at a networking event and say ‘Hey, why don’t you let my firm come in and do some business for you.’  It’s like asking a girl out on a date without spending any time getting to know each other. So it’s important to start early in your career meeting people and developing relationships so that when you get to that point in your career, you already have a network of people who know and trust you. I think one of the most important things to do is to have a LinkedIn profile that’s up to date.  If someone looks you up and all you have is your name and a few lines, they may not even bother trying to connect with you assuming you’re not an active user. I would also recommend connecting with college peers who are, or soon will be in the business world.  Then, you should connect with peers in your own office and eventually with client individuals. I also recommend connecting with business people that you might know through your parents. Those are good contacts to have because, since they’re older, they’re more likely to have a larger network that you might have access to.   What do you tell people who are reluctant to connect with people once they’ve connected with their peers at work because they’re afraid that their managers will think they’re job hunting? I was just reading an article recently that recommended against connecting on LinkedIn with clients because their management may suspect that they’re networking in preparation to find a new job. Connecting on LinkedIn isn’t just about job search networking. I think people get that idea because it’s the first purpose that they used the tool for, but networking is about meeting people and keeping in touch. Let’s say it’s early in your career and you work on a client project.  You work with some client employees and get to know them well.  Before the project is over, you connect with them on LinkedIn. A few years go by and you’re moving up within the ranks of your consulting firm.  Meanwhile these contacts have either moved up in their own organization or gone on to other jobs with other companies.  They’re starting to move into management positions themselves. If you’ve kept in touch with them, had an occasional lunch or met for coffee once in a while, you have a fairly strong professional connection with them. So at one of these lunches, your connection mentions what a problem they’re having with one of their business processes or a software application. It just so happens that your firm has a practice that could address that.  You arrange a meeting with your boss and her boss and if everything goes well, you’ve generated a lead that will result in some business. It’s true that LinkedIn is a great tool for job search but people use it for business development and many other things.  Some people use it to find articles that help them keep up on the latest news and best practices in their industry.   How does a consultant go about developing that network? Well I think I’ve covered the LinkedIn thing.  But one thing I would caution is adding links willy-nilly.  You want to have quality links that you know pretty well. I’ve seen people with thousands of links and think that there’s no way they know all of those people well enough to call on them to see if they’re interested in consulting services. You want to have some ‘memorability’ in each direction.  If anyone in your network contacts you – or vice versa – whoever is contacted should be able to remember who the other person is. Otherwise, there’s no relationship and it’s just a wasted contact because you’re never really going to get a favor from that person. So once you’ve got a contact with someone you’re going to remember knowing, it’s important to stay in touch with them. You can do that by contacting each person every once in a while.  That’s as easy as dropping an email once a year saying I was thinking of you and wanted to drop a line to say hi. A better option is if you’re reading an article and you think someone in your network would be interested in it, email it to them. I make a practice a couple times per week of going through my main page on LinkedIn and see what people are up to.  You may see who they’ve connected to or that they changed jobs. Then you can comment on it to congratulate them on a new position or some other appropriate comment. One other thing that I recommend once you have some experience is to write a work-related blog.  Then when you post it, you can go on linked in and promote it to your network.  That accomplishes two things. Hopefully, you’re providing information that may be valuable to them.  That’s the whole purpose of publishing any content. Also, it maintains your awareness in their mind.  You may not have contacted them in several months, but they’ve seen your updates on LinkedIn and they still feel a closeness.   So it’s not about quantity as much as quality. It’s much more about quality and having contacts that will know and remember you.  But with that being said, quantity can be good, especially when you start looking at that valuable second level. I mentioned earlier that you should connect with friends of your parents if you know each other.  You may never do business with them, but let’s say there’s a business you’re targeting that you’d like to do business with. You search out LinkedIn for employees that work there and you find that one of your mom’s friends at work is a first level connection with them. You may be able to call that friend and ask if they can introduce you.  Now your mom’s friend may be one of those with a thousand connections and may say, I don’t even remember that person. But hopefully she knows that person well and is willing to bring you two together. So you want to focus on quality connections, but you want to have as many quality connections as possible.  The more first level connections you have, it exponentially increases your second level connections. And if those first level connections are quality connections, they’ll be more likely to introduce you to their connections when you request it.   What are some of the mistakes you’ve made or seen others make that others can learn from? Well we talked about having connections you don’t know.  I think we’ve beat that horse. Another thing that I’ve seen in the past is connecting with people but only getting in touch with them when you need something. I’ve known a few people who I haven’t heard from in a few years and suddenly, out of the blue they call and want to meet for coffee or something. Once we get together I find out that they’ve lost their job and need me to help them network with people to help get them interviews. Either that or they’re trying to sell something and want me to buy. It’s really better to keep in touch and help other people first.  It’s not a matter of keeping score and saying this person owes me a favor. It’s just a matter of maintaining relationships and not taking advantage of people – being their friend only when you need something. Another big mistake is giving the hard sell when you first meet someone.  Kind of trying to go up to them and sell them consulting services like you would sell fake Rolex’s on the street. It’s the singles bar equivalent of networking I’ve compared this more than once to dating and the singles bar, but there’s a very similar parallel.  It’s a matter of developing a relationship.  Meet people and get to know them.  If a conversation develops and there’s mutual interest then you continue talking If the other person is looking at their watch and looking around the room at everything but you, that’s a hint to shut up and move on.   Many people hate networking events because they seem so awkward.  How does someone get around that and make it more natural and less awkward? Well the funny thing about networking is that nobody actually talks about the fact that they’re networking. You don’t go up to people and say ‘Hi I’m Jeff, would you like to network?’ that actually sounds kind of creepy. Going back to the singles bar, it’s the equivalent of going up to a girl and saying Hi, I’m Lew.  Do you want to go home with me?  You’re just never going to get too far with that approach. Some people treat these networking events like a speed dating event where people try to meet as many people as possible and go home with as many business cards as they can collect. It’s much better to have a goal of meeting just a couple of people.  If I go to something like that and only meet two people that I can have a meaningful conversation with and get their contact information, I’m happy. I’ll send them an email saying that it was a pleasure meeting them and tell them what interested me most about the conversation.  I may even send them an article on some topic that they talked about if I think it will help them. It goes back to making quality contacts.  If I try too hard to sell or I’m only there to collect names, my likelihood of success diminishes. But everyone knows that they’re there to network.  And most people are not good at ice breaking and meeting people.  So when you see someone alone you just walk up and introduce yourself and start asking them questions about themselves. We’ve talked about the Dale Carnegie approach before.  Taking an interest in the other person is the best way to meet people and get to know them.  Going up to them and telling them about yourself or what you have to sell will bore them immediately.   Any final thoughts on networking? I think a lot of people focus on numbers when they network.  They try to get as many followers as possible like it’s a contest.  If you get nothing else out of this podcast, I hope people walk away with the knowledge that, while quantity can be helpful, the quality of your connections is a much higher priority for your consulting career. Also, like anything, networking takes practice.  Any time you’re at a dinner or networking event, you’re forced to meet new people and that’s hard. The more you do it, the better you’ll get at it.  It’s something that you can really get momentum at.    Recommended Books:

As a consultant moves further up the ladder in his or her consulting career, the ability to sell the firm’s services becomes more important.  It’s difficult to develop trusting relationships with potential clients without having spent time getting to know them.  In this week’s podcast we will discuss the importance of developing a professional network of contacts and how to go about it. <ol> <li>Why is it important for a consultant to develop a professional network? <ol> <li>As you mentioned, at some point as you move up in your consulting career, you begin to have some responsibility for selling those services.</li> <li>As I’ve explained in some podcasts in the past, when you start out in your consulting career, you’re primarily responsible for your billable hours.  You want to be so good that the managers in the office fight over you so they can get you assigned to your projects.</li> <li>As you begin moving up the ladder and getting more responsibility, you start to get involved in more sales efforts.  At first, you may just help out on a couple of sales proposals.  It’s a way to ease you in and learn the firm’s selling approach as kind of an apprentice.</li> <li>At some point you begin assisting in the presentation to the prospective client.</li> <li>And then, eventually, they will want you to start providing leads for new clients from your network.</li> <li>And if you get to that point in your career and you don’t have much of a network – no contacts for you to reconnect with that are potential clients, it’s hard to start catching up.</li> <li>You want to have people in your network who have known you for a while so that you have developed some form of trust with them.</li> <li>It’s hard to go to someone you just met at a networking event and say ‘Hey, why don’t you let my firm come in and do some business for you.’  It’s like asking a girl out on a date without spending any time getting to know each other.</li> <li>So it’s important to start early in your career meeting people and developing relationships so that when you get to that point in your career, you already have a network of people who know and trust you.</li> <li>I think one of the most important things to do is to have a LinkedIn profile that’s up to date.  If someone looks you up and all you have is your name and a few lines, they may not even bother trying to connect with you assuming you’re not an active user.</li> <li>I would also recommend connecting with college peers who are, or soon will be in the business world.  Then, you should connect with peers in your own office and eventually with client individuals.</li> <li>I also recommend connecting with business people that you might know through your parents. Those are good contacts to have because, since they’re older, they’re more likely to have a larger network that you might have access to.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What do you tell people who are reluctant to connect with people once they’ve connected with their peers at work because they’re afraid that their managers will think they’re job hunting? <ol> <li>I was just reading an article recently that recommended against connecting on LinkedIn with clients because their management may suspect that they’re networking in preparation to find a new job.</li> <li>Connecting on LinkedIn isn’t just about job search networking. I think people get that idea because it’s the first purpose that they used the tool for, but networking is about meeting people and keeping in touch.</li> <li>Let’s say it’s early in your career and you work on a client project.  You work with some client employees and get to know them well.  Before the project is over, you connect with them on LinkedIn.</li> <li>A few years go by and you’re moving up within the ranks of your consulting firm.  Meanwhile these contacts have either moved up in their own organization or gone on to other jobs with other companies.  They’re starting to move into management positions themselves.</li> <li>If you’ve kept in touch with them, had an occasional lunch or met for coffee once in a while, you have a fairly strong professional connection with them.</li> <li>So at one of these lunches, your connection mentions what a problem they’re having with one of their business processes or a software application.</li> <li>It just so happens that your firm has a practice that could address that.  You arrange a meeting with your boss and her boss and if everything goes well, you’ve generated a lead that will result in some business.</li> <li>It’s true that LinkedIn is a great tool for job search but people use it for business development and many other things.  Some people use it to find articles that help them keep up on the latest news and best practices in their industry.</li> </ol> </li> <li>How does a consultant go about developing that network? <ol> <li>Well I think I’ve covered the LinkedIn thing.  But one thing I would caution is adding links willy-nilly.  You want to have quality links that you know pretty well.</li> <li>I’ve seen people with thousands of links and think that there’s no way they know all of those people well enough to call on them to see if they’re interested in consulting services.</li> <li>You want to have some ‘memorability’ in each direction.  If anyone in your network contacts you – or vice versa – whoever is contacted should be able to remember who the other person is.</li> <li>Otherwise, there’s no relationship and it’s just a wasted contact because you’re never really going to get a favor from that person.</li> <li>So once you’ve got a contact with someone you’re going to remember knowing, it’s important to stay in touch with them.</li> <li>You can do that by contacting each person every once in a while.  That’s as easy as dropping an email once a year saying I was thinking of you and wanted to drop a line to say hi.</li> <li>A better option is if you’re reading an article and you think someone in your network would be interested in it, email it to them.</li> <li>I make a practice a couple times per week of going through my main page on LinkedIn and see what people are up to.  You may see who they’ve connected to or that they changed jobs.</li> <li>Then you can comment on it to congratulate them on a new position or some other appropriate comment.</li> <li>One other thing that I recommend once you have some experience is to write a work-related blog.  Then when you post it, you can go on linked in and promote it to your network.  That accomplishes two things.</li> <li>Hopefully, you’re providing information that may be valuable to them.  That’s the whole purpose of publishing any content.</li> <li>Also, it maintains your awareness in their mind.  You may not have contacted them in several months, but they’ve seen your updates on LinkedIn and they still feel a closeness.</li> </ol> </li> <li>So it’s not about quantity as much as quality. <ol> <li>It’s much more about quality and having contacts that will know and remember you.  But with that being said, quantity can be good, especially when you start looking at that valuable second level.</li> <li>I mentioned earlier that you should connect with friends of your parents if you know each other.  You may never do business with them, but let’s say there’s a business you’re targeting that you’d like to do business with.</li> <li>You search out LinkedIn for employees that work there and you find that one of your mom’s friends at work is a first level connection with them.</li> <li>You may be able to call that friend and ask if they can introduce you.  Now your mom’s friend may be one of those with a thousand connections and may say, I don’t even remember that person.</li> <li>But hopefully she knows that person well and is willing to bring you two together.</li> <li>So you want to focus on quality connections, but you want to have as many quality connections as possible.  The more first level connections you have, it exponentially increases your second level connections.</li> <li>And if those first level connections are quality connections, they’ll be more likely to introduce you to their connections when you request it.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What are some of the mistakes you’ve made or seen others make that others can learn from? <ol> <li>Well we talked about having connections you don’t know.  I think we’ve beat that horse.</li> <li>Another thing that I’ve seen in the past is connecting with people but only getting in touch with them when you need something.</li> <li>I’ve known a few people who I haven’t heard from in a few years and suddenly, out of the blue they call and want to meet for coffee or something.</li> <li>Once we get together I find out that they’ve lost their job and need me to help them network with people to help get them interviews.</li> <li>Either that or they’re trying to sell something and want me to buy.</li> <li>It’s really better to keep in touch and help other people first.  It’s not a matter of keeping score and saying this person owes me a favor.</li> <li>It’s just a matter of maintaining relationships and not taking advantage of people – being their friend only when you need something.</li> <li>Another big mistake is giving the hard sell when you first meet someone.  Kind of trying to go up to them and sell them consulting services like you would sell fake Rolex’s on the street. It’s the singles bar equivalent of networking</li> <li>I’ve compared this more than once to dating and the singles bar, but there’s a very similar parallel.  It’s a matter of developing a relationship.  Meet people and get to know them.  If a conversation develops and there’s mutual interest then you continue talking</li> <li>If the other person is looking at their watch and looking around the room at everything but you, that’s a hint to shut up and move on.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Many people hate networking events because they seem so awkward.  How does someone get around that and make it more natural and less awkward? <ol> <li>Well the funny thing about networking is that nobody actually talks about the fact that they’re networking.</li> <li>You don’t go up to people and say ‘Hi I’m Jeff, would you like to network?’ that actually sounds kind of creepy.</li> <li>Going back to the singles bar, it’s the equivalent of going up to a girl and saying Hi, I’m Lew.  Do you want to go home with me?  You’re just never going to get too far with that approach.</li> <li>Some people treat these networking events like a speed dating event where people try to meet as many people as possible and go home with as many business cards as they can collect.</li> <li>It’s much better to have a goal of meeting just a couple of people.  If I go to something like that and only meet two people that I can have a meaningful conversation with and get their contact information, I’m happy.</li> <li>I’ll send them an email saying that it was a pleasure meeting them and tell them what interested me most about the conversation.  I may even send them an article on some topic that they talked about if I think it will help them.</li> <li>It goes back to making quality contacts.  If I try too hard to sell or I’m only there to collect names, my likelihood of success diminishes.</li> <li>But everyone knows that they’re there to network.  And most people are not good at ice breaking and meeting people.  So when you see someone alone you just walk up and introduce yourself and start asking them questions about themselves.</li> <li>We’ve talked about the Dale Carnegie approach before.  Taking an interest in the other person is the best way to meet people and get to know them.  Going up to them and telling them about yourself or what you have to sell will bore them immediately.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any final thoughts on networking? <ol> <li>I think a lot of people focus on numbers when they network.  They try to get as many followers as possible like it’s a contest.  If you get nothing else out of this podcast, I hope people walk away with the knowledge that, while quantity can be helpful, the quality of your connections is a much higher priority for your consulting career.</li> <li>Also, like anything, networking takes practice.  Any time you’re at a dinner or networking event, you’re forced to meet new people and that’s hard.</li> <li>The more you do it, the better you’ll get at it.  It’s something that you can really get momentum at.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Recommended Books:

Developing a Professional Network

In the course of a consulting career, sooner or later you will end up giving a speech or presentation to a group of people – and probably many more after that.  People who work in consulting and professional services increase their chances of success if they have sharpened their skills in public speaking.  In this week’s podcast, we will discuss why public speaking is such an important skill and what a consultant can do to hone that skill.  Why is it important for a consultant to have good public speaking skills? Consultants are placed in leadership roles much sooner in their careers. Because of that, consultants are more apt to facilitate a meeting or be asked to facilitate a requirements gathering session. Most firms hold internal meetings on a regular basis and a young consultant may be asked to present an update on the project they’re working on to the whole firm. I’ve seen younger consultants given team lead responsibilities very early in their consulting career where they need to meet with a team and lead those meetings. Sometimes those opportunities are impromptu where someone turns to them on the fly and asks them to update the group on something. Other times, it’s a planned presentation, maybe with PowerPoint slides. Early in my career, I was asked to attend a sales meetings with customers where we presented a sales proposal.  They liked to have the actual consultants present to their prospective clients rather than just sales people. Consultants are also more inclined to be involved in professional organizations and there are always more opportunities for speaking at those types of meetings and gatherings. There are many other situations, but in any case, a consultant needs to be prepared and have the confidence to stand up and speak in front of a group of people.   When should a consultant begin honing skills in public speaking? The earlier in their consulting career the better.  If you can begin doing that in college that’s great.  Especially as you get up to your junior and senior years, you begin taking classes where you may give group presentations. I’d recommend seizing those opportunities.  Unless it becomes a power struggle, try to take a leadership role on a team project to lead the presentation. And when you do give presentations, whether as an individual or with a group, don’t belittle it.  You may only be giving a presentation to your peers in your class, but treat it as a professional presentation. I remember my senior year in college we had to give a presentation to the class at the end of the semester.  The instructor had the department head come in to watch each team’s presentation. She had us dress the part with ties and professional attire (at least that was the standard for those days).  We had to prepare PowerPoint slides and make it seem like a professional presentation. It made it a bit more stressful, but it was more real world.  And I think it prepared us better for when we got into a professional setting. Many academic programs offer speech classes. I had a class called Business Communications, which was just a speech class as part of the business program. I’d recommend taking a class like this just to get the experience.  Again, play the part of a professional rather than a college student.  Much of public speaking is role playing and playing the role of a professional will get you used to that role early on. Another thing you can do either in college or if you’re just starting out in a professional services career is to join a professional organization.  A lot of professional organizations have student chapters on university campuses. It’s a chance to get involved and work with other people.  If you take a leadership role in an organization like that, you’ll get some good experience leading groups and giving presentations. Involvement in an organization like that gives a student experience not only presenting, but just interacting in a more professional environment. If you’re already out of college and in the work world, you can always volunteer at work to run meetings or to give presentations.  Your management probably won’t allow you to present every time you offer to, but they’ll usually find an opportunity for you if you show the willingness and desire. Even if it’s something as simple as leading a weekly team status meeting, that’s still valuable experience. Finally, I would recommend joining Toastmasters.  It’s a great organization that provides a safe environment to give speeches.  They provide mentoring and feedback on your speeches for positive feedback and constructive criticism. It’s an international organization with tens of thousands of chapters around the world.  You can find them at www.Toastmasters.org for a chapter near you.   What should someone do about getting nervous when speaking in front of a crowd? That’s a pretty common situation.  There have been surveys where a majority of people say that public speaking is the number one fear – higher on the list than fear of death oddly enough. I remember when I was in college I was talking to a friend who was already in the work force.  He was preparing for a presentation he was supposed to give for something like 20 people. I told him I could never present to a group of people like that.  It just scared me to think of it.  It wasn’t a big deal for him and he seemed kind of surprised at my reaction. I look back on that now that I do it on a fairly regular basis and wonder what I was so afraid of. If you want to be a consultant and you get nervous in front of crowds, I would recommend getting as much practice as you can.  The more you talk in front of people the more comfortable you’re going to get with it. I would also recommend starting with smaller groups.  Running meetings with four or five people is much less stressful.  Once you develop a comfort level with a group that size, start building it up. I know that I used to get nervous and my heart would beat so fast I would get short of breath.  So here I’m trying to talk and I can’t breathe, so I’m taking lots of in and out breaths. I still get a little nervous like that in front of larger crowds.  Some tactics I’ve learned are to take some deep breaths before I speak. And then I try to speak just a little louder at the beginning. Speaking louder serves two purposes.  First, you get the audience’s attention right away.  This can give you some confidence that you have the audience in your control.  Secondly, it burns off some energy and anxiety and helps you calm down. I’ve also found that if I’m nervous in front of a group of people, that I feel better if I have a visual aid.  If you’ve got a PowerPoint presentation to show or even a simple flipchart, it takes the audience’s eyes away from you and veers their attention to the visual aid. It tends to calm me down a little. If possible, I would suggest checking out the room ahead of time and try to get a familiarization with it.  You can picture yourself speaking in that room ahead of time. I would also recommend watching good speaker and taking note of the way they present.  I like to watch politicians.  Some are better than others, but most politicians are pretty polished speakers. I watch how they refer to notes – or how they don’t in many cases.  I also watch their hands.  I used to get confused about what to do with my hands while speaking.  You can’t fold your arms and you can’t stand there wringing your hands. So watching professional or just very good speakers is a great way to pick up tips. In addition to practicing, the times I’ve gotten the most nervous is when I’m least prepared. If I don’t know my speech very well, or I’m unfamiliar enough that I won’t be able to answer any follow-up questions, I’m going to go up there fairly nervous. But if I’ve prepared well and know my stuff well, I go up there much more confidently. One note about that, it’s great to prepare and know how your speech is going to flow.  But you also want to be flexible.  If you’re going over your audience’s head or if it’s too basic for them, you have to be able to adjust.  Otherwise you’ll lose them. I’ve never been a big fan of imagining the audience in their underwear or anything like that.  It’s just kind of distracting and I forget what I’m talking about. I prefer to find three or four friendly faces in the crowd who are paying attention.  If they’re nodding while I talk I feel like they’re paying attention and tending to agree with me.  I’ll try to make eye contact with them and it will make me feel a little calmer. It’s important to just think positively.  Go up there expecting to succeed.  This speech isn’t as important to your audience as it is to you.  If you forget a line or misspeak, just move on.  The audience is probably not going to revolt on you if you make a mistake.   What does a consultant do when they face an antagonistic group? That’s a much harder situation.  Hopefully, you’ve had the chance to get some experience in front of some friendly crowds before that happens. But in consulting, you may face clients that aren’t exactly angry mobs, but you may have a team that is a hard sell.  I’ve been in sales proposal meetings where we’re up against a couple of other top consulting firms and the project is worth several hundred thousand dollars. The client executives will ask some tough questions.  There are two things I recommend for a situation like this. First, don’t let them see you sweat.  Maintain your confidence.  There are ways to say ‘I don’t know’ in a confident way.  You can say something like, “I don’t have that information with me, but I can get it immediately after this meeting”. Once they see you break, you’re going to be putty in their hands. The other thing is preparation.  Whenever I watch a political debate on television, I think about all the preparation they go through.  They actually have another person play the role of their counterpart and ask tough questions. You see this in legal crime dramas on TV also when someone is going to be on the witness stand.  They go through a role playing process where someone plays the lawyer for the other team asking difficult questions to try to get them to break. If you’re going into any type of situation where you’ll be presenting to any type of hostile crowd, I would recommend you have a role playing session where you have someone or multiple people practice throwing these bombs at you so that you can get a little practice facing them.  If they can think of the toughest and potentially embarrassing questions and you can prepare for them, you’ll go in with much more confidence when it happens.   Final thoughts on public speaking for consultants? When I first joined Toastmasters, there was an individual who had been in the organization for quite a while and he was an excellent speaker. I noticed how calm and collected he was in front of a group of people and what a great speaker he was.  He was a foreign-born individual with an accent.  I could tell English was not his primary language, but he spoke very clearly. So I went up to him and complemented him on his speaking abilities.  He told me that when he started out, he would just freeze.  He’d stand up in front of the group for a full minute, unable to say anything. He had come all that way just by practice and being determined to overcome that fear. Regardless of what you end up doing for a living, if you go into any type of work in the business world, you’re bound to end up doing some public speaking. If you go into consulting, you probably will do it more often.  I hope something like that doesn’t scare people who dislike public speaking away. It’s really not as bad as it may seem.  It does take some practice and preparation.  And if you make just a little effort to improve by seeking some experience or training, you’ll find that it gets easier and you’ll begin improving immediately. It’s also a matter of confidence.  I’ve always found that confidence breeds more confidence.  So if you go into a situation with your head up with a confident attitude, you’ll find that your confidence will build. And from that, you begin developing a confidence with larger crowds and more important presentations. You may even get to a point where people seek you out to speak because of your experience and professional speaking capabilities. For those people who suffer from public speaking anxiety, I’ve included a link in the show notes from the Toastmasters website titled 10 Tips for Public Speaking, which gives some great advice on how to calm down for a speech.  I’ve also included some links in the show notes to some good books on public speaking.    Next week’s topic: Developing a Professional Network Ten Tips for Public Speaking (Toastmasters): http://www.toastmasters.org/tips.asp Recommended Books: Confessions of a Public Speaker No Sweat Public Speaking! In The SpotLight, Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking and Performing

In the course of a consulting career, sooner or later you will end up giving a speech or <a href="http://www.spreaker.com/user/usanzem/public_speaking_as_a_consultant" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>presentation to a group of people – and probably many more after that.  People who work in consulting and professional services increase their chances of success if they have sharpened their skills in public<a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/presentation.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> speaking.  In this week’s podcast, we will discuss why public speaking is such an important skill and what a consultant can do to hone that skill. <ol> <li>Why is it important for a consultant to have good public speaking skills? <ol> <li>Consultants are placed in leadership roles much sooner in their careers. Because of that, consultants are more apt to facilitate a meeting or be asked to facilitate a requirements gathering session.</li> <li>Most firms hold internal meetings on a regular basis and a young consultant may be asked to present an update on the project they’re working on to the whole firm.</li> <li>I’ve seen younger consultants given team lead responsibilities very early in their consulting career where they need to meet with a team and lead those meetings.</li> <li>Sometimes those opportunities are impromptu where someone turns to them on the fly and asks them to update the group on something.</li> <li>Other times, it’s a planned presentation, maybe with PowerPoint slides. Early in my career, I was asked to attend a sales meetings with customers where we presented a sales proposal.  They liked to have the actual consultants present to their prospective clients rather than just sales people.</li> <li>Consultants are also more inclined to be involved in professional organizations and there are always more opportunities for speaking at those types of meetings and gatherings.</li> <li>There are many other situations, but in any case, a consultant needs to be prepared and have the confidence to stand up and speak in front of a group of people.</li> </ol> </li> <li>When should a consultant begin honing skills in public speaking? <ol> <li>The earlier in their consulting career the better.  If you can begin doing that in college that’s great.  Especially as you get up to your junior and senior years, you begin taking classes where you may give group presentations.</li> <li>I’d recommend seizing those opportunities.  Unless it becomes a power struggle, try to take a leadership role on a team project to lead the presentation.</li> <li>And when you do give presentations, whether as an individual or with a group, don’t belittle it.  You may only be giving a presentation to your peers in your class, but treat it as a professional presentation.</li> <li>I remember my senior year in college we had to give a presentation to the class at the end of the semester.  The instructor had the department head come in to watch each team’s presentation.</li> <li>She had us dress the part with ties and professional attire (at least that was the standard for those days).  We had to prepare PowerPoint slides and make it seem like a professional presentation.</li> <li>It made it a bit more stressful, but it was more real world.  And I think it prepared us better for when we got into a professional setting.</li> <li>Many academic programs offer speech classes. I had a class called <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/business-communications/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Business Communications</a>, which was just a speech class as part of the business program. I’d recommend taking a class like this just to get the experience.  Again, play the part of a professional rather than a college student.  Much of public speaking is role playing and playing the role of a professional will get you used to that role early on.</li> <li>Another thing you can do either in college or if you’re just starting out in a professional services career is to join a professional organization.  A lot of professional organizations have student chapters on university campuses.</li> <li>It’s a chance to get involved and work with other people.  If you take a leadership role in an organization like that, you’ll get some good experience leading groups and giving presentations.</li> <li>Involvement in an organization like that gives a student experience not only presenting, but just interacting in a more professional environment.</li> <li>If you’re already out of college and in the work world, you can always volunteer at work to run meetings or to give presentations.  Your management probably won’t allow you to present every time you offer to, but they’ll usually find an opportunity for you if you show the willingness and desire.</li> <li>Even if it’s something as simple as leading a weekly team status meeting, that’s still valuable experience.</li> <li>Finally, I would recommend joining Toastmasters.  It’s a great organization that provides a safe environment to give speeches.  They provide mentoring and feedback on your speeches for positive feedback and constructive criticism.</li> <li>It’s an international organization with tens of thousands of chapters around the world.  You can find them at <a href="http://www.Toastmasters.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.Toastmasters.org</a> for a chapter near you.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What should someone do about getting nervous when speaking in front of a crowd? <ol> <li>That’s a pretty common situation.  There have been surveys where a majority of people say that public speaking is the number one fear – higher on the list than fear of death oddly enough.</li> <li>I remember when I was in college I was talking to a friend who was already in the work force.  He was preparing for a presentation he was supposed to give for something like 20 people.</li> <li>I told him I could never present to a group of people like that.  It just scared me to think of it.  It wasn’t a big deal for him and he seemed kind of surprised at my reaction.</li> <li>I look back on that now that I do it on a fairly regular basis and wonder what I was so afraid of.</li> <li>If you want to be a consultant and you get nervous in front of crowds, I would recommend getting as much practice as you can.  The more you talk in front of people the more comfortable you’re going to get with it.</li> <li>I would also recommend starting with smaller groups.  Running meetings with four or five people is much less stressful.  Once you develop a comfort level with a group that size, start building it up.</li> <li>I know that I used to get nervous and my heart would beat so fast I would get short of breath.  So here I’m trying to talk and I can’t breathe, so I’m taking lots of in and out breaths.</li> <li>I still get a little nervous like that in front of larger crowds.  Some tactics I’ve learned are to take some deep breaths before I speak. And then I try to speak just a little louder at the beginning.</li> <li>Speaking louder serves two purposes.  First, you get the audience’s attention right away.  This can give you some confidence that you have the audience in your control.  Secondly, it burns off some energy and anxiety and helps you calm down.</li> <li>I’ve also found that if I’m nervous in front of a group of people, that I feel better if I have a visual aid.  If you’ve got a PowerPoint presentation to show or even a simple flipchart, it takes the audience’s eyes away from you and veers their attention to the visual aid.</li> <li>It tends to calm me down a little.</li> <li>If possible, I would suggest checking out the room ahead of time and try to get a familiarization with it.  You can picture yourself speaking in that room ahead of time.</li> <li>I would also recommend watching good speaker and taking note of the way they present.  I like to watch politicians.  Some are better than others, but most politicians are pretty polished speakers.</li> <li>I watch how they refer to notes – or how they don’t in many cases.  I also watch their hands.  I used to get confused about what to do with my hands while speaking.  You can’t fold your arms and you can’t stand there wringing your hands.</li> <li>So watching professional or just very good speakers is a great way to pick up tips.</li> <li>In addition to practicing, the times I’ve gotten the most nervous is when I’m least prepared. If I don’t know my speech very well, or I’m unfamiliar enough that I won’t be able to answer any follow-up questions, I’m going to go up there fairly nervous.</li> <li>But if I’ve prepared well and know my stuff well, I go up there much more confidently. One note about that, it’s great to prepare and know how your speech is going to flow.  But you also want to be flexible.  If you’re going over your audience’s head or if it’s too basic for them, you have to be able to adjust.  Otherwise you’ll lose them.</li> <li>I’ve never been a big fan of imagining the audience in their underwear or anything like that.  It’s just kind of distracting and I forget what I’m talking about.</li> <li>I prefer to find three or four friendly faces in the crowd who are paying attention.  If they’re nodding while I talk I feel like they’re paying attention and tending to agree with me.  I’ll try to make eye contact with them and it will make me feel a little calmer.</li> <li>It’s important to just think positively.  Go up there expecting to succeed.  This speech isn’t as important to your audience as it is to you.  If you forget a line or misspeak, just move on.  The audience is probably not going to revolt on you if you make a mistake.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What does a consultant do when they face an antagonistic group? <ol> <li>That’s a much harder situation.  Hopefully, you’ve had the chance to get some experience in front of some friendly crowds before that happens.</li> <li>But in consulting, you may face clients that aren’t exactly angry mobs, but you may have a team that is a hard sell.  I’ve been in sales proposal meetings where we’re up against a couple of other top consulting firms and the project is worth several hundred thousand dollars.</li> <li>The client executives will ask some tough questions.  There are two things I recommend for a situation like this. First, don’t let them see you sweat.  Maintain your confidence.  There are ways to say ‘I don’t know’ in a confident way.  You can say something like, “I don’t have that information with me, but I can get it immediately after this meeting”.</li> <li>Once they see you break, you’re going to be putty in their hands.</li> <li>The other thing is preparation.  Whenever I watch a political debate on television, I think about all the preparation they go through.  They actually have another person play the role of their counterpart and ask tough questions.</li> <li>You see this in legal crime dramas on TV also when someone is going to be on the witness stand.  They go through a role playing process where someone plays the lawyer for the other team asking difficult questions to try to get them to break.</li> <li>If you’re going into any type of situation where you’ll be presenting to any type of hostile crowd, I would recommend you have a role playing session where you have someone or multiple people practice throwing these bombs at you so that you can get a little practice facing them.  If they can think of the toughest and potentially embarrassing questions and you can prepare for them, you’ll go in with much more confidence when it happens.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Final thoughts on public speaking for consultants? <ol> <li>When I first joined Toastmasters, there was an individual who had been in the organization for quite a while and he was an excellent speaker.</li> <li>I noticed how calm and collected he was in front of a group of people and what a great speaker he was.  He was a foreign-born individual with an accent.  I could tell English was not his primary language, but he spoke very clearly.</li> <li>So I went up to him and complemented him on his speaking abilities.  He told me that when he started out, he would just freeze.  He’d stand up in front of the group for a full minute, unable to say anything.</li> <li>He had come all that way just by practice and being determined to overcome that fear.</li> <li>Regardless of what you end up doing for a living, if you go into any type of work in the business world, you’re bound to end up doing some public speaking.</li> <li>If you go into consulting, you probably will do it more often.  I hope something like that doesn’t scare people who dislike public speaking away.</li> <li>It’s really not as bad as it may seem.  It does take some practice and preparation.  And if you make just a little effort to improve by seeking some experience or training, you’ll find that it gets easier and you’ll begin improving immediately.</li> <li>It’s also a matter of confidence.  I’ve always found that confidence breeds more confidence.  So if you go into a situation with your head up with a confident attitude, you’ll find that your confidence will build.</li> <li>And from that, you begin developing a confidence with larger crowds and more important presentations.</li> <li>You may even get to a point where people seek you out to speak because of your experience and professional speaking capabilities.</li> <li>For those people who suffer from public speaking anxiety, I’ve included a link in the show notes from the Toastmasters website titled 10 Tips for <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/public-speaking/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Public Speaking</a>, which gives some great advice on how to calm down for a speech.  I’ve also included some links in the show notes to some good books on public speaking.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: Developing a Professional Network Ten Tips for <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/public-speaking/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Public Speaking</a> (Toastmasters): <a href="http://www.toastmasters.org/tips.asp" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.toastmasters.org/tips.asp</a> Recommended Books: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1449301959/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1449301959&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Confessions of a Public Speaker</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0984396705/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0984396705&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">No Sweat Public Speaking!</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0974296627/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0974296627&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">In The SpotLight, Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking and Performing</a>

Public Speaking

Ideas, Information and Inspiration for Consultants and Business Service Professionals

We have discussed the importance of developing relationships with the client to become a client’s trusted advisor.  One of the most awkward of situations is when you finally have to sit down and enjoy a meal with the client.  In this week’s podcast, we’ll discuss some of the do’s and don’ts involved with dining with the client to help you advance in your consulting career.  What should a consultant consider when dining with a client? Well let’s talk about a situation where you’ve got a new-ish client and you’re going out for dinner after work.  One of the key questions is who will pay? Now it’s pretty well assumed that the vendor pays, so the consultant should plan on paying for the meal. But I was in a situation where the client asked us out for dinner.  We graciously accepted and there were four or five from each team. We had a nice dinner and nice conversation.  Then when the check came, the client did nothing to make an effort to pick up the bill. Finally, my boss grabbed the little folder and put his credit card in it to pay.  The client didn’t even flinch. So I think the moral to that story is to always be prepared to pay. I’ve also been in situations where we might be in a late morning meeting that finishes right before lunch and we’ll ask the client to join us for lunch. When the check comes we pick it up and he’ll offer to pay for his part.  This can be a little sketchy.  If you work for a firm that will reimburse you for lunches when you take the client out, it’s okay to flat out refuse payment. Their offer is not usually a real offer.  But if you can’t expense the meal, it’s acceptable to allow them to pay their own if the rest of the diners are doing the same. You may risk creating some bad will if you invited them to lunch and there was an implied invitation that you would pay. So who pays is somewhat touchy but you generally assume it will be the client. Another issue is what to order. This can be particularly questionable if you’re going out to dinner.  Now as a consultant, I would never take a client to a restaurant where I wasn’t willing to pay for the most expensive item. If that’s what they want to order, that’s fine with me.  But I’ve been in situations where the client goes first and orders a burger when the consulting team orders steaks.  Sometimes the client is trying to appear that they’re not taking advantage of the situation and orders a less expensive item.   Do you have ways to navigate that awkward situation? I usually discuss it with the people at the table.  I’m looking at that filet, what are you thinking about.  That kind of sets the standard for them and they won’t feel like they need to order something cheap. Another thing I try to do is get some idea of their preference.  I’ve worked with clients that are vegetarians or have some type of special dietary restriction.  I’m a big steak eater, but when you take the client out, it’s supposed to be about them. And I wouldn’t want to take a vegetarian to a steak joint.  It’s just not good form.  So I’ll say something like we’d like to take you out to dinner, do you have any suggestions? If they’re hesitant to make a suggestion, I’ll just come out and ask if they’re vegetarians or have any dietary preferences.  I’ll suggest maybe a steak place and a seafood place and something different like an Indian or Italian restaurant.  Again, it kind of sets the standard for them for the price range you’re thinking about. Another question is whether to drink alcohol.  This is something the client may shy away from if the consultant is paying and it’s something the consultant may shy away from to avoid offending a client.  They may not like alcohol consumption or they may be a recovering alcoholic. And even if you cross the line and everyone is okay with having a drink, it’s always a good idea to stop at one or two. There is almost always driving involved and even if you’re cabbing it or close to your hotel, you want to control your alcohol consumption when you’re with the client. I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to get totally messed up with the client.  You have so much to lose and so little to gain.   How do the rules differ for things like a team outing? That’s a little different story.  I’ve been involved in projects where there is a blended team.  When a milestone is reached, the management team will often treat the team to an outing This can be as simple as taking the team bowling or out for pizza, or it can be a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant. You have some of the same issues as when it’s just a dinner with the client.  You want to make sure about payment beforehand. Sometimes the client and consultant agree to jointly take the team out and split the bill somehow. More often, it’s the consulting firm taking everyone out.  You’ll also want to arrange the alcohol situation ahead of time.  Because of liability the firm may say that they’ll provide soft drinks and the team members can purchase their own alcoholic drinks. But I’ve been to many project outings where the firm opens the bill.  They paid for all the food and kept the bar tab open for several hours. I think in that situation, again, any individual consultants need to be careful not to consume more than one or two social drinks. I’ve seen outings like this where it’s all on the consulting firm and the client’s team members are reluctant to order anything and run up the bill. It’s incumbent on the consultants to encourage them to order and make them comfortable.  Essentially let them know that they aren’t going to get in trouble for ordering more food or a drink or two.   Have you ever seen a lunch or a dinner go bad? Well, I told you about the time the client invited us and didn’t pay.  That had potential to go bad. I’ve heard of situations where either the consultants or the client have too much to drink.  That’s just kind of an embarrassment, particularly if they end up reenacting The Hangover or something. I’ve heard various stories about that type of situation, and it just reinforces my belief that alcohol should be kept to a minimum when you’re out with the client. I’ve also seen conversations go downhill when people start talking about politics or religion.  These are very touchy subjects for some people and subjects I would recommend staying away from. I think it’s easy to avoid them in an office environment, but once you get outside of that and in more casual surroundings, our inhibitions are lowered and we get this false sense of security. I’ve even seen it with sports.  If two people start talking and they each root for different sports rivals, it can get a bit uncomfortable watching it escalate.   Any advice you would suggest to a young consultant that hasn’t dined with clients on a regular basis? I remember when I was in my first year or two, I didn’t get invited to too many client lunches or dinners. But when I did, I was a bit nervous. I was fine sitting in a conference room or an office talking about business or technology.  But I didn’t have any small talk skills. I mean, I could chat with my friends and hold a conversation, but I was a bit awkward with the management at my firm or with the client. I was afraid I’d say something wrong or appear naïve.  So I was overly quiet and that’s awkward for both the one who is being quiet and everyone else at the table. I also followed the interview rule.  I was very careful not to order anything like spaghetti or anything messy enough that I would be prone to spill on my shirt. Now that I’ve been in the industry for a good while, I was way too careful.  I look back and realize that I probably looked more stupid by not saying anything than anything I could have said back then. A good consultant is comfortable in their own skin and can hold a conversation. Something I do now if I’m going to meet with someone for dinner – or any meal – is to do a little homework.  I’ll actually look for their LinkedIn profile and see if I can learn a little about their past that might be interesting to talk about. But more than anything, I follow the Dale Carnegie approach and just take an interest in them. I’ll ask them a few questions about themselves and show an interest in them.  Most people like to talk about themselves. It gets the conversation started and you can eventually find something that you have in common that will grow into an interesting conversation. I would recommend not talking too much about yourself.  Especially if you’re meeting with a client, maintain an interest in them.  It’s okay to add tidbits about yourself and add to the story. But if you just show some interest in someone, they’ll think you’re a good conversationalist. Also, if you’re nervous, it takes pressure off of you trying to come up with things to talk about.  You put all of the attention toward your client.   Have you ever had to deal with a client that just wasn’t talkative?  You ask them a question and they only answer with one or two word answers? Yes.  That can be problematic if the client and you as the consultant are awkward in social settings. That’s why a good consultant is a good conversationalist. I mentioned asking them questions about themselves.  One thing you can do is try to come up with questions that aren’t open to yes/no answers. Ask them why something happened or how they did something.  They may still figure out a way to give a limited answer but it should get them to open up a little. It’s also good to be a good story teller.  I mentioned earlier that you want to focus on the client and let them talk about themselves, but if they don’t want to open up, you can take the heat off of them and do some of the talking. You want to be careful.  Some people think of storytelling and think they can just open up and talk about themselves.  The key is to tell them something interesting.  If what little conversation you have leads you to think of a humorous story, then go ahead and tell it. Just make sure you keep the stories short and monitor their reactions.  You should be able to tell if you’re boring them silly or if they’re genuinely interested.   Any final thoughts? Much like a lunch interview or the first meal with your in-laws, dining with the client can be an awkward situation. Just keep in mind that it can be just as awkward for them.  They know the consultant is paying and they may not be sure what their appropriate actions are.  It’s always good to put them at ease and try to be a gracious host. That includes letting them know in a subtle way that they’re welcome to order whatever they want. As I mentioned, you need to be careful with alcohol, even if the client is not.  If they tend to over indulge you may feel like it’s fine, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s also good to learn how to be a conversationalist.  Try to get them to open up and talk about themselves and if they won’t, it’s okay to do so as long as you don’t bore them to death. But developing good dining skills, being comfortable and making the client feel comfortable can work wonders for advaning you consulting career.    Next week’s topic: Public Speaking Book suggestion: Shine While You Dine: Business Dining Etiquette for the Virtual Age by Robert A Shutt http://www.amazon.com/Shine-While-You-Dine-Etiquette/dp/1456713299/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1359830463&amp;sr=1-5&amp;keywords=dining+etiquette Essential Etiquette Fundamentals, Vol. 1: Dining Etiquette By Mike Lininger http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Etiquette-Fundamentals-Vol-Dining/dp/098019511X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1359830463&amp;sr=1-3&amp;keywords=dining+etiquette

We have discussed the importance of developing relationships with the client to become a client’s trusted advisor.  One of the most awkward of situations is when you finally have to sit down and enjoy a meal with the client.  In this week’s podcast, we’ll discuss some of the do’s and don’ts involved with dining with the client to help you advance in your consulting career.<a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Wine_at_lunch.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> <ol> <li>What should a consultant consider when dining with a client? <ol> <li>Well let’s talk about a situation where you’ve got a new-ish client and you’re going out for dinner after work.  One of the key questions is who will pay?</li> <li>Now it’s pretty well assumed that the vendor pays, so the consultant should plan on paying for the meal.</li> <li>But I was in a situation where the client asked us out for dinner.  We graciously accepted and there were four or five from each team.</li> <li>We had a nice dinner and nice conversation.  Then when the check came, the client did nothing to make an effort to pick up the bill.</li> <li>Finally, my boss grabbed the little folder and put his credit card in it to pay.  The client didn’t even flinch.</li> <li>So I think the moral to that story is to always be prepared to pay.</li> <li>I’ve also been in situations where we might be in a late morning meeting that finishes right before lunch and we’ll ask the client to join us for lunch.</li> <li>When the check comes we pick it up and he’ll offer to pay for his part.  This can be a little sketchy.  If you work for a firm that will reimburse you for lunches when you take the client out, it’s okay to flat out refuse payment.</li> <li>Their offer is not usually a real offer.  But if you can’t expense the meal, it’s acceptable to allow them to pay their own if the rest of the diners are doing the same.</li> <li>You may risk creating some bad will if you invited them to lunch and there was an implied invitation that you would pay.</li> <li>So who pays is somewhat touchy but you generally assume it will be the client.</li> <li>Another issue is what to order. This can be particularly questionable if you’re going out to dinner.  Now as a consultant, I would never take a client to a restaurant where I wasn’t willing to pay for the most expensive item.</li> <li>If that’s what they want to order, that’s fine with me.  But I’ve been in situations where the client goes first and orders a burger when the consulting team orders steaks.  Sometimes the client is trying to appear that they’re not taking advantage of the situation and orders a less expensive item.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Do you have ways to navigate that awkward situation? <ol> <li>I usually discuss it with the people at the table.  I’m looking at that filet, what are you thinking about.  That kind of sets the standard for them and they won’t feel like they need to order something cheap.</li> <li>Another thing I try to do is get some idea of their preference.  I’ve worked with clients that are vegetarians or have some type of special dietary restriction.  I’m a big steak eater, but when you take the client out, it’s supposed to be about them.</li> <li>And I wouldn’t want to take a vegetarian to a steak joint.  It’s just not good form.  So I’ll say something like we’d like to take you out to dinner, do you have any suggestions?</li> <li>If they’re hesitant to make a suggestion, I’ll just come out and ask if they’re vegetarians or have any dietary preferences.  I’ll suggest maybe a steak place and a seafood place and something different like an Indian or Italian restaurant.  Again, it kind of sets the standard for them for the price range you’re thinking about.</li> <li>Another question is whether to drink alcohol.  This is something the client may shy away from if the consultant is paying and it’s something the consultant may shy away from to avoid offending a client.  They may not like alcohol consumption or they may be a recovering alcoholic.</li> <li>And even if you cross the line and everyone is okay with having a drink, it’s always a good idea to stop at one or two.</li> <li>There is almost always driving involved and even if you’re cabbing it or close to your hotel, you want to control your alcohol consumption when you’re with the client.</li> <li>I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to get totally messed up with the client.  You have so much to lose and so little to gain.</li> </ol> </li> <li>How do the rules differ for things like a team outing? <ol> <li>That’s a little different story.  I’ve been involved in projects where there is a blended team.  When a milestone is reached, the management team will often treat the team to an outing</li> <li>This can be as simple as taking the team bowling or out for pizza, or it can be a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant.</li> <li>You have some of the same issues as when it’s just a dinner with the client.  You want to make sure about payment beforehand.</li> <li>Sometimes the client and consultant agree to jointly take the team out and split the bill somehow.</li> <li>More often, it’s the consulting firm taking everyone out.  You’ll also want to arrange the alcohol situation ahead of time.  Because of liability the firm may say that they’ll provide soft drinks and the team members can purchase their own alcoholic drinks.</li> <li>But I’ve been to many project outings where the firm opens the bill.  They paid for all the food and kept the bar tab open for several hours.</li> <li>I think in that situation, again, any individual consultants need to be careful not to consume more than one or two social drinks.</li> <li>I’ve seen outings like this where it’s all on the consulting firm and the client’s team members are reluctant to order anything and run up the bill.</li> <li>It’s incumbent on the consultants to encourage them to order and make them comfortable.  Essentially let them know that they aren’t going to get in trouble for ordering more food or a drink or two.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Have you ever seen a lunch or a dinner go bad? <ol> <li>Well, I told you about the time the client invited us and didn’t pay.  That had potential to go bad.</li> <li>I’ve heard of situations where either the consultants or the client have too much to drink.  That’s just kind of an embarrassment, particularly if they end up reenacting The Hangover or something.</li> <li>I’ve heard various stories about that type of situation, and it just reinforces my belief that alcohol should be kept to a minimum when you’re out with the client.</li> <li>I’ve also seen conversations go downhill when people start talking about politics or religion.  These are very touchy subjects for some people and subjects I would recommend staying away from.</li> <li>I think it’s easy to avoid them in an office environment, but once you get outside of that and in more casual surroundings, our inhibitions are lowered and we get this false sense of security.</li> <li>I’ve even seen it with sports.  If two people start talking and they each root for different sports rivals, it can get a bit uncomfortable watching it escalate.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any advice you would suggest to a young consultant that hasn’t dined with clients on a regular basis? <ol> <li>I remember when I was in my first year or two, I didn’t get invited to too many client lunches or dinners. But when I did, I was a bit nervous.</li> <li>I was fine sitting in a conference room or an office talking about business or technology.  But I didn’t have any small talk skills.</li> <li>I mean, I could chat with my friends and hold a conversation, but I was a bit awkward with the management at my firm or with the client.</li> <li>I was afraid I’d say something wrong or appear naïve.  So I was overly quiet and that’s awkward for both the one who is being quiet and everyone else at the table.</li> <li>I also followed the interview rule.  I was very careful not to order anything like spaghetti or anything messy enough that I would be prone to spill on my shirt.</li> <li>Now that I’ve been in the industry for a good while, I was way too careful.  I look back and realize that I probably looked more stupid by not saying anything than anything I could have said back then.</li> <li>A good consultant is comfortable in their own skin and can hold a conversation.</li> <li>Something I do now if I’m going to meet with someone for dinner – or any meal – is to do a little homework.  I’ll actually look for their LinkedIn profile and see if I can learn a little about their past that might be interesting to talk about.</li> <li>But more than anything, I follow the Dale Carnegie approach and just take an interest in them.</li> <li>I’ll ask them a few questions about themselves and show an interest in them.  Most people like to talk about themselves.</li> <li>It gets the conversation started and you can eventually find something that you have in common that will grow into an interesting conversation.</li> <li>I would recommend not talking too much about yourself.  Especially if you’re meeting with a client, maintain an interest in them.  It’s okay to add tidbits about yourself and add to the story.</li> <li>But if you just show some interest in someone, they’ll think you’re a good conversationalist.</li> <li>Also, if you’re nervous, it takes pressure off of you trying to come up with things to talk about.  You put all of the attention toward your client.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Have you ever had to deal with a client that just wasn’t talkative?  You ask them a question and they only answer with one or two word answers? <ol> <li>Yes.</li> <li></li> <li>That can be problematic if the client and you as the consultant are awkward in social settings. That’s why a good consultant is a good conversationalist.</li> <li>I mentioned asking them questions about themselves.  One thing you can do is try to come up with questions that aren’t open to yes/no answers.</li> <li>Ask them why something happened or how they did something.  They may still figure out a way to give a limited answer but it should get them to open up a little.</li> <li>It’s also good to be a good story teller.  I mentioned earlier that you want to focus on the client and let them talk about themselves, but if they don’t want to open up, you can take the heat off of them and do some of the talking.</li> <li>You want to be careful.  Some people think of storytelling and think they can just open up and talk about themselves.  The key is to tell them something interesting.  If what little conversation you have leads you to think of a humorous story, then go ahead and tell it.</li> <li>Just make sure you keep the stories short and monitor their reactions.  You should be able to tell if you’re boring them silly or if they’re genuinely interested.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any final thoughts? <ol> <li>Much like a lunch interview or the first meal with your in-laws, dining with the client can be an awkward situation.</li> <li>Just keep in mind that it can be just as awkward for them.  They know the consultant is paying and they may not be sure what their appropriate actions are.  It’s always good to put them at ease and try to be a gracious host. That includes letting them know in a subtle way that they’re welcome to order whatever they want.</li> <li>As I mentioned, you need to be careful with alcohol, even if the client is not.  If they tend to over indulge you may feel like it’s fine, but I wouldn’t recommend it.</li> <li>It’s also good to learn how to be a conversationalist.  Try to get them to open up and talk about themselves and if they won’t, it’s okay to do so as long as you don’t bore them to death.</li> <li>But developing good dining skills, being comfortable and making the client feel comfortable can work wonders for advaning you consulting career.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: Public Speaking Book suggestion: Shine While You Dine: Business Dining Etiquette for the Virtual Age by Robert A Shutt <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shine-While-You-Dine-Etiquette/dp/1456713299/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1359830463&amp;sr=1-5&amp;keywords=dining+etiquette" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/Shine-While-You-Dine-Etiquette/dp/1456713299/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1359830463&amp;sr=1-5&amp;keywords=dining+etiquette</a> Essential Etiquette Fundamentals, Vol. 1: Dining Etiquette By Mike Lininger <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Etiquette-Fundamentals-Vol-Dining/dp/098019511X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1359830463&amp;sr=1-3&amp;keywords=dining+etiquette" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Etiquette-Fundamentals-Vol-Dining/dp/098019511X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1359830463&amp;sr=1-3&amp;keywords=dining+etiquette</a>

Dining with the Client

Consultants are brought in by a client for many reasons and one of the key reasons is their expertise and methodology.  Most firms have their own standards and the consultant needs to develop a balance between following the client’s standards and the firm’s standards that the client may want to adapt.  What are the types of standards where you run into conflict with the client? It often depends on your role in the project.  I work in IT consulting, so we do custom software development. We have a certain set of coding standards that we follow, but when we go to a client to develop software for them, they may have a different set.  We need to reconcile that with them and determine which standards we’re going to follow on the project. We may feel that we have a better set of standards, but the client needs to deal with the lack of consistency of having one of their applications developed under a different standard. We also deal with it for documentation.  Some clients have standards for how documents are created such as templates for business requirements or technical designs.  It may be as simple as the template used, but they may also require specific sections with other details. Most consulting firms have their own standards for all of these documentation formats and the type of content that is provided. So there is often a gap with those types of standards Project management consultants my have their own standards for their methodology. I’m a project manager myself, and I tend to run into a lot of standards differences between things like status reporting and how we structure meetings at the client.   How do you reconcile these types of differences in standards? It generally varies based on how strong the client’s preference is.  It can also depend on why the client brought the firm in. For instance with the coding standards issue I just mentioned.  The client may agree 100% that the consulting firm’s coding standards are better and more efficient, but they just don’t want to deal with the inconsistency after they take on the responsibility of their staff maintaining the code after the consultants leave. Consistency is really the whole reason for having coding standards.  They have maintenance programmers that support all of their applications. If they can count on a certain amount of uniformity in their coding and naming standards across all of their applications, they can more efficiently maintain them. I’ve always heard it said that a bad standard is better than no standard at all. So consultants going into a client need to find out what can you do and what can’t you do that you might be used to including in your code. Now if the difference has to do with documentation standards, it’s a little similar to the coding standards.  If the client’s executives are used to seeing business requirements or design documents in a certain way, they may be more stringent about you doing it their way I’ve seen situations where the firm and the client have different standards and we’ll sit down and reconcile them.  We’ll maybe use their template, but add sections from our document to make sure we cover all of the critical aspects. As a project manager, I have my company’s standard status report that I’m used to using.  I’ve had clients that have a standard status report that they want me to use.  But I’ve had others that have no standard and look to us to provide the standard. There are times where we treat it like the documentation and create a combined hybrid of their standard and ours to make sure we report all the pertinent information. It’s a matter of sitting down with them up front and decided on a project standard together. At my last client, I would submit our standard status report to them each week and they would cut and paste all of the information into their web-based standard reporting tool.  It seemed a little bit redundant to me, but that worked well for them.   What are the situations where a client doesn’t want the firm to use their own standards? Sometimes, top consulting firms are brought in specifically for their methodology and standards.  In that case, part of what they want is for the firm to help them establish standards. In the example of the coding standards, they may have no standards at all and everyone is doing stuff all over the board. They may ask the firm to come in and establish a set of coding standards that they can start following moving forward. Some clients are start-up companies or just new enough that they haven’t even established a standard for any type of documentation or reporting. They’re really looking to the consulting firm to provide that for them so that they can use our templates and establish a tool kit for future use. When it comes to project management, a firm is often brought in specifically for their methodology.  The client often hopes to use that methodology as a template for their own standards on projects after the firm leaves. The thing we often warn clients about is that a formal methodology is not just about the documentation templates.  Most formal methodologies are much more complex and involve a lot of defined processes Some of that, the firm will share with the client and some of it is proprietary.  But our clients aren’t always just trying to copy our methodology. They usually just admit that they don’t have a mature project management methodology and are leaning on the firm to provide it for that project. They may learn a few things about the methodology and adapt a few of the best practices, but essentially they’re deferring to the consultants to provide the standards.   In addition to coding and documentation approaches, what other standards should a consultant be aware of. Well they should also make sure they understand the client’s cultural standards.  One aspect of that is their work-day hours. I’ve been to client sites where they’re very flexible with their employees’ work hours.  In the Chicago area, traffic is always an issue, so they allow their staff to come in late, and leave late, or come in early to beat the traffic and leave early in the afternoon. When they do that, they generally offer the same flexibility to the client.  In those cases, we always try to establish a set of core hours when everyone will be at the office. We may set 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM so that we have a period where we know we can schedule meetings and get ahold of people. But some clients have a strict 8:00 to 5:00 schedule.  And they expect consultants to live by those rules too.  So back at your consulting firm’s office, maybe they allowed you to come in and leave later in the day, at the client, you need to work under their work day hours. This is particularly difficult for consultants when they work later into the night.  They may work until 9 or 10 o’clock at night and think they can come in later in the morning. But the client doesn’t see how late you stayed and worked, they only see that you rolled in at 9 or 10 in the morning.   How strict are client about these kinds of rules. This is probably a worst case scenario.  It really depends on the client. Most clients are pretty flexible.  But I did have a client that was this inflexible once and we had to learn to live with it. This client had their weekly status meeting on Tuesdays at 8:00 AM.  It was a long, traffic-filled commute for me and there were times when I was running into the building at 7:59, but we knew they were strict time keepers and we lived under their rules. Another area outside of documentation and coding is the dress code.  I know we’ve discussed dress codes in the past, but I think it bears taking another look at. When you’re at your own firm’s offices, they may have one standard.  Some firms allow you to wear jeans and t-shirts or even shorts.  But the client may have another standard. We’ve evolved from the day where everyone wore suits wherever they went, to a full gamut of environments. One client may allow business casual, where you need to wear dress pants or khakis with collared shirts, or they may allow ‘anything goes’ with jeans, t-shirts and sneakers. Regardless of what your firm allows in their offices, you need to comply with what the client wants when you’re at their site. I had a client that required suits and ties every day – including the traditional casual Friday.  The only thing worse than wearing a tie is wearing one after getting used to the open collar. But the point is that the client may have a stricter policy than your firm or the last client you worked at, and you need to be aware of that and comply with it. If you’re in Healthcare consulting, each client may have different policies and standards to help them comply with HIPAA regulations.  They’ll probably be very strict with those policies. Financial consulting firms may be strict with client confidentiality and security standards as well.   Let’s get back to the documentation and coding standards for a moment.  Are there ever times when you try to sell them over to your standard? At times.  When it comes to coding standards, if the client has a very poor standard, or more likely no standard – or maybe they have one but no one there follows it – the consulting firm can suggest a list of standards that they recommend. It’s something that you might ease into.  If you’ve got a complex set of standards and their team is used to being a bunch of rebels, the likelihood of them adapting your standards is slim. But if you suggest some high-level ones, maybe just some naming convention standards, that might get them started on the right foot and you can begin expanding it from there. As far as documentation standards, if I’m at a client that doesn’t have any standards, I’ll suggest our own.  Some clients may not have a corporate standard, but each group or each manager uses their own. If they prefer that standard, I’m fine with it, as long as it includes all of the information that I want to make sure I report. For things like business requirements, I’m amazed at how many companies don’t have a standard.  Each person kinds of submits whatever they want to submit.  In that case, they welcome our standard and it’s one of the reasons that they asked our firm to come there in the first place. I think the real challenge is when they have a bad standard that they want to use.  We can suggest our document formats and if they push back, we can’t force it upon them. In that case, I usually try to use their standard and then add sections to it to accommodate for the information we want to include. I’ve found most clients are open to a consulting firm’s standard because that’s what we do for a living.  They assume that consultants are bound to have better document formats for them to use. We have a lot better luck with methodologies.  That’s often what they hired us for and it gives us some leverage. I’ve been on projects where that was our primary objective – to use our methodology and get their employees used to working within its principals. And if that’s the case, I’ve found that we’re more successful suggesting standards for coding, documentation and other areas because they’re turning to us as the experts.   Any final thoughts? I’ve always recommended a ‘when in Rome’ approach to working on a client site.  If they have certain standards that are different from those of your firm, it’s okay to test the waters and see if they’re open to switching to the ones the firm has. There are some where you just accept them and do it their way. It’s something of a skill to see where they have flexibility and where they’re more firm. A consultant should always remember that they’re a guest at the client and should conform to their standards if the client feels strongly about them, while at the same time, being bold enough to offer suggestions.  Flexibility will always be beneficial for your consulting career.    Next week’s topic: Dining with the client Suggested Book: How Work Gets Done: Business Process Management, Basics and Beyond

Consultants are brought in by a client for many reasons and one of the key reasons is their expertise and methodology.  Most firms have <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Balance.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>their own standards and the consultant needs to develop a balance between following the client’s standards and the firm’s standards that the client may want to adapt. <ol> <li>What are the types of standards where you run into conflict with the client? <ol> <li>It often depends on your role in the project.  I work in IT consulting, so we do custom software development.</li> <li>We have a certain set of coding standards that we follow, but when we go to a client to develop software for them, they may have a different set.  We need to reconcile that with them and determine which standards we’re going to follow on the project.</li> <li>We may feel that we have a better set of standards, but the client needs to deal with the lack of consistency of having one of their applications developed under a different standard.</li> <li>We also deal with it for documentation.  Some clients have standards for how documents are created such as templates for business requirements or technical designs.  It may be as simple as the template used, but they may also require specific sections with other details.</li> <li>Most consulting firms have their own standards for all of these documentation formats and the type of content that is provided.</li> <li>So there is often a gap with those types of standards</li> <li>Project management consultants my have their own standards for their methodology. I’m a project manager myself, and I tend to run into a lot of standards differences between things like status reporting and how we structure meetings at the client.</li> </ol> </li> <li>How do you reconcile these types of differences in standards? <ol> <li>It generally varies based on how strong the client’s preference is.  It can also depend on why the client brought the firm in.</li> <li>For instance with the coding standards issue I just mentioned.  The client may agree 100% that the consulting firm’s coding standards are better and more efficient, but they just don’t want to deal with the inconsistency after they take on the responsibility of their staff maintaining the code after the consultants leave.</li> <li>Consistency is really the whole reason for having coding standards.  They have maintenance programmers that support all of their applications.</li> <li>If they can count on a certain amount of uniformity in their coding and naming standards across all of their applications, they can more efficiently maintain them.</li> <li>I’ve always heard it said that a bad standard is better than no standard at all.</li> <li>So consultants going into a client need to find out what can you do and what can’t you do that you might be used to including in your code.</li> <li>Now if the difference has to do with documentation standards, it’s a little similar to the coding standards.  If the client’s executives are used to seeing business requirements or design documents in a certain way, they may be more stringent about you doing it their way</li> <li>I’ve seen situations where the firm and the client have different standards and we’ll sit down and reconcile them.  We’ll maybe use their template, but add sections from our document to make sure we cover all of the critical aspects.</li> <li>As a project manager, I have my company’s standard status report that I’m used to using.  I’ve had clients that have a standard status report that they want me to use.  But I’ve had others that have no standard and look to us to provide the standard.</li> <li>There are times where we treat it like the documentation and create a combined hybrid of their standard and ours to make sure we report all the pertinent information.</li> <li>It’s a matter of sitting down with them up front and decided on a project standard together.</li> <li>At my last client, I would submit our standard status report to them each week and they would cut and paste all of the information into their web-based standard reporting tool.  It seemed a little bit redundant to me, but that worked well for them.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What are the situations where a client doesn’t want the firm to use their own standards? <ol> <li>Sometimes, top consulting firms are brought in specifically for their methodology and standards.  In that case, part of what they want is for the firm to help them establish standards.</li> <li>In the example of the coding standards, they may have no standards at all and everyone is doing stuff all over the board.</li> <li>They may ask the firm to come in and establish a set of coding standards that they can start following moving forward.</li> <li>Some clients are start-up companies or just new enough that they haven’t even established a standard for any type of documentation or reporting.</li> <li>They’re really looking to the consulting firm to provide that for them so that they can use our templates and establish a tool kit for future use.</li> <li>When it comes to project management, a firm is often brought in specifically for their methodology.  The client often hopes to use that methodology as a template for their own standards on projects after the firm leaves.</li> <li>The thing we often warn clients about is that a formal methodology is not just about the documentation templates.  Most formal methodologies are much more complex and involve a lot of defined processes</li> <li>Some of that, the firm will share with the client and some of it is proprietary.  But our clients aren’t always just trying to copy our methodology.</li> <li>They usually just admit that they don’t have a mature project management methodology and are leaning on the firm to provide it for that project.</li> <li>They may learn a few things about the methodology and adapt a few of the best practices, but essentially they’re deferring to the consultants to provide the standards.</li> </ol> </li> <li>In addition to coding and documentation approaches, what other standards should a consultant be aware of. <ol> <li>Well they should also make sure they understand the client’s cultural standards.  One aspect of that is their work-day hours.</li> <li>I’ve been to client sites where they’re very flexible with their employees’ work hours.  In the Chicago area, traffic is always an issue, so they allow their staff to come in late, and leave late, or come in early to beat the traffic and leave early in the afternoon.</li> <li>When they do that, they generally offer the same flexibility to the client.  In those cases, we always try to establish a set of core hours when everyone will be at the office.</li> <li>We may set 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM so that we have a period where we know we can schedule meetings and get ahold of people.</li> <li>But some clients have a strict 8:00 to 5:00 schedule.  And they expect consultants to live by those rules too.  So back at your consulting firm’s office, maybe they allowed you to come in and leave later in the day, at the client, you need to work under their work day hours.</li> <li>This is particularly difficult for consultants when they work later into the night.  They may work until 9 or 10 o’clock at night and think they can come in later in the morning.</li> <li>But the client doesn’t see how late you stayed and worked, they only see that you rolled in at 9 or 10 in the morning.</li> </ol> </li> <li>How strict are client about these kinds of rules. <ol> <li>This is probably a worst case scenario.  It really depends on the client. Most clients are pretty flexible.  But I did have a client that was this inflexible once and we had to learn to live with it.</li> <li>This client had their weekly status meeting on Tuesdays at 8:00 AM.  It was a long, traffic-filled commute for me and there were times when I was running into the building at 7:59, but we knew they were strict time keepers and we lived under their rules.</li> <li>Another area outside of documentation and coding is the dress code.  I know we’ve discussed dress codes in the past, but I think it bears taking another look at.</li> <li>When you’re at your own firm’s offices, they may have one standard.  Some firms allow you to wear jeans and t-shirts or even shorts.  But the client may have another standard.</li> <li>We’ve evolved from the day where everyone wore suits wherever they went, to a full gamut of environments.</li> <li>One client may allow business casual, where you need to wear dress pants or khakis with collared shirts, or they may allow ‘anything goes’ with jeans, t-shirts and sneakers.</li> <li>Regardless of what your firm allows in their offices, you need to comply with what the client wants when you’re at their site.</li> <li>I had a client that required suits and ties every day – including the traditional casual Friday.  The only thing worse than wearing a tie is wearing one after getting used to the open collar.</li> <li>But the point is that the client may have a stricter policy than your firm or the last client you worked at, and you need to be aware of that and comply with it.</li> <li>If you’re in Healthcare consulting, each client may have different policies and standards to help them comply with HIPAA regulations.  They’ll probably be very strict with those policies. Financial consulting firms may be strict with client confidentiality and security standards as well.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Let’s get back to the documentation and coding standards for a moment.  Are there ever times when you try to sell them over to your standard? <ol> <li>At times.  When it comes to coding standards, if the client has a very poor standard, or more likely no standard – or maybe they have one but no one there follows it – the consulting firm can suggest a list of standards that they recommend.</li> <li>It’s something that you might ease into.  If you’ve got a complex set of standards and their team is used to being a bunch of rebels, the likelihood of them adapting your standards is slim.</li> <li>But if you suggest some high-level ones, maybe just some naming convention standards, that might get them started on the right foot and you can begin expanding it from there.</li> <li>As far as documentation standards, if I’m at a client that doesn’t have any standards, I’ll suggest our own.  Some clients may not have a corporate standard, but each group or each manager uses their own.</li> <li>If they prefer that standard, I’m fine with it, as long as it includes all of the information that I want to make sure I report.</li> <li>For things like business requirements, I’m amazed at how many companies don’t have a standard.  Each person kinds of submits whatever they want to submit.  In that case, they welcome our standard and it’s one of the reasons that they asked our firm to come there in the first place.</li> <li>I think the real challenge is when they have a bad standard that they want to use.  We can suggest our document formats and if they push back, we can’t force it upon them.</li> <li>In that case, I usually try to use their standard and then add sections to it to accommodate for the information we want to include.</li> <li>I’ve found most clients are open to a consulting firm’s standard because that’s what we do for a living.  They assume that consultants are bound to have better document formats for them to use.</li> <li>We have a lot better luck with methodologies.  That’s often what they hired us for and it gives us some leverage. I’ve been on projects where that was our primary objective – to use our methodology and get their employees used to working within its principals.</li> <li>And if that’s the case, I’ve found that we’re more successful suggesting standards for coding, documentation and other areas because they’re turning to us as the experts.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any final thoughts? <ol> <li>I’ve always recommended a ‘when in Rome’ approach to working on a client site.  If they have certain standards that are different from those of your firm, it’s okay to test the waters and see if they’re open to switching to the ones the firm has.</li> <li>There are some where you just accept them and do it their way.</li> <li>It’s something of a skill to see where they have flexibility and where they’re more firm.</li> <li>A consultant should always remember that they’re a guest at the client and should conform to their standards if the client feels strongly about them, while at the same time, being bold enough to offer suggestions.  Flexibility will always be beneficial for your consulting career.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: Dining with the client Suggested Book:<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/193550407X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=193550407X&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/193550407X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=193550407X&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How Work Gets Done: Business Process Management, Basics and Beyond</a>

Balancing firm standards with the client’s

The nature of consulting and professional services generally requires consultants to work at the client’s offices.  Even if it is not a full time commitment, meetings and part-time work often require the consultant to be at the client site.  When a consultant is on-site, it’s important to act with respect as though you are a guest.  In this week’s podcast we’ll discuss the recommended ways to act while at the client’s offices.  Why is it important for a consultant to act as though they are a guest at the client? Mainly because they are guests.  The client has hired them to perform a job on a temporary basis.  They hire their employees on a long-term basis and that creates kind of a family environment with their employees. Employees are insiders and consultants are more like outsiders.  Some clients do a better job of including consultants and that’s nice, but consultants need to be careful not to include themselves on things that should be for employees and that they’re not invited to by the client. For example, I’ve hired maintenance people to come into my house to fix something or to do some clean.  And I always appreciate the workers who take off their shoes at the door before they walk though my house. I don’t always take my shoes off or make my kids take them off, but I appreciate the workers who show that respect when they work in my house to avoid tracking dirt all over. In the client situation, they’re usually paying a premium rate for the expert consultant and expect them to be a little more dedicated to the project than their own employees.   What are some examples of consultants not acting as guests at the client site? It normally happens when the consultant starts taking advantage of perks the employees enjoy but that a consultant should not. For instance, employees are often afforded luxuries like doing personal work at their desk like paying bills or checking their Facebook status. It’s usually not that the employees are allowed to do it as much as it’s just overlooked by their management. Consultants should do that kind of stuff on their personal time rather than while they’re at the client site.  Some clients are more lenient than others, but the point is that consultants don’t have the same leeway that an employee is given with those kinds of activities. Another situation is when there is an employee picnic or party of some kind.  I’ve been at client sites where they have a huge summer picnic in the parking lot with food and games and all kinds of fun activities. First, if the consulting team is invited to that, it’s a nice gesture to attend.  But they need to make it clear to the client that they aren’t billing them for those hours. Additionally, if there are door prizes, consultants should not enter their name in the drawing.  And if, for some reason their names are included and they get called, they should decline the award. I was at a client a couple of years ago in that situation and they told me to put a ticket in the drawing for door prized.  I refused and explained that it wasn’t right for consultants to be involved. So our team attended the picnic and enjoyed the games and food.  After they drew names for door prizes, they started handing out hats and t-shirts.  I was still a little reluctant to take one.  Finally, one of the executives came up and offered one to me and said there were plenty to go around. I finally took one because it would have actually been rude and kind of aloof not to.  So you have to balance not making yourself too comfortable with being part of their team.   What other situations have you witnessed where consultants actually made themselves a little too much at home? One situation I experienced was a situation where the clients generally left work around 4:30 or 5:00 in the afternoon, while the consultants worked later into the night.  At some point they would end up ordering some dinner which nine times out of ten was pizza.  But whatever they ordered, when they finished and did their clean up, it was after the maintenance people had already taken the garbage out. So their late night garbage – pizza boxes or Chinese take-out – was stacked up by the garbage cans the next morning along with the stale smell of whatever food they had. Some consultants kind of wear that as a badge of courage.  It kind of showed the client ‘look how late we were working while you were at home relaxing’. In reality, most clients could care less about that.  It’s almost expected behavior.  So we had a client ask us to walk the garbage down to the cafeteria garbage cans so that it didn’t smell up the office area. Some clients just have an expectation that their internal services should be available to them but not to the outsiders.  I once worked for a retail client who had a sample store at their corporate headquarters. This was just a store where some of their display items or ites that had damaged boxes and couldn’t be sold to customers were made available to their employees for cost or even below, just to get rid of them. Some of our consultants went to the store and bought some items and the client complained to our management that that was for employees only. Quite often, it’s standard behavior that they allow their employees to do that they don’t allow consultants to do. You can call it a double standard and that’s really what it is.  Consultants are often treated differently than client employees and that’s just how it is.  It’s a different relationship altogether.   How can this affect the consulting firm’s relationship with the client? It can tend to erode the firm’s credibility.  The professional services firm is expected to maintain a level of professionalism. If they start to push the envelope and make themselves too much at home, the client may begin to see them as unprofessional, which eventually erodes their credibility. This can cause the client to stop contracting with them or at least making it more difficult to get business. Top consulting firms want to get to a point where they’re the client’s trusted advisor.  To the point where the client goes directly to them with questions and for advice.  When you get to that point, they often don’t even have you compete for the work.  They know you’ll be fair and give them excellent advice and service. But that’s predicated on the firm having the client’s trust and having credibility.  If they erode that credibility, the client may continue to make each bid for every project competitive.  When that happens, they have to work harder to get each project and they may have to reduce their billing rates as a result. The firm just becomes an also-ran, just like all of the other consultants competing for projects.   How do clients generally react when this happens? It’s often on an individual basis. They realize that a particular individual has gotten a little too comfortable and is overstepping the unmarked boundaries and just making the client a little too uncomfortable. Sometimes they talk to the individual and say ‘you really shouldn’t do that here’.  But sometimes they don’t want to have that personal confrontation. Since it might be part of that double standard, they might be uncomfortable telling an individual that what he’s doing is okay for their employees, but not for you as a consultant. So they more often than not will go to the consultant’s manager and tell them they need to talk to them. But it’s been my experience that if they don’t want the confrontation with the individual, they don’t want it with the consultant’s manager either. So sometimes they’ll just go on letting it bother them.  It hurts the relationship and they might not do business with the firm after that. If the consultant makes the client angry for a big mistake, the client will be sure to speak up.  Crossing the line on things like getting too comfortable at the client, the client realizes that it’s fairly petty.  But it bothers them all the same.  They may be less likely to speak up, but may also be less likely to do business with you again. So the consulting firm can lose business without ever knowing what the problem was or what they did wrong.   What should a consultant do make sure they don’t cross the line? The first thing is to make sure they only work on client work while they’re there.  No working on personal work or checking out anything on the internet that doesn’t have anything to do with client work. And that’s easy enough.  But you also have to be able to balance working only on client work and not getting involved in their activities. When they do have a picnic or a golf outing and they invite you, they generally expect you to participate.  They’ve made the effort to include you and do some team building. So while you want to make sure you’re not including yourself on an uninvited basis, you also want to include yourself when the client wants you to and expects you to. Now, when you do get included in some of these things, I’ll use the golf outing as an example, there may be some alcohol involved either during the outing or at the dinner afterwards. I’m not opposed to a consultant having a drink or two with the client – if the client is also drinking.  But that’s about all they should have.  I generally don’t think clients make good drinking buddies. For one thing, overindulging can hurt your credibility.  But even if the client has a culture of big parties and drinking after the golf outing – or whatever outing you happen to be at – it doesn’t look good to join in the party and try too hard to fit in. I’ve found that the more people drink, the stupider the things are that they say.  You’re inhibitions are reduced and you’re liable to say things you never would have said in their office. So what a consultant should do is stop and ask themselves whether what they’re about to do will be appropriate for a professional guest in the client’s facilities. And if there is any question whatsoever, they should just resist.  It’s not worth being seen by the client as one who oversteps their bounds. Just one other point about that.  If you see other consultants doing the kind of stuff that you don’t think is right, don’t assume it’s OK at that client.  It may actually be pissing the client off. If you start doing it you’ll be in the same boat as the offending consultant.   What should the firm do avoid causing a bad PR situation with the client? One of the biggest things they can do is education.  Teach their new consultants that it’s a different environment at the client for consultants than it is for the client’s employees. They should also give examples like the ones we’ve discussed.  Actually give them some case studies to see how they handle it. But it’s the kind of thing that requires a constant reminder.  Every time a consultant, particularly a newer one, starts a new project at a client site, sit down with them and give the whole team a reminder of the expected behavior at the client. While at the client, I think it’s OK for consultants to keep each other in check.  Just let someone know ‘hey, I say you doing some personal stuff at your desk the other day and you might want to watch that in case the client say you doing it. I mentioned that sometimes firms are reluctant of mentioning these types of violations because they can come off as petty.  Management within the consulting firm can just bring it up for them.  They can tell them ‘listen, if anyone at our firm seems to get too comfortable and start to feel like an employee rather than a consultant, I’d rather you told us than just let it fester’. If you open the door to something like that, they’ll e more likely to tell you. This will allow you to take measures to control it and not lose business with the client.  It’s a much better way to become their trusted advisor.   Any final thoughts on being a guest at the client site? It’s really a matter of keeping it in mind at all times.  Remember that you’re not an employee but a visitor and an outsider. Some consultants are uncomfortable with that.  They don’t like being an outsider and being treated at a lower level than the client. But that’s part of being a consultant.  I actually like the outsider situation.  We’re treated a little bit differently, but we’re also not part of their internal politics. So a consultants needs to determine their comfort level with that and learn to live with it.    Next week’s topic: Balancing firm standards with the client’s

The nature of consulting and professional services generally requires consultants to work at the client’s offices.  Even if it is not a full time commitment, meetings and part-time work often require the consultant to be at the client site.  When a consultant is on-site, it’s important to act with respect as though you are a guest.  In this week’s podcast we’ll discuss the recommended ways to act while at the client’s offices. <ol> <li>Why is it important for a consultant to act as though they are a guest at the client? <ol> <li>Mainly because they are guests.  The client has hired them to perform a job on a temporary basis.  They hire their employees on a long-term basis and that creates kind of a family environment with their employees.</li> <li>Employees are insiders and consultants are more like outsiders.  Some clients do a better job of including consultants and that’s nice, but consultants need to be careful not to include themselves on things that should be for employees and that they’re not invited to by the client.</li> <li>For example, I’ve hired maintenance people to come into my house to fix something or to do some clean.  And I always appreciate the workers who take off their shoes at the door before they walk though my house.</li> <li>I don’t always take my shoes off or make my kids take them off, but I appreciate the workers who show that respect when they work in my house to avoid tracking dirt all over.</li> <li>In the client situation, they’re usually paying a premium rate for the expert consultant and expect them to be a little more dedicated to the project than their own employees.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What are some examples of consultants not acting as guests at the client site? <ol> <li>It normally happens when the consultant starts taking advantage of perks the employees enjoy but that a consultant should not.</li> <li>For instance, employees are often afforded luxuries like doing personal work at their desk like paying bills or checking their Facebook status.</li> <li>It’s usually not that the employees are allowed to do it as much as it’s just overlooked by their management.</li> <li>Consultants should do that kind of stuff on their personal time rather than while they’re at the client site.  Some clients are more lenient than others, but the point is that consultants don’t have the same leeway that an employee is given with those kinds of activities.</li> <li>Another situation is when there is an employee picnic or party of some kind.  I’ve been at client sites where they have a huge summer picnic in the parking lot with food and games and all kinds of fun activities.</li> <li>First, if the consulting team is invited to that, it’s a nice gesture to attend.  But they need to make it clear to the client that they aren’t billing them for those hours.</li> <li>Additionally, if there are door prizes, consultants should not enter their name in the drawing.  And if, for some reason their names are included and they get called, they should decline the award.</li> <li>I was at a client a couple of years ago in that situation and they told me to put a ticket in the drawing for door prized.  I refused and explained that it wasn’t right for consultants to be involved.</li> <li>So our team attended the picnic and enjoyed the games and food.  After they drew names for door prizes, they started handing out hats and t-shirts.  I was still a little reluctant to take one.  Finally, one of the executives came up and offered one to me and said there were plenty to go around.</li> <li>I finally took one because it would have actually been rude and kind of aloof not to.  So you have to balance not making yourself too comfortable with being part of their team.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What other situations have you witnessed where consultants actually made themselves a little too much at home? <ol> <li>One situation I experienced was a situation where the clients generally left work around 4:30 or 5:00 in the afternoon, while the consultants worked later into the night.  At some point they would end up ordering some dinner which nine times out of ten was pizza.  But whatever they ordered, when they finished and did their clean up, it was after the maintenance people had already taken the garbage out.</li> <li>So their late night garbage – pizza boxes or Chinese take-out – was stacked up by the garbage cans the next morning along with the stale smell of whatever food they had.</li> <li>Some consultants kind of wear that as a badge of courage.  It kind of showed the client ‘look how late we were working while you were at home relaxing’.</li> <li>In reality, most clients could care less about that.  It’s almost expected behavior.  So we had a client ask us to walk the garbage down to the cafeteria garbage cans so that it didn’t smell up the office area.</li> <li>Some clients just have an expectation that their internal services should be available to them but not to the outsiders.  I once worked for a retail client who had a sample store at their corporate headquarters.</li> <li>This was just a store where some of their display items or ites that had damaged boxes and couldn’t be sold to customers were made available to their employees for cost or even below, just to get rid of them.</li> <li>Some of our consultants went to the store and bought some items and the client complained to our management that that was for employees only.</li> <li>Quite often, it’s standard behavior that they allow their employees to do that they don’t allow consultants to do.</li> <li>You can call it a double standard and that’s really what it is.  Consultants are often treated differently than client employees and that’s just how it is.  It’s a different relationship altogether.</li> </ol> </li> <li>How can this affect the consulting firm’s relationship with the client? <ol> <li>It can tend to erode the firm’s credibility.  The professional services firm is expected to maintain a level of professionalism.</li> <li>If they start to push the envelope and make themselves too much at home, the client may begin to see them as unprofessional, which eventually erodes their credibility.</li> <li>This can cause the client to stop contracting with them or at least making it more difficult to get business.</li> <li>Top consulting firms want to get to a point where they’re the client’s trusted advisor.  To the point where the client goes directly to them with questions and for advice.  When you get to that point, they often don’t even have you compete for the work.  They know you’ll be fair and give them excellent advice and service.</li> <li>But that’s predicated on the firm having the client’s trust and having credibility.  If they erode that credibility, the client may continue to make each bid for every project competitive.  When that happens, they have to work harder to get each project and they may have to reduce their billing rates as a result.</li> <li>The firm just becomes an also-ran, just like all of the other consultants competing for projects.</li> </ol> </li> <li>How do clients generally react when this happens? <ol> <li>It’s often on an individual basis. They realize that a particular individual has gotten a little too comfortable and is overstepping the unmarked boundaries and just making the client a little too uncomfortable.</li> <li>Sometimes they talk to the individual and say ‘you really shouldn’t do that here’.  But sometimes they don’t want to have that personal confrontation.</li> <li>Since it might be part of that double standard, they might be uncomfortable telling an individual that what he’s doing is okay for their employees, but not for you as a consultant.</li> <li>So they more often than not will go to the consultant’s manager and tell them they need to talk to them.</li> <li>But it’s been my experience that if they don’t want the confrontation with the individual, they don’t want it with the consultant’s manager either.</li> <li>So sometimes they’ll just go on letting it bother them.  It hurts the relationship and they might not do business with the firm after that.</li> <li>If the consultant makes the client angry for a big mistake, the client will be sure to speak up.  Crossing the line on things like getting too comfortable at the client, the client realizes that it’s fairly petty.  But it bothers them all the same.  They may be less likely to speak up, but may also be less likely to do business with you again.</li> <li>So the consulting firm can lose business without ever knowing what the problem was or what they did wrong.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What should a consultant do make sure they don’t cross the line? <ol> <li>The first thing is to make sure they only work on client work while they’re there.  No working on personal work or checking out anything on the internet that doesn’t have anything to do with client work.</li> <li>And that’s easy enough.  But you also have to be able to balance working only on client work and not getting involved in their activities.</li> <li>When they do have a picnic or a golf outing and they invite you, they generally expect you to participate.  They’ve made the effort to include you and do some team building.</li> <li>So while you want to make sure you’re not including yourself on an uninvited basis, you also want to include yourself when the client wants you to and expects you to.</li> <li>Now, when you do get included in some of these things, I’ll use the golf outing as an example, there may be some alcohol involved either during the outing or at the dinner afterwards.</li> <li>I’m not opposed to a consultant having a drink or two with the client – if the client is also drinking.  But that’s about all they should have.  I generally don’t think clients make good drinking buddies.</li> <li>For one thing, overindulging can hurt your credibility.  But even if the client has a culture of big parties and drinking after the golf outing – or whatever outing you happen to be at – it doesn’t look good to join in the party and try too hard to fit in.</li> <li>I’ve found that the more people drink, the stupider the things are that they say.  You’re inhibitions are reduced and you’re liable to say things you never would have said in their office.</li> <li>So what a consultant should do is stop and ask themselves whether what they’re about to do will be appropriate for a professional guest in the client’s facilities.</li> <li>And if there is any question whatsoever, they should just resist.  It’s not worth being seen by the client as one who oversteps their bounds.</li> <li>Just one other point about that.  If you see other consultants doing the kind of stuff that you don’t think is right, don’t assume it’s OK at that client.  It may actually be pissing the client off.</li> <li>If you start doing it you’ll be in the same boat as the offending consultant.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What should the firm do avoid causing a bad PR situation with the client? <ol> <li>One of the biggest things they can do is education.  Teach their new consultants that it’s a different environment at the client for consultants than it is for the client’s employees.</li> <li>They should also give examples like the ones we’ve discussed.  Actually give them some case studies to see how they handle it.</li> <li>But it’s the kind of thing that requires a constant reminder.  Every time a consultant, particularly a newer one, starts a new project at a client site, sit down with them and give the whole team a reminder of the expected behavior at the client.</li> <li>While at the client, I think it’s OK for consultants to keep each other in check.  Just let someone know ‘hey, I say you doing some personal stuff at your desk the other day and you might want to watch that in case the client say you doing it.</li> <li>I mentioned that sometimes firms are reluctant of mentioning these types of violations because they can come off as petty.  Management within the consulting firm can just bring it up for them.  They can tell them ‘listen, if anyone at our firm seems to get too comfortable and start to feel like an employee rather than a consultant, I’d rather you told us than just let it fester’.</li> <li>If you open the door to something like that, they’ll e more likely to tell you.</li> <li>This will allow you to take measures to control it and not lose business with the client.  It’s a much better way to become their trusted advisor.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any final thoughts on being a guest at the client site? <ol> <li>It’s really a matter of keeping it in mind at all times.  Remember that you’re not an employee but a visitor and an outsider.</li> <li>Some consultants are uncomfortable with that.  They don’t like being an outsider and being treated at a lower level than the client.</li> <li>But that’s part of being a consultant.  I actually like the outsider situation.  We’re treated a little bit differently, but we’re also not part of their internal politics.</li> <li>So a consultants needs to determine their comfort level with that and learn to live with it.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: Balancing firm standards with the client’s

Being a Guest at the Client Site

One of the most prominent aspects that we promote on this podcast is the need for consultants to be client minded.  And while it’s true that those of us in any professional services firm should strive to put the client first and dedicate ourselves to the client’s success, we should also make sure that we keep our own firm’s interests in mind.  Last week we spoke about protecting confidential information, this week we’ll talk about what a consultant should do in terms of protecting his own firm.  What does a consultant need to consider to protect his own firm The consultant/client relationship should be a win-win situation. Obviously, a top consulting firm needs to deliver value and make their service worth the client’s money. But with that being said, the consulting firm needs to be able to make a fair profit.  If they don’t, they cease to exist and that doesn’t help the client any either. So in order to be profitable, the firm needs to be protected from the perspective that their own confidential information needs to be kept confidential. Another issue a firm needs to be aware of is with what I’ll call dirty laundry.  This is the type of internal politics and turf wars that occur within the firm. Exposing things like inner turmoil and firm politics to clients can damage a firm’s credibility not to mention the individual consultants that are working for the client. Another thing that consultants need to do to protect the firm is when they disagree with firm decisions and policy.  A consultant is not going to agree with the direction the firm is taking at all times. But there are times when you need to follow the company line whether you agree with the firm or not.   What are the ramifications when these things happen? I think the biggest damage is to the firm’s credibility.  Consulting firms are hired to give companies advice.  If there’s evidence of internal strife within the consulting firm, then the client may wonder why they should follow the firm’s advice if they can’t even keep their own house in order. It’s sort of like the marriage counselor that’s going through a divorce or a medical doctor that smokes.  You just begin to question their credibility as business consultants. Another ramification is when there is internal strife within a firm, it becomes a distraction. If you as a consultant are dealing with a politically charged environment or any internal issues, that can prove to be a big distraction from the work you’re doing for the client. And exposing that to the client will distract them.  Any time a mistake is made, they’re going to immediately assume that it’s because the consultants are focused on those internal issues.  So it’s a bit of a combination of distraction and credibility loss.   What does a consultant need to do to ensure that confidential information is kept confidential? This is one of the biggest issues I see in protecting the firm.  I’m a big believer in consulting firms being open and honest with their clients.  Transparency is key to developing strong, long-term relationships with clients. But there is some information that needs to be kept confidential.  For instance, you never want to reveal the consulting salaries and some firms don’t like to publish their individual billing rates.  They may price projects based on a fixed bid for the entire project or provide a blended rate for the entire staff so that you don’t know anyone’s specific billing rate. This protects them from their rate schedule getting into the wrong hands.  You never know when a client may share that information with a competitor or even if a client employee leaves their company to join a competing consulting firm. The firm may subcontract with another firm or with individuals and the rates the firm pays those consultants should remain confidential as well. One other aspect of this is when you have multiple clients, and that’s the case for most firms.  It can very sticky if you serve two clients in the same industry. Let’s say that your firm has two clients in the banking industry.  Unless they have a specific non-compete agreement with you, there’s nothing wrong with having two competing firms as clients. I once worked for a large firm that was the result of a merger of two firms a few years before I joined.  The two separate firms each had a competing Fortune 100 client.  The newly merged firm was told by each of those two clients that they needed to select one or the other.  Neither would allow the firm to serve both firms. That’s an out-of-the-ordinary situation, but it does happen.  The more likely scenario is that a firm has two competitors as clients and neither knows they serve the other.  It’s critical for the firm to make sure that none of one client’s trade secrets is shared with the other. One way to make sure of that is to have completely separated teams.  No one on one client’s project can also work on the other.  And if a consultant finishes their work on one client’s project and moves on to the next, you want them to share their experience, without sharing any trade secrets. Most consulting firms sign a non-disclosure agreement or NDA, which is a legal contract between the firm and the client stating that they will not release any proprietary information about the client to anyone else. Once the firm signs one of these, it’s their responsibility to make sure their individual consultants working on that project know the terms of the agreement and uphold the firm’s commitment. This includes talking about another client where you could be overheard by your client or leaving information out on your desk or on your computer screen. If your client walked up to your desk to ask a question and saw another client’s information you could have violated an NDA or at least violated an ethical rule of protecting your client’s information.   Let’s talk about the dirty laundry. When have you seen dirty laundry exposed to the client? The most common situations I’ve seen this is when the consultant starts to develop a good working relationship with the client. They develop a friendship where they start going out to lunch or out for drinks after work.  Sooner or later, they start talking about the inner politics at the client. The client starts talking about their own dirty laundry.  This could be about two executives that hate each other because they’re both fighting to be promoted to the same position or flat out gossip about who’s sleeping with whom. I’ve heard some very interesting and entertaining stories from clients who develop this sense of security in telling an outsider. I was once out for drinks with a group of people from the client and a married administrative assistant pulled me aside and told me, in more detail than I wanted to hear, about her affair with one of the married executives at the company. Often when people tell those stories, especially to an outside person, they expect you to reciprocate and tell some equally interesting and scandalous stories about your own firm. Every firm has them, whether it’s lascivious affairs between two married people or some battle between two political rivals. Sometimes it’s just implied that I should provide my own stories and other times they come right out and ask me.  ‘What kind of BS goes on at your firm like that?’   What does a firm need to do to avoid airing their dirty laundry? This needs to be instilled early on to any new employee about how it will undermine the firm’s credibility as well as their own. If you make the consultants understand that they may be less inclined to get involved with it. One example I’ve given is, let’s say you hear about two consultants at your firm who are fighting an internal battle for a single promotion.  The client doesn’t know these two people so what’s the harm in telling them about it? So the next week, one of them gets assigned to your project.  Suddenly the client knows something about this guy and he has no credibility there at all because you’ve undermined it before they even met him. So one thing I always suggest is not to get caught up in sharing the stories.  One advantage we have as consultants is that we’re often out at client sites.  When the client starts telling these stories and then asking us to provide our own internal dirty laundry, I usually say something like, ‘I’m never in the office, so I never hear anything about that kind of stuff’. That doesn’t always satisfy them, but if you continue to claim ignorance they eventually figure you don’t know anything. I also try not to fuel their fire. When they start into telling those kinds of stories I’ll let them talk without asking any questions.  They’ll tell as much as they want to tell and I’ll gradually steer the conversation to some business aspect of the project or even to something like sports to completely divert the conversation. Eventually the client will learn that it’s just no fun to share the gossip with you if you don’t take too much interest in their stories and you don’t return the favor.   You also talked about when consultants disagree with decisions and policies of the firm.  I’m sure that has to be a challenge for firms. Yes. I was once in a meeting where the client asked an individual consultant what to do about a business problem. This consultant’s response was “Do you want the firm’s answer or my answer?” He essentially didn’t like the firm’s policy on this and decided to undermine it by telling him that he disagreed with the firm and this was his advice. If you disagree with a firm’s policy and you have some good reasons to do so, then you should talk to the firm’s management. They may have other reasons for this policy that you’re not aware of.  In the end, you have to decide whether you can live with their policy and follow it even though you disagree. If you can’t go along with it, then that’s a problem. If you’re not passionate about the services and the advice that the firm provides, then maybe you need to move on. But you have to be a team player.  And that means towing the company line even if you’re not in 100% agreement.   So what is a firm to do about these issues?  How do they ensure that they are protected from these forms of exposure? It’s something of a training issue, but I think it needs to go beyond that.  Training implies that you teach them once and hope they remember it. I see it more as an internal marketing campaign.  When a company wants to market a new breakfast cereal, they don’t just run one commercial for it and assume everyone will go out and buy it. They have a marketing campaign where the advertise it using different channels and constantly remind their market about the product. A firm needs to do the same thing by constantly reminding them of the need to protect their privacy and that of their clients. We’ve listed a number of different ways a consultant can inadvertently slip up and do it without even noticing it.  The firm needs to continuously remind them to always be on their toes.   Any final thoughts on protecting the firm from confidentiality and other issues that can expose a professional services firm? A lot of this comes down to protecting the firm’s brand.  Any type of exposure to confidential information or dirty laundry hurts the firm’s brand and as an extension, it hurts your own brand by looking unprofessional. It’s not just in the firm’s best interest. It’s in the client’s best interest.  If they don’t need to know about what goes on behind the consulting firm’s doors, then they shouldn’t know. It’s not a matter of keeping secrets from them, it’s about protecting your firm’s brand.    Next week’s topic: Being a Guest at the Clients Premises

One of the most prominent aspects that we promote on this podcast is the need for consultants to be <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Protect_Firm_Information.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>client minded.  And while it’s true that those of us in any professional services firm should strive to put the client first and dedicate ourselves to the client’s success, we should also make sure that we keep our own firm’s interests in mind.  Last week we spoke about protecting confidential information, this week we’ll talk about what a consultant should do in terms of protecting his own firm. <ol> <li>What does a consultant need to consider to protect his own firm <ol> <li>The consultant/client relationship should be a win-win situation. Obviously, a top consulting firm needs to deliver value and make their service worth the client’s money.</li> <li>But with that being said, the consulting firm needs to be able to make a fair profit.  If they don’t, they cease to exist and that doesn’t help the client any either.</li> <li>So in order to be profitable, the firm needs to be protected from the perspective that their own confidential information needs to be kept confidential.</li> <li>Another issue a firm needs to be aware of is with what I’ll call dirty laundry.  This is the type of internal politics and turf wars that occur within the firm.</li> <li>Exposing things like inner turmoil and firm politics to clients can damage a firm’s credibility not to mention the individual consultants that are working for the client.</li> <li>Another thing that consultants need to do to protect the firm is when they disagree with firm decisions and policy.  A consultant is not going to agree with the direction the firm is taking at all times.</li> <li>But there are times when you need to follow the company line whether you agree with the firm or not.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What are the ramifications when these things happen? <ol> <li>I think the biggest damage is to the firm’s credibility.  Consulting firms are hired to give companies advice.  If there’s evidence of internal strife within the consulting firm, then the client may wonder why they should follow the firm’s advice if they can’t even keep their own house in order.</li> <li>It’s sort of like the marriage counselor that’s going through a divorce or a medical doctor that smokes.  You just begin to question their credibility as business consultants.</li> <li>Another ramification is when there is internal strife within a firm, it becomes a distraction. If you as a consultant are dealing with a politically charged environment or any internal issues, that can prove to be a big distraction from the work you’re doing for the client.</li> <li>And exposing that to the client will distract them.  Any time a mistake is made, they’re going to immediately assume that it’s because the consultants are focused on those internal issues.  So it’s a bit of a combination of distraction and credibility loss.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What does a consultant need to do to ensure that confidential information is kept confidential? <ol> <li>This is one of the biggest issues I see in protecting the firm.  I’m a big believer in consulting firms being open and honest with their clients.  Transparency is key to developing strong, long-term relationships with clients.</li> <li>But there is some information that needs to be kept confidential.  For instance, you never want to reveal the consulting salaries and some firms don’t like to publish their individual billing rates.  They may price projects based on a fixed bid for the entire project or provide a blended rate for the entire staff so that you don’t know anyone’s specific billing rate.</li> <li>This protects them from their rate schedule getting into the wrong hands.  You never know when a client may share that information with a competitor or even if a client employee leaves their company to join a competing consulting firm.</li> <li>The firm may subcontract with another firm or with individuals and the rates the firm pays those consultants should remain confidential as well.</li> <li>One other aspect of this is when you have multiple clients, and that’s the case for most firms.  It can very sticky if you serve two clients in the same industry.</li> <li>Let’s say that your firm has two clients in the banking industry.  Unless they have a specific non-compete agreement with you, there’s nothing wrong with having two competing firms as clients.</li> <li>I once worked for a large firm that was the result of a merger of two firms a few years before I joined.  The two separate firms each had a competing Fortune 100 client.  The newly merged firm was told by each of those two clients that they needed to select one or the other.  Neither would allow the firm to serve both firms.</li> <li>That’s an out-of-the-ordinary situation, but it does happen.  The more likely scenario is that a firm has two competitors as clients and neither knows they serve the other.  It’s critical for the firm to make sure that none of one client’s trade secrets is shared with the other.</li> <li>One way to make sure of that is to have completely separated teams.  No one on one client’s project can also work on the other.  And if a consultant finishes their work on one client’s project and moves on to the next, you want them to share their experience, without sharing any trade secrets.</li> <li>Most consulting firms sign a non-disclosure agreement or NDA, which is a legal contract between the firm and the client stating that they will not release any proprietary information about the client to anyone else.</li> <li>Once the firm signs one of these, it’s their responsibility to make sure their individual consultants working on that project know the terms of the agreement and uphold the firm’s commitment.</li> <li>This includes talking about another client where you could be overheard by your client or leaving information out on your desk or on your computer screen.</li> <li>If your client walked up to your desk to ask a question and saw another client’s information you could have violated an NDA or at least violated an ethical rule of protecting your client’s information.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Let’s talk about the dirty laundry. When have you seen dirty laundry exposed to the client? <ol> <li>The most common situations I’ve seen this is when the consultant starts to develop a good working relationship with the client.</li> <li>They develop a friendship where they start going out to lunch or out for drinks after work.  Sooner or later, they start talking about the inner politics at the client.</li> <li>The client starts talking about their own dirty laundry.  This could be about two executives that hate each other because they’re both fighting to be promoted to the same position or flat out gossip about who’s sleeping with whom.</li> <li>I’ve heard some very interesting and entertaining stories from clients who develop this sense of security in telling an outsider.</li> <li>I was once out for drinks with a group of people from the client and a married administrative assistant pulled me aside and told me, in more detail than I wanted to hear, about her affair with one of the married executives at the company.</li> <li>Often when people tell those stories, especially to an outside person, they expect you to reciprocate and tell some equally interesting and scandalous stories about your own firm.</li> <li>Every firm has them, whether it’s lascivious affairs between two married people or some battle between two political rivals.</li> <li>Sometimes it’s just implied that I should provide my own stories and other times they come right out and ask me.  ‘What kind of BS goes on at your firm like that?’</li> </ol> </li> <li>What does a firm need to do to avoid airing their dirty laundry? <ol> <li>This needs to be instilled early on to any new employee about how it will undermine the firm’s credibility as well as their own.</li> <li>If you make the consultants understand that they may be less inclined to get involved with it.</li> <li>One example I’ve given is, let’s say you hear about two consultants at your firm who are fighting an internal battle for a single promotion.  The client doesn’t know these two people so what’s the harm in telling them about it?</li> <li>So the next week, one of them gets assigned to your project.  Suddenly the client knows something about this guy and he has no credibility there at all because you’ve undermined it before they even met him.</li> <li>So one thing I always suggest is not to get caught up in sharing the stories.  One advantage we have as consultants is that we’re often out at client sites.  When the client starts telling these stories and then asking us to provide our own internal dirty laundry, I usually say something like, ‘I’m never in the office, so I never hear anything about that kind of stuff’.</li> <li>That doesn’t always satisfy them, but if you continue to claim ignorance they eventually figure you don’t know anything.</li> <li>I also try not to fuel their fire. When they start into telling those kinds of stories I’ll let them talk without asking any questions.  They’ll tell as much as they want to tell and I’ll gradually steer the conversation to some business aspect of the project or even to something like sports to completely divert the conversation.</li> <li>Eventually the client will learn that it’s just no fun to share the gossip with you if you don’t take too much interest in their stories and you don’t return the favor.</li> </ol> </li> <li>You also talked about when consultants disagree with decisions and policies of the firm.  I’m sure that has to be a challenge for firms. <ol> <li>Yes. I was once in a meeting where the client asked an individual consultant what to do about a business problem. This consultant’s response was “Do you want the firm’s answer or my answer?”</li> <li>He essentially didn’t like the firm’s policy on this and decided to undermine it by telling him that he disagreed with the firm and this was his advice.</li> <li>If you disagree with a firm’s policy and you have some good reasons to do so, then you should talk to the firm’s management. They may have other reasons for this policy that you’re not aware of.  In the end, you have to decide whether you can live with their policy and follow it even though you disagree.</li> <li>If you can’t go along with it, then that’s a problem. If you’re not passionate about the services and the advice that the firm provides, then maybe you need to move on.</li> <li>But you have to be a team player.  And that means towing the company line even if you’re not in 100% agreement.</li> </ol> </li> <li>So what is a firm to do about these issues?  How do they ensure that they are protected from these forms of exposure? <ol> <li>It’s something of a training issue, but I think it needs to go beyond that.  Training implies that you teach them once and hope they remember it.</li> <li>I see it more as an internal marketing campaign.  When a company wants to market a new breakfast cereal, they don’t just run one commercial for it and assume everyone will go out and buy it.</li> <li>They have a marketing campaign where the advertise it using different channels and constantly remind their market about the product.</li> <li>A firm needs to do the same thing by constantly reminding them of the need to protect their privacy and that of their clients.</li> <li>We’ve listed a number of different ways a consultant can inadvertently slip up and do it without even noticing it.  The firm needs to continuously remind them to always be on their toes.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any final thoughts on protecting the firm from confidentiality and other issues that can expose a professional services firm? <ol> <li>A lot of this comes down to protecting the firm’s brand.  Any type of exposure to confidential information or dirty laundry hurts the firm’s brand and as an extension, it hurts your own brand by looking unprofessional.</li> <li>It’s not just in the firm’s best interest. It’s in the client’s best interest.  If they don’t need to know about what goes on behind the consulting firm’s doors, then they shouldn’t know.</li> <li>It’s not a matter of keeping secrets from them, it’s about protecting your firm’s brand.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: Being a Guest at the Clients Premises

Protecting the Firm

In this weeks podcast, we  discuss the importance of protecting client confidentiality in a consulting and professional services environment.  What are some of the ways that a client’s confidential information can be exposed?  There is really any number of ways.  I once heard a story of a consultant who was privy to inside information of a client’s merger.  He was talking to his wife one night and just happened to mention that the client was in talks to merge with company X. So a couple of days later, the wife is meeting a friend for lunch and mentions that her husband is a consultant at this company and starts talking about this confidential merger. Well, the president of the company is at the next table and overheard their entire lunch conversation. I don’t know the exact ramifications that occurred, but I would assume the consulting firm – or at least the consultant – was asked to leave and legal action could possibly have been taken. But it’s just an example of how easy it is to let your guard down and how careful a consultant needs to be. Now that’s a fairly extreme situation.  More common is when you’re working at the client’s site and you have information about another client. Most consultants either work with multiple clients at the same time, or have been at other clients and receive calls or emails after they’ve left. If you’re just starting at a client and you still receive calls or emails from your previous client, you need to be careful not to handle those communications at your new client. You could be reading an email and an employee or manager from you new client could walk up behind you to ask a question. Not only could they see confidential information about another client, but they may wonder why you’re at their site, presumably billing them for your hours, but working on another client’s work. You may have only spent two minutes checking the email, but it was during those two minutes that they walked up.   You probably don’t get a lot of privacy when you’re on a client site. In most situations that’s true.  You may get a cubicle, which is not very private.  In other cases, you could be in a team room.  An office or conference room with several other people, usually a mix of consultants and client staff members. If you take a call from a client, or even about a client, you’re probably going to be overheard by several people in your vicinity. I’ve always tried to step away and find a private conference room or maybe even an empty office, but that’s not always easy to do. I had one client that had a walkway between two buildings, which we called the bridge.  I often saw consultants walking over to the bridge to make private calls, but people would be walking back and forth through it.  Although they would only get a few seconds of the conversation while they walked by, that could be enough to get a snippet of confidential information. I even had situations where, if I had to make a confidential call, I’d go out to the parking lot and sit in my car to make the call.  It’s not the most perfect of situations, but it was about the most private place I could find. One other note about making calls like that at a client.  You don’t want to make too much of a habit of doing that.  After the client sees you stepping into a private room, or a bridge-like area or out to your car to make private calls, they begin to question your commitment to their project. They don’t know if you’re interviewing for another job or working on other clients’ projects.  All they know and care about is that you aren’t working on their project or you wouldn’t be so secretive.   What considerations should a consultant think about when a client visits your own consulting offices? That’s usually an even bigger concern.  You potentially have information on any of your client’s laying around.  The client could go into a conference room and someone left another client’s confidential information on the table from a previous meeting. Or they could just be walking down a corridor and overhear a consultant talking on the phone with another client about confidential information. I’ve been involved in situations where a client doesn’t have the room to house a project team at their offices, so the work is done at the consulting firm’s offices.  And sometimes, part of the client team works with the consulting team at their offices. So they’re here on a day-to-day basis seeing anything that goes on at the consulting offices.  They’re privy to seeing other client’s teams that may be there and overhearing anything including a “How’s your project going?” conversation in the break room.   What situations have you witnessed of client information being breached? I can give you two fairly embarrassing situations where I’ve breached it myself.  Once when I was working for Ernst &amp; Young, I was doing a project in another town where I had to fly to that city every Monday morning. I’ve always hated to waste time so I usually got a jumpstart on my work on the plane. So I’m sitting there reviewing some documents and they guy next to me sees the Ernst &amp; Young logo on my document.  He turns to me and asks if I work for E&amp;Y.  I say yes and he introduces himself and says he’s a partner with the firm. So we talk for a few minutes and get to know each other.  Finally he says, you know, you really shouldn’t read confidential client information in a public place like a plane.  It’s against firm policy. I realized that I was reading a recommendation document to the client which had our logo as well as the clients.  It was bad enough that I was sitting next to a partner in my firm, but it could have been one of my client’s competitors who would have gotten some pretty good information if he had good enough eyes. I never got in trouble for that and ended up working with that partner on later projects and developing a good relationship with him.  But it could have seriously affected my consulting career. In another situation when I was with another company, I handled six or seven clients at the same time.  It was fairly hectic and I was always switching gears from one client to another.  It was very easy to confuse which client I was dealing with. So it’s a very busy day and I have to get a lot of information out to multiple clients.  I write up this email to a client and go to attach a document to it and inadvertently attach a spreadsheet with another client’s data. About an hour later, I got a reply from the woman stating “I think you sent me the wrong information.” Now, the information wasn’t highly confidential, but that’s not the point.  I don’t like to tell any clients who our other clients are. It’s also a bad reflection on me as a consultant that I was so careless in sending an attachment. I’m sure it made them wonder what data of theirs I’m sending to other clients.   What are the ramifications when client confidentiality is breached? It can be on many levels.  As I mentioned, at the very minimum, it hurts your credibility to show that you’ve been careless with someone’s data. Whether you send another client’s data in an email attachment, get overheard in a phone conversation or are seen reading a client’s information on an airplane.  You’re showing a current client – or your boss – that you’re careless with confidential client information. As I also mentioned, if a client sees you working on another client, they get the impression that you’re billing them to work on another client.  Even if you aren’t billing them for that time, if you’re on their site, they usually aren’t going to be happy about you serving another client from there. There can be much higher implications as well.  Here in the US, there is the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPAA which protects the confidentiality of any personal health information.  If you expose anyone’s personal health information, you and your company are subject to significant fines.  Anyone who works in healthcare consulting needs to be aware of that. And that can be done inadvertently.  If you send personal health information as an attachment in an unsecured email and it gets hacked, you and your company are liable. Consultants are privy to a lot of information about a their clients that the client’s own employees don’t have access to.  Consultants are involved in conversations about inside information such as mergers, bankruptcies and stock buybacks that are also expected to be kept confidential by law. They have to be careful not to expose that information, even by mistake in an elevator conversation. I’ve known clients to impose significant fines on a firm for these breaches.  They’ve even gone as far as removing consultants or entire firms from the client. If the breach is serious enough, it’s possible that the consultant could face legal action from the client or even from the government.   What if you have two clients that compete in the same market? That can be fairly common.  If you’re a firm that specializes in an industry like financial services, you may have several clients that compete with each other.  If you’re talking to one client while on site at another, you need to be very careful. Worse yet, if one client visits your office, you want to make sure they don’t see any information associated with any other clients.  As I mentioned, I don’t like any clients knowing who our other clients are. But if they see any information or data that we have on another client, they could get an unfair advantage and our other client would be disadvantaged. Most firms sign what’s called a non-disclosure agreement or an NDA, with their clients.  That’s a legal agreement that they will not divulge any confidential information about the client or their business to anyone else. Even if they mistakenly and unintentionally leave confidential information out on a conference room table and a competing client happens to see it, you’ve violated your NDA. If the damaged client finds out, they can file for legal damages for the violation.   What should consultants do to avoid exposing a client’s confidential information? As I mentioned, much of it is carelessness.  You leave a document out on your desk or up on your computer screen when you walk away for a minute. Or you hold a conversation not realizing that others can overhear what you’re saying. Nobody wants to be paranoid, but you almost have to lean that way.  You should always make sure you’re in a private setting and can’t be overheard by anyone. You also want to keep in mind that anything you bring up on your computer screen can be seen by anyone that walks behind you.  If you’re not in a very private setting where no one has access to your computer screen or even the paper documents on your desk, you shouldn’t have them out for anyone to see. When you leave your desk, even if you’re moving over five feet to talk to you neighbor, lock your computer screen.  You’re not just protecting what is currently up on your screen, but if you were pulled further away, anyone could go up to your computer and start browsing away. It’s just a good habit to lock it up for password protection. If you get a phone call from another client or from someone at your firm that wants to talk about another client, make sure you’re in a private place.  If you can’t find a room to step into, go out to your car or outside somewhere. Let them know that you’re not in a situation to talk confidentially and that you’ll call them back. Just keep in mind that you also don’t want to make your current client suspicious with all of your private conversations.  If it happens once or twice, that may be OK.  If it’s habitual, they may begin to wonder. Finally, when you’re in your offices, don’t get a false sense of security.  Be aware that employees from other clients can always be on site and make sure to lock your computer screen and avoid unnecessary conversations regarding confidential client information in public areas.   What can a firm do to prevent confidential information from being exposed? I mentioned the non-disclosure agreement.  If they have an NDA with a client, they need to make sure that all the consultants on the project are aware of it and the specific requirements. They should also be aware of the ramifications if the agreement is violated.  I’m not a big fan of preaching to the consulting team, but this is serious enough to explain to them how serious this is. If any clients will be on site, you need to let everyone who might be in the office aware of it.  Consultants should practice care at all time, whether clients are on site or not.  But when a client is on site, everyone needs to be aware and they should take extra care not to leave documents out, to lock up their computers when they aren’t sitting at them and to avoid talking about confidential information. I like the idea of assuming that clients are there at all times just to make sure. Also, if you have two clients that compete in the same market, keep the project teams separated.  Many times they’re out at their own client sites, but some projects are done at the firm’s offices. If that happens, you can’t keep consultants on other teams from talking to each other.  Friends go to lunch and out for drinks whether they work on the same project or not. But you can separate where they work by putting them on different sides of the office to avoid them accidently hearing or seeing confidential information. That also works out better when a client comes to visit one of the projects.  It’s just safer if the competing client’s project is located on the other side of the office. I’ve even seen firms give projects code names so that it doesn’t give away the name of the client.   Any final thoughts about protecting client confidentiality? It requires a great deal of diligence to make sure you protect the client’s information. You always have to be aware of your surroundings and keep it in mind. Most violations of client confidentiality are not intentional.  Few clients engage in espionage.  It’s more likely carelessness and unawareness of your surroundings. So always be aware of who might hear or see what you’re working on and have a little bit of paranoia.    Next week’s topic: Protecting the Firm’s confidential information

In this weeks podcast, we  discuss the importance of protecting client confidentiality in a consulting and professional services environment. <ol> <li>What are some of the ways that a client’s confidential information can be exposed?<a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/confidential_folder.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> <ol> <li>There is really any number of ways.  I once heard a story of a consultant who was privy to inside information of a client’s merger.  He was talking to his wife one night and just happened to mention that the client was in talks to merge with company X.</li> <li>So a couple of days later, the wife is meeting a friend for lunch and mentions that her husband is a consultant at this company and starts talking about this confidential merger.</li> <li>Well, the president of the company is at the next table and overheard their entire lunch conversation.</li> <li>I don’t know the exact ramifications that occurred, but I would assume the consulting firm – or at least the consultant – was asked to leave and legal action could possibly have been taken.</li> <li>But it’s just an example of how easy it is to let your guard down and how careful a consultant needs to be.</li> <li>Now that’s a fairly extreme situation.  More common is when you’re working at the client’s site and you have information about another client.</li> <li>Most consultants either work with multiple clients at the same time, or have been at other clients and receive calls or emails after they’ve left.</li> <li>If you’re just starting at a client and you still receive calls or emails from your previous client, you need to be careful not to handle those communications at your new client.</li> <li>You could be reading an email and an employee or manager from you new client could walk up behind you to ask a question.</li> <li>Not only could they see confidential information about another client, but they may wonder why you’re at their site, presumably billing them for your hours, but working on another client’s work.</li> <li>You may have only spent two minutes checking the email, but it was during those two minutes that they walked up.</li> </ol> </li> <li>You probably don’t get a lot of privacy when you’re on a client site. <ol> <li>In most situations that’s true.  You may get a cubicle, which is not very private.  In other cases, you could be in a team room.  An office or conference room with several other people, usually a mix of consultants and client staff members.</li> <li>If you take a call from a client, or even about a client, you’re probably going to be overheard by several people in your vicinity.</li> <li>I’ve always tried to step away and find a private conference room or maybe even an empty office, but that’s not always easy to do.</li> <li>I had one client that had a walkway between two buildings, which we called the bridge.  I often saw consultants walking over to the bridge to make private calls, but people would be walking back and forth through it.  Although they would only get a few seconds of the conversation while they walked by, that could be enough to get a snippet of confidential information.</li> <li>I even had situations where, if I had to make a confidential call, I’d go out to the parking lot and sit in my car to make the call.  It’s not the most perfect of situations, but it was about the most private place I could find.</li> <li>One other note about making calls like that at a client.  You don’t want to make too much of a habit of doing that.  After the client sees you stepping into a private room, or a bridge-like area or out to your car to make private calls, they begin to question your commitment to their project.</li> <li>They don’t know if you’re interviewing for another job or working on other clients’ projects.  All they know and care about is that you aren’t working on their project or you wouldn’t be so secretive.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What considerations should a consultant think about when a client visits your own consulting offices? <ol> <li>That’s usually an even bigger concern.  You potentially have information on any of your client’s laying around.  The client could go into a conference room and someone left another client’s confidential information on the table from a previous meeting.</li> <li>Or they could just be walking down a corridor and overhear a consultant talking on the phone with another client about confidential information.</li> <li>I’ve been involved in situations where a client doesn’t have the room to house a project team at their offices, so the work is done at the consulting firm’s offices.  And sometimes, part of the client team works with the consulting team at their offices.</li> <li>So they’re here on a day-to-day basis seeing anything that goes on at the consulting offices.  They’re privy to seeing other client’s teams that may be there and overhearing anything including a “How’s your project going?” conversation in the break room.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What situations have you witnessed of client information being breached? <ol> <li>I can give you two fairly embarrassing situations where I’ve breached it myself.  Once when I was working for Ernst &amp; Young, I was doing a project in another town where I had to fly to that city every Monday morning.</li> <li>I’ve always hated to waste time so I usually got a jumpstart on my work on the plane.</li> <li>So I’m sitting there reviewing some documents and they guy next to me sees the Ernst &amp; Young logo on my document.  He turns to me and asks if I work for E&amp;Y.  I say yes and he introduces himself and says he’s a partner with the firm.</li> <li>So we talk for a few minutes and get to know each other.  Finally he says, you know, you really shouldn’t read confidential client information in a public place like a plane.  It’s against firm policy.</li> <li>I realized that I was reading a recommendation document to the client which had our logo as well as the clients.  It was bad enough that I was sitting next to a partner in my firm, but it could have been one of my client’s competitors who would have gotten some pretty good information if he had good enough eyes.</li> <li>I never got in trouble for that and ended up working with that partner on later projects and developing a good relationship with him.  But it could have seriously affected my consulting career.</li> <li>In another situation when I was with another company, I handled six or seven clients at the same time.  It was fairly hectic and I was always switching gears from one client to another.  It was very easy to confuse which client I was dealing with.</li> <li>So it’s a very busy day and I have to get a lot of information out to multiple clients.  I write up this email to a client and go to attach a document to it and inadvertently attach a spreadsheet with another client’s data.</li> <li>About an hour later, I got a reply from the woman stating “I think you sent me the wrong information.”</li> <li>Now, the information wasn’t highly confidential, but that’s not the point.  I don’t like to tell any clients who our other clients are.</li> <li>It’s also a bad reflection on me as a consultant that I was so careless in sending an attachment.</li> <li>I’m sure it made them wonder what data of theirs I’m sending to other clients.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What are the ramifications when client confidentiality is breached? <ol> <li>It can be on many levels.  As I mentioned, at the very minimum, it hurts your credibility to show that you’ve been careless with someone’s data.</li> <li>Whether you send another client’s data in an email attachment, get overheard in a phone conversation or are seen reading a client’s information on an airplane.  You’re showing a current client – or your boss – that you’re careless with confidential client information.</li> <li>As I also mentioned, if a client sees you working on another client, they get the impression that you’re billing them to work on another client.  Even if you aren’t billing them for that time, if you’re on their site, they usually aren’t going to be happy about you serving another client from there.</li> <li>There can be much higher implications as well.  Here in the US, there is the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPAA which protects the confidentiality of any personal health information.  If you expose anyone’s personal health information, you and your company are subject to significant fines.  Anyone who works in healthcare consulting needs to be aware of that.</li> <li>And that can be done inadvertently.  If you send personal health information as an attachment in an unsecured email and it gets hacked, you and your company are liable.</li> <li>Consultants are privy to a lot of information about a their clients that the client’s own employees don’t have access to.  Consultants are involved in conversations about inside information such as mergers, bankruptcies and stock buybacks that are also expected to be kept confidential by law.</li> <li>They have to be careful not to expose that information, even by mistake in an elevator conversation.</li> <li>I’ve known clients to impose significant fines on a firm for these breaches.  They’ve even gone as far as removing consultants or entire firms from the client.</li> <li>If the breach is serious enough, it’s possible that the consultant could face legal action from the client or even from the government.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What if you have two clients that compete in the same market? <ol> <li>That can be fairly common.  If you’re a firm that specializes in an industry like financial services, you may have several clients that compete with each other.  If you’re talking to one client while on site at another, you need to be very careful.</li> <li>Worse yet, if one client visits your office, you want to make sure they don’t see any information associated with any other clients.  As I mentioned, I don’t like any clients knowing who our other clients are.</li> <li>But if they see any information or data that we have on another client, they could get an unfair advantage and our other client would be disadvantaged.</li> <li>Most firms sign what’s called a non-disclosure agreement or an NDA, with their clients.  That’s a legal agreement that they will not divulge any confidential information about the client or their business to anyone else.</li> <li>Even if they mistakenly and unintentionally leave confidential information out on a conference room table and a competing client happens to see it, you’ve violated your NDA.</li> <li>If the damaged client finds out, they can file for legal damages for the violation.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What should consultants do to avoid exposing a client’s confidential information? <ol> <li>As I mentioned, much of it is carelessness.  You leave a document out on your desk or up on your computer screen when you walk away for a minute.</li> <li>Or you hold a conversation not realizing that others can overhear what you’re saying.</li> <li>Nobody wants to be paranoid, but you almost have to lean that way.  You should always make sure you’re in a private setting and can’t be overheard by anyone.</li> <li>You also want to keep in mind that anything you bring up on your computer screen can be seen by anyone that walks behind you.  If you’re not in a very private setting where no one has access to your computer screen or even the paper documents on your desk, you shouldn’t have them out for anyone to see.</li> <li>When you leave your desk, even if you’re moving over five feet to talk to you neighbor, lock your computer screen.  You’re not just protecting what is currently up on your screen, but if you were pulled further away, anyone could go up to your computer and start browsing away.</li> <li>It’s just a good habit to lock it up for password protection.</li> <li>If you get a phone call from another client or from someone at your firm that wants to talk about another client, make sure you’re in a private place.  If you can’t find a room to step into, go out to your car or outside somewhere.</li> <li>Let them know that you’re not in a situation to talk confidentially and that you’ll call them back.</li> <li>Just keep in mind that you also don’t want to make your current client suspicious with all of your private conversations.  If it happens once or twice, that may be OK.  If it’s habitual, they may begin to wonder.</li> <li>Finally, when you’re in your offices, don’t get a false sense of security.  Be aware that employees from other clients can always be on site and make sure to lock your computer screen and avoid unnecessary conversations regarding confidential client information in public areas.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What can a firm do to prevent confidential information from being exposed? <ol> <li>I mentioned the non-disclosure agreement.  If they have an NDA with a client, they need to make sure that all the consultants on the project are aware of it and the specific requirements.</li> <li>They should also be aware of the ramifications if the agreement is violated.  I’m not a big fan of preaching to the consulting team, but this is serious enough to explain to them how serious this is.</li> <li>If any clients will be on site, you need to let everyone who might be in the office aware of it.  Consultants should practice care at all time, whether clients are on site or not.  But when a client is on site, everyone needs to be aware and they should take extra care not to leave documents out, to lock up their computers when they aren’t sitting at them and to avoid talking about confidential information.</li> <li>I like the idea of assuming that clients are there at all times just to make sure.</li> <li>Also, if you have two clients that compete in the same market, keep the project teams separated.  Many times they’re out at their own client sites, but some projects are done at the firm’s offices.</li> <li>If that happens, you can’t keep consultants on other teams from talking to each other.  Friends go to lunch and out for drinks whether they work on the same project or not.</li> <li>But you can separate where they work by putting them on different sides of the office to avoid them accidently hearing or seeing confidential information.</li> <li>That also works out better when a client comes to visit one of the projects.  It’s just safer if the competing client’s project is located on the other side of the office.</li> <li>I’ve even seen firms give projects code names so that it doesn’t give away the name of the client.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any final thoughts about protecting client confidentiality? <ol> <li>It requires a great deal of diligence to make sure you protect the client’s information.</li> <li>You always have to be aware of your surroundings and keep it in mind.</li> <li>Most violations of client confidentiality are not intentional.  Few clients engage in espionage.  It’s more likely carelessness and unawareness of your surroundings.</li> <li>So always be aware of who might hear or see what you’re working on and have a little bit of paranoia.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: Protecting the Firm’s confidential information

Protecting Client Confidentiality

Consulting and professional services firms thrive by hiring top level high performers.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Once a consultant becomes part of a high powered team, he or she needs to continue to develop and learn.  There are few better ways to do that than to work with a mentor within the firm to increase their knowledge and productivity.  Why is mentoring so important in consulting and professional services? For one thing, it’s very important when you’re new to a firm, to have someone to help you with the internal workings.  Getting the lay of the land and knowing who to go to for different information. Every company does things a little differently in their methodology or approach to solving problems.  Anyone that’s new, no matter what their experience level is, needs someone to help them come up to speed quickly in an industry as fast-paced as consulting. Also, as you mentioned, top consulting firms hire top people. But once a top performer makes it in to a top consulting firm, they can’t let their skills go stale. It’s important to work with people with complementary skills to provide a different insight.  This could be someone with more experience in your focused industry, or it could just be someone who has more experience in consulting or at that particular consulting firm.   How does one go about finding a mentor In some firms, mentors are assigned.  In those cases it’s more of a buddy system for new employees.  During their first week, the firm formally says, “This is Bob and he’ll be your mentor”. I’m not a big fan of this because it’s sometimes forced on both parties.  You don’t know how much thought was put into it and you never know whether the two people will develop any chemistry between them. On the other hand, it is better than nothing. If you’re new at a firm and don’t know anyone, there’s at least someone to show you how to get office supplies and learn a little about their methodology. But my preference is for a mentoring relationship to just occur naturally.  Once someone is with a firm, they end up working with a number of different people. Once they start to get to know each other and develop some relationships with their co-workers, a new employee will start to develop that chemistry with one or two people and two things will hopefully occur. First, that relationship starts to gel.  I think a mentor should be someone you get along with.  It’s not a boss-employee type of relationship. I see it as a professional friendship. The second thing that should develop is recognition that the other person has some skill or knowledge or experience that the person is lacking. This is where a consultant needs to practice some humility. As consultants, there are many who feel it might be a weakness to admit a weakness.  But you just can’t know everything about everything.  So you have to be able to admit needing some help in some area and allowing a peer to help you out.   Let’s talk about it evolving or happening naturally.  How do you see that happening? Well as I said, I think assigning mentors can be kind of forced and awkward.  My preference is to see it just take shape. This isn’t perfect either.  As I mentioned, it requires a consultant to admit they have an area they need to work on. Very few conslutants will claim that they’re perfect.  But it takes a lot of humility and self-confidence to openly admit to someone, ‘Hey, you know more about something than me and I’d like to learn more from you’. But it doesn’t have to be so formal.  You don’t have to go up to someone and say ‘I bestow upon you the title of My Mentor’. Even when you allow others to pick their own mentors, making it a formal announcement or title still makes it a bit forced. I think mentoring works best when it’s more of a process than a title. For instance, if I work with someone that has knowledge or a skill that I’d like to develop, I could just start developing a relationship with that person. We could take coffee breaks once in a while or go to lunch.  Maybe even stop for a drink after work.  Much like selling to a client, it’s about developing a relationship. I may never say to that person ‘Bob I want you to be my mentor’.  I could just start talking to him or her about work and about their knowledge. I’m essentially bending their ear and asking for advice.  We’re practicing the activity of mentoring without actually making it a formal announcement of the roles involved. There’s nothing sneaky or conniving about that. It’s not like I’m stealing valuable mentoring knowledge without this person knowing it. They’re mentoring me just by virtue of the fact that they’re answering my questions. Another nice thing about this approach is I’m not stuck with a single mentor.  When we have a formal mentoring program, it’s almost like monogamy is implied. If I have a mentor and then tell them I’m meeting with someone else for a mentoring session.  They might look at me with hurt feelings like ‘well I thought I was your mentor…’ But when you don’t make it formal, you’re just getting advice from various co-workers, maybe in different areas.  Maybe I talk to Mary to learn more about sales, but I turn to Steve for advice on our methodology.   What types of efforts should someone take if they want to be a mentor? Well again, I don’t think the formal announcement is the route to take.  If I see someone who I think needs to develop in an area that I’m strong in, it just doesn’t work to go up to them and say ‘You need a mentor and I’m the one you need’. It just comes off a little condescending.  You can’t just force help onto someone no matter how well intentioned it is. Like many things, it’s more in how you say it than what you say.  If you do see someone that you think needs help, you can do a little subtle nudging and let them make that decision. For instance, if I see a young consultant that needs some help in developing client relations, that’s something I feel I’m strong at and could provide some help. I could start out by strengthening our relationship.  Go to lunch with them a couple of times and just get to know them.  Learn their background and what their strengths are. Eventually we could start talking about work related things and start to get this person’s point of view. If that person sees me as someone they’d like advice from, they’ll eventually start asking me for advice.  You’re letting it happen somewhat naturally, you’re just putting yourself out there to facilitate it happening. This person may not take the bait.  And there are two probable reasons for that.  First, they may not realize they need help.  It could be arrogance or it could be ignorance.  But they just don’t seem interested in obtaining any wisdom from you. In this case you could offer them advice in the ‘for what it’s worth’ category.  You might say, ‘did you think about handling it this way?’ or ‘I had a similar situation like that and this is what I learned from it’. I’ve always thought that all advice is optional but unsolicited advice is more optional that any other.  So if you just throw it out there without forcing it down their throat, it gives them some food for thought. Now, if they totally reject your advice or ignore it, the possible reason may be that you don’t hve any credibility with them.  They may be completely wrong in their assessment, but if they aren’t interested in your advice, they aren’t going to listen to it. Maybe they have someone else they’re turning to and maybe you just don’t have that chemistry.  But it has to be a mutual desire for you to give advice and for them to receive advice.   Otherwise it will never work.   How much more experienced should a mentor be in order to be effective? I’m a firm believer that anyone can mentor someone else.  Everyone has something to offer.  I’ve been new to a firm and turned to younger people who had been there longer to learn more about their specialized methodology. Most people like to give advice and take it more as a complement when someone asks them for advice.  So I don’t see it as a measurement that the mentor has to have X more years of experience than the mentee in order to effectively mentor them. It’s more a measure of this person knows more about something than I do and I’d like to learn from them.   So can you envision someone with less experience mentoring someone with many years of experience? Absolutely.  Anyone can mentor someone else in something regardless of their experience or age. Let me give you an example.  I was born in the mid-60s, which puts me right at the tail end of the baby boomer generation.  So my generation was brought up with advanced technologies such as microwave ovens and color TV. I remember my parents talking about growing up with no TV.  They would sit around listening to their radio shows. That was unfathomable to me. As we became adults and turned middle-aged, we’ve seen the advent of what started out as the car phone and the introduction of the internet.  And as these technologies advanced to mobile phones to smart phones and web 2.0, we’ve seen them converge to the point that my 16-year old’s smart phone is more powerful than the first personal computer. So his generation, generation Y finds it just as unfathomable when they hear that I grew up without the internet or mobile phones. So as the technology changes – and it changes more rapidly all the time – these changes just come naturally for this generation.  I’ve worked in technology most of my career so I’m probably a little more ahead of the curve on technology than many of my contemporaries, but it still doesn’t come as naturally as the generation that has always had it around. So let’s say I work with one of these generation-Y people.  I may have a lot more experience in the business world and have a lot of knowledge that I can share with any of them that are willing to listen.  But they have insights to technology and current trends that I’m out of the loop on. Even if I make that extra effort to stay up to date on the technology trends, they still have a leg up on me with their intuitive nature with technology. What we’re describing here is a form of reverse mentoring where members of generation Y work with the baby boomer generation or workers older than them to work better and more efficiently with the latest technologies.   In what other ways can a consultant become a mentor? We’ve focused our mentoring discussion to be about mentoring within the firm.  I think it’s important to have informal mentoring relationships with peers as well as co-workers that are both older and younger than you. But you can also work with client personnel.  When you work at a client, you’re an advisor.  That applies to more than just doing what’s in the statement of work that your team is delivering to the client as a whole. Part of consulting is developing relationships with the individuals at the client. You want to share your knowledge with them.  This certainly applies to the project you’re working on.  I work in IT consulting where we develop custom software for our clients.  I feel it’s my responsibility to make sure they know how to use that software and how to maintain it after we walk out their door. Beyond that, if I work with a client employee who is interested in learning more about something I feel I’m strong in, I’m always willing to help them out. That could be as simple as a question and answer session over lunch or working with them on a regular basis to help them develop a skill. I also think that if you have a deep skill that you should share that with the community.  That could be through being active in organizations.  I’m a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI), and that gives me opportunities to network and share leadership skills with others. I’m also a member of Toastmasters, which is a great organization for helping people to become better public speakers.  I go there to learn from others but I also share my knowledge with others. There are also organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters and other inner city programs that a consultant can get involved with to teach leadership, management or even technology skills to less fortunate people to help them make big changes in their lives. So there are opportunities for mentoring all over the place.  Everyone has a skill in something that someone else would like to learn more about.  You just have to figure out what that skill or knowledge is and find out where you can share it.   Any final thoughts on mentoring in consulting? We all know the saying that you can’t help someone who won’t help themselves.  We talked a little about trying to mentor someone who just isn’t interested. You have to let it happen naturally.  There are things you can do to facilitate it like offering to help or even introducing two people who you think can help each other. But they have to have that chemistry.  They have to have a mutual respect for each other to really make mentoring work. I also want to stress a point we made that mentoring should be more of a process than set of roles or a relationship.  And by that I mean that it should be a process of asking others for advice and sharing your knowledge with others. It shouldn’t be so much of a one-to-one thing as a network of many-to-many.  I can offer assistance to five or ten different people at different times and five or ten other people can help me.  And sometimes those groups overlap. Everyone should be able to help everyone else.    Next week’s topic: Protecting the Firm Suggested books: The Mentor’s Guide: Facilitating Effective Learning Relationships  –  Mentoring 101:  The Elements of Mentoring: 

Consulting and professional services firms thrive by hiring top level high performers.  But it <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Consultants_Mentor.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>doesn’t stop there.  Once a consultant becomes part of a high powered team, he or she needs to continue to develop and learn.  There are few better ways to do that than to work with a mentor within the firm to increase their knowledge and productivity. <ol> <li>Why is mentoring so important in consulting and professional services? <ol> <li>For one thing, it’s very important when you’re new to a firm, to have someone to help you with the internal workings.  Getting the lay of the land and knowing who to go to for different information.</li> <li>Every company does things a little differently in their methodology or approach to solving problems.  Anyone that’s new, no matter what their experience level is, needs someone to help them come up to speed quickly in an industry as fast-paced as consulting.</li> <li>Also, as you mentioned, top consulting firms hire top people. But once a top performer makes it in to a top consulting firm, they can’t let their skills go stale.</li> <li>It’s important to work with people with complementary skills to provide a different insight.  This could be someone with more experience in your focused industry, or it could just be someone who has more experience in consulting or at that particular consulting firm.</li> </ol> </li> <li>How does one go about finding a mentor <ol> <li>In some firms, mentors are assigned.  In those cases it’s more of a buddy system for new employees.  During their first week, the firm formally says, “This is Bob and he’ll be your mentor”.</li> <li>I’m not a big fan of this because it’s sometimes forced on both parties.  You don’t know how much thought was put into it and you never know whether the two people will develop any chemistry between them.</li> <li>On the other hand, it is better than nothing. If you’re new at a firm and don’t know anyone, there’s at least someone to show you how to get office supplies and learn a little about their methodology.</li> <li>But my preference is for a mentoring relationship to just occur naturally.  Once someone is with a firm, they end up working with a number of different people.</li> <li>Once they start to get to know each other and develop some relationships with their co-workers, a new employee will start to develop that chemistry with one or two people and two things will hopefully occur.</li> <li>First, that relationship starts to gel.  I think a mentor should be someone you get along with.  It’s not a boss-employee type of relationship. I see it as a professional friendship.</li> <li>The second thing that should develop is recognition that the other person has some skill or knowledge or experience that the person is lacking. This is where a consultant needs to practice some humility.</li> <li>As consultants, there are many who feel it might be a weakness to admit a weakness.  But you just can’t know everything about everything.  So you have to be able to admit needing some help in some area and allowing a peer to help you out.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Let’s talk about it evolving or happening naturally.  How do you see that happening? <ol> <li>Well as I said, I think assigning mentors can be kind of forced and awkward.  My preference is to see it just take shape.</li> <li>This isn’t perfect either.  As I mentioned, it requires a consultant to admit they have an area they need to work on.</li> <li>Very few conslutants will claim that they’re perfect.  But it takes a lot of humility and self-confidence to openly admit to someone, ‘Hey, you know more about something than me and I’d like to learn more from you’.</li> <li>But it doesn’t have to be so formal.  You don’t have to go up to someone and say ‘I bestow upon you the title of My <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/mentor/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mentor</a>’.</li> <li>Even when you allow others to pick their own mentors, making it a formal announcement or title still makes it a bit forced.</li> <li>I think mentoring works best when it’s more of a process than a title.</li> <li>For instance, if I work with someone that has knowledge or a skill that I’d like to develop, I could just start developing a relationship with that person.</li> <li>We could take coffee breaks once in a while or go to lunch.  Maybe even stop for a drink after work.  Much like selling to a client, it’s about developing a relationship.</li> <li>I may never say to that person ‘Bob I want you to be my mentor’.  I could just start talking to him or her about work and about their knowledge.</li> <li>I’m essentially bending their ear and asking for advice.  We’re practicing the activity of mentoring without actually making it a formal announcement of the roles involved.</li> <li>There’s nothing sneaky or conniving about that. It’s not like I’m stealing valuable mentoring knowledge without this person knowing it.</li> <li>They’re mentoring me just by virtue of the fact that they’re answering my questions.</li> <li>Another nice thing about this approach is I’m not stuck with a single mentor.  When we have a formal mentoring program, it’s almost like monogamy is implied.</li> <li>If I have a mentor and then tell them I’m meeting with someone else for a mentoring session.  They might look at me with hurt feelings like ‘well I thought I was your mentor…’</li> <li>But when you don’t make it formal, you’re just getting advice from various co-workers, maybe in different areas.  Maybe I talk to Mary to learn more about sales, but I turn to Steve for advice on our methodology.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What types of efforts should someone take if they want to be a mentor? <ol> <li>Well again, I don’t think the formal announcement is the route to take.  If I see someone who I think needs to develop in an area that I’m strong in, it just doesn’t work to go up to them and say ‘You need a mentor and I’m the one you need’.</li> <li>It just comes off a little condescending.  You can’t just force help onto someone no matter how well intentioned it is.</li> <li>Like many things, it’s more in how you say it than what you say.  If you do see someone that you think needs help, you can do a little subtle nudging and let them make that decision.</li> <li>For instance, if I see a young consultant that needs some help in developing client relations, that’s something I feel I’m strong at and could provide some help.</li> <li>I could start out by strengthening our relationship.  Go to lunch with them a couple of times and just get to know them.  <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/learn/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Learn</a> their background and what their strengths are.</li> <li>Eventually we could start talking about work related things and start to get this person’s point of view.</li> <li>If that person sees me as someone they’d like advice from, they’ll eventually start asking me for advice.  You’re letting it happen somewhat naturally, you’re just putting yourself out there to facilitate it happening.</li> <li>This person may not take the bait.  And there are two probable reasons for that.  First, they may not realize they need help.  It could be arrogance or it could be ignorance.  But they just don’t seem interested in obtaining any wisdom from you.</li> <li>In this case you could offer them advice in the ‘for what it’s worth’ category.  You might say, ‘did you think about handling it this way?’ or ‘I had a similar situation like that and this is what I learned from it’.</li> <li>I’ve always thought that all advice is optional but unsolicited advice is more optional that any other.  So if you just throw it out there without forcing it down their throat, it gives them some food for thought.</li> <li>Now, if they totally reject your advice or ignore it, the possible reason may be that you don’t hve any credibility with them.  They may be completely wrong in their assessment, but if they aren’t interested in your advice, they aren’t going to listen to it.</li> <li>Maybe they have someone else they’re turning to and maybe you just don’t have that chemistry.  But it has to be a mutual desire for you to give advice and for them to receive advice.   Otherwise it will never work.</li> </ol> </li> <li>How much more experienced should a mentor be in order to be effective? <ol> <li>I’m a firm believer that anyone can mentor someone else.  Everyone has something to offer.  I’ve been new to a firm and turned to younger people who had been there longer to learn more about their specialized methodology.</li> <li>Most people like to give advice and take it more as a complement when someone asks them for advice.  So I don’t see it as a measurement that the mentor has to have X more years of experience than the mentee in order to effectively mentor them.</li> <li>It’s more a measure of this person knows more about something than I do and I’d like to learn from them.</li> </ol> </li> <li>So can you envision someone with less experience mentoring someone with many years of experience? <ol> <li>Absolutely.  Anyone can mentor someone else in something regardless of their experience or age.</li> <li>Let me give you an example.  I was born in the mid-60s, which puts me right at the tail end of the baby boomer generation.  So my generation was brought up with advanced technologies such as microwave ovens and color <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/tv/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">TV</a>.</li> <li>I remember my parents talking about growing up with no <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/tv/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">TV</a>.  They would sit around listening to their radio shows. That was unfathomable to me.</li> <li>As we became adults and turned middle-aged, we’ve seen the advent of what started out as the car phone and the introduction of the internet.  And as these technologies advanced to mobile phones to smart phones and web 2.0, we’ve seen them converge to the point that my 16-year old’s smart phone is more powerful than the first personal computer.</li> <li>So his generation, generation Y finds it just as unfathomable when they hear that I grew up without the internet or mobile phones.</li> <li>So as the technology changes – and it changes more rapidly all the time – these changes just come naturally for this generation.  I’ve worked in technology most of my career so I’m probably a little more ahead of the curve on technology than many of my contemporaries, but it still doesn’t come as naturally as the generation that has always had it around.</li> <li>So let’s say I work with one of these generation-Y people.  I may have a lot more experience in the business world and have a lot of knowledge that I can share with any of them that are willing to listen.  But they have insights to technology and current trends that I’m out of the loop on.</li> <li>Even if I make that extra effort to stay up to date on the technology trends, they still have a leg up on me with their intuitive nature with technology.</li> <li>What we’re describing here is a form of reverse mentoring where members of generation Y work with the baby boomer generation or workers older than them to work better and more efficiently with the latest technologies.</li> </ol> </li> <li>In what other ways can a consultant become a mentor? <ol> <li>We’ve focused our mentoring discussion to be about mentoring within the firm.  I think it’s important to have informal mentoring relationships with peers as well as co-workers that are both older and younger than you.</li> <li>But you can also work with client personnel.  When you work at a client, you’re an advisor.  That applies to more than just doing what’s in the statement of work that your team is delivering to the client as a whole.</li> <li>Part of consulting is developing relationships with the individuals at the client.</li> <li>You want to share your knowledge with them.  This certainly applies to the project you’re working on.  I work in IT consulting where we develop custom software for our clients.  I feel it’s my responsibility to make sure they know how to use that software and how to maintain it after we walk out their door.</li> <li>Beyond that, if I work with a client employee who is interested in learning more about something I feel I’m strong in, I’m always willing to help them out.</li> <li>That could be as simple as a question and answer session over lunch or working with them on a regular basis to help them develop a skill.</li> <li>I also think that if you have a deep skill that you should share that with the community.  That could be through being active in organizations.  I’m a member of the <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/project-management/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Project Management</a> Institute (PMI), and that gives me opportunities to network and share leadership skills with others.</li> <li>I’m also a member of Toastmasters, which is a great organization for helping people to become better public speakers.  I go there to learn from others but I also share my knowledge with others.</li> <li>There are also organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters and other inner city programs that a consultant can get involved with to teach leadership, management or even technology skills to less fortunate people to help them make big changes in their lives.</li> <li>So there are opportunities for mentoring all over the place.  Everyone has a skill in something that someone else would like to learn more about.  You just have to figure out what that skill or knowledge is and find out where you can share it.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any final thoughts on mentoring in consulting? <ol> <li>We all know the saying that you can’t help someone who won’t help themselves.  We talked a little about trying to mentor someone who just isn’t interested.</li> <li>You have to let it happen naturally.  There are things you can do to facilitate it like offering to help or even introducing two people who you think can help each other.</li> <li>But they have to have that chemistry.  They have to have a mutual respect for each other to really make mentoring work.</li> <li>I also want to stress a point we made that mentoring should be more of a process than set of roles or a relationship.  And by that I mean that it should be a process of asking others for advice and sharing your knowledge with others.</li> <li>It shouldn’t be so much of a one-to-one thing as a network of many-to-many.  I can offer assistance to five or ten different people at different times and five or ten other people can help me.  And sometimes those groups overlap.</li> <li>Everyone should be able to help everyone else.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: Protecting the Firm Suggested books: The Mentor’s Guide: Facilitating Effective Learning Relationships  – <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0787947423/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0787947423&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> Mentoring 101: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001KQZ7JW/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B001KQZ7JW&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=usexmall-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> The Elements of Mentoring: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0230613640/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0230613640&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>

Mentoring in Consulting

When someone joins a consulting firm, it creates the inevitable day when they will leave the firm.  It may be after just a few months or several years.  We wanted to speak in this week’s podcast about the steps a consultant should take to leave professionally on good terms.  What are the major considerations a consultant should think about when leaving a firm: It often depends on why you’re leaving a firm. I’ve seen people leave on good terms and bad terms and I’ve seen it have ramifications to their career years after they’ve exited the firm. People leave a consulting firm for any number of reasons.  They may decide to leave consulting altogether.  Maybe they’ve decided that a consulting career is not for them or that they’re just burned out on it. Consulting can be a launching pad for a successful career in some other industry. We’ve talked in the past about how people get a few years of consulting experience serving clients in a specific industry such as Healthcare consulting or financial consulting services. Consulting provides excellent experience for them to move into a company in that industry and allows them to be far ahead of people with the same number of years of experience that have been with that company for the same amount of time. Some people leave to go to another consulting firm.  When this happens, the firm you’re leaving wants to know the reason or reasons you’re leaving. Did a competing firm just make a better salary offer?  Often, a consulting firm will offer you a higher consulting salary to steal you away. If that’s the case, some firms will make a counter-offer to match or exceed the other firm’s offer. I’d advise against accepting this.  If you tell a firm that you’re leaving, you should leave.  I don’t believe in bluffing the firm just to get a higher salary. I’m also not a big proponent of leaving a firm just because of the money.  There are so many other factors that influence how happy you are at a job.  For instance, the amount of travel, work hours or opportunities to move up and work on more interesting technology. You may also leave a firm for another consulting firm because of its size.  Perhaps you’ve been at a boutique firm for a couple of years and would like to give a top tier firm a chance.  Or the other way around. People who work for the large firms can feel lost in the shuffle after a while and want to move to a smaller firm or even start their own.   How do firms usually respond when someone leaves the firm? It always depends on the situation.  For instance, if you’re in the middle of a critical project, the timing may put the firm in a real bind. You can’t always control when you’ll get an offer from another firm, but if you want to leave on good terms, it’s always a good idea not to leave when your current firm needs you the most. It also depends on whether you’re leaving to work at a competitor or for other reasons. I worked at a firm once where, if you left to go to a competitor, you were asked to leave that day, regardless of how much notice you had given them. If the employee left to go to another industry outside of consulting it was usually another story.  They often want to stay on good terms with you because your new company is a potential client. I’ve also seen consultants leave their firm to be hired on at their current client. Most firms have agreements with their clients that they won’t hire each other’s employees, but when a client hires a consultant, the firm usually allows it to happen in order to stay on good terms with that client. I once saw it happen that the client I was working on hired one of our team members.  The consulting firm’s partner had a going away party for him at his house, inviting employees from the firm and the client.   Some firms make it difficult to leave on good terms.  How does one consider that situation? Yes.  There are some, what I would consider short-sighted firms, who are only interested in your billable hours.  So no matter what the reason is that you’re leaving, you’ll be persona non grata if you leave. We always joked that if you quit to take care of your ailing mother the boss would kick you out of the office. But those firms are more the exception than the rule.  I think the key things that cause firms to be upset with you leave are a) when you leave to work at one of their head-to-head competitors and b) when you leave at a critical time in a project. Another factor is when they’ve spent a significant amount of time and money sending you to training.  They invested a lot of money in you and now you’re taking it to help another company.   Is it different when your leaving a firm is not your choice? Usually. One of the big dependencies is why they’re asking you to leave the firm. If you’re an underperformer and they’ve worked with you to improve with no success, you may just want to walk away and try to cut your losses. But I’ve seen firms make cutbacks where they need to layoff large numbers of people.  Make no mistake about it, firms don’t enjoy this.  Everyone who is left working at the firm feels that awkwardness and survivor’s guilt. It’s like when there’s a death in your family.  Some people avoid contacting you. It’s not that they don’t care. They just don’t know what to say, so they don’t say anything. I was part of a large round of layoffs from a firm I worked at several years ago.  Soon after it happened, there were several partners in the firm who called me to tell me how sorry they were and offered to help me in my job search. That was something I really appreciated.  It showed me that it wasn’t a performance issue but that they just had to reduce headcount.  The fact that partner-level people were willing to be references for me helped to build my self-confidence back up. But there were a lot of my former co-workers who didn’t know what to say, so they didn’t call. So I took on the initiative to call them.  They were uncomfortable at first, but I talked to them and told them how much I enjoyed working with them and wanted to make sure we kept in touch. Once they realized that I wasn’t devastated and was moving on, they felt much better. But that’s a critical step in networking.  Once you bind those ties with your former co-workers, they’ll be more willing to contact you if they see an opportunity in the job market.   If a consultant leaves a firm and realizes they made a mistake, are firms usually willing to hire them back? I’ll give you my standard answer: It depends.  It depends on the terms you left under. I’ve worked for four different firms, and I’ve seen every one of them hire back employees who had left to pursue other things. But if someone left under bad terms and burned bridges, they’re much less likely to consider hiring you back. Consulting firms are always looking to hire good people.  If you left to start your own company or you just decided to get out of consulting, they usually understand that. Once you get out there and realize the grass wasn’t actually greener, they’ll often take you back.  They know your skill set and they probably won’t have to spend a lot of time in orientation and training you up since you already know their organization.   So let’s say you want to leave on good terms.  What are some of the specific things one should do? First, you want to make sure you inform them correctly.  You should tell the person that you directly report to.  That may be a partner or a project manager.  If possible tell them both together. I’ve seen situations where people tell a couple of their friends and ask them not to tell anyone.  This never works.  Invariably, they tell other people and ask them not to tell and it just goes viral. I’ve heard of bosses hearing through the grapevine before the employee has a chance to tell them and it doesn’t go well. When you go to tell them, make sure it’s in as private of a location as possible.  Stop by their office or do it in a conference room where you can have a frank conversation. Have a professionally written resignation letter to give to them.  But tell them verbally.  The letter is a formality and should not be used to tell them that you’re leaving. They will more than likely ask you why you’re leaving and where you are going to work. I always recommend putting this in as positive of a light as possible.  If you’re leaving because you think this boss is a jerk and you hate his guts, you have nothing to gain by telling him. It’s better to say that you’ve found a better opportunity and have decided to move on. If you’re leaving for a competitor it’s best to tell them.  Often, if you give a 2-week notice and tell them you’re leaving for a competitor, they’ll ask you to leave that day and just pay you for the 2 weeks. They figure that’s better than allowing you to have access to critical files and other information before you go to a competitor. I knew someone who left their firm and refused to tell them where they were going.  This left the firm with some trust issues and they ended up telling the person to leave that day rather than risk leaving them with access to their critical files in case they were going to a competitor. The key is to take the high road.  No matter how unhappy you are, or how much you may hate your firm or your boss, be professional.  If they choose to be unprofessional, don’t stoop to that level. And make sure to say a formal, professional goodbye.  Send an email to everyone that you had a close enough relationship with at your firm that simply says that you’ve decided to move on, that you enjoyed working with them and that you wish them luck. If you aren’t going to a competitor, it’s ok to tell them where you’re going.  If you are going to a competitor, leave it out of the email.  Many of the folks will reply and ask you where you’re going and you can tell them in a one-on-one email rather than broadcasting it. It’s just another way to leave on good terms with your firm.   What is the appropriate way to maintain ties? Well, hopefully you were doing a good job of networking while you worked there.  As I mentioned, it’s good to connect on LinkedIn with co-workers and to stay in touch with them. We’ve also talked before that simply connecting on LinkedIn isn’t enough.  You need to interact with your LinkedIn connections and make sure they remember you. But when you do leave a firm, make sure you have the appropriate people in your network.  If there are people you worked with that you’re not connected with, add them and start interacting with them. You can do this with clients also.  You should connect on LinkedIn with client employees that you’ve developed relationships with. And don’t be afraid to let them know that you’re looking for a new position. If you were let go by the firm or left because you were unhappy with your firm, you need to continue to put things in a positive light. If you badmouth your firm with former co-workers or clients, they’re going to be less likely to help you.  Think about it, if someone badmouths their former employer, I’m not going to be as willing to put my name on the line by recommending them for a new employer that they may end up criticizing down the road. And one other point, I’ve talked about staying in touch.  I’ve known many people who only contact their connections when they’re looking for a job.  That’s bad form.  It’s important to post articles that you think people in your network will be interested in. And just check in with them.  Send them an email to see how things are going, offer to meet for coffee or lunch or an after-work drink. Take an interest in them and they’ll be more likely to maintain an interest in you.   When a consultant leaves on bad terms, what type of things can happen to them career-wise. Whether you’re in consulting or some other industry, I’m not a proponent of leaving a company on bad terms. When I was in high school and college I worked as a waiter in a few restaurants.  I always made sure I didn’t burn bridges even when I submitted my notice to those employers. You never know when a bad relationship will come back to haunt you. I’ve worked my entire career in Chicago, and I’m amazed at how small the IT consulting industry is in this large metropolitan area.  I’ve run into some of my former bosses and clients repeatedly. References are pretty big.  If you leave on bad terms, it will be hard to get a reference for a future job. If you’re trying to join a new firm, they’ll see in your resume or LinkedIn profile where you worked before or maybe a former client, and may talk to people they know at one of those organizations – even if you didn’t give that person’s name as a reference. If you left on bad terms, that may come out.  You could do permanent damage to your career prospects just by blowing off a little steam.   Once you’ve burned that bridge or damaged a relationship, are there ways to go about repairing it? Well, time heals all wounds.  Sometimes, no matter how positive you tried to be, your boss blows up and tells you to just get the hell out of there. Or maybe you blew off some steam and it became a rather heated conversation when you left. But things are said in the heat of battle that not everyone means. If you ran into that boss a year later at a trade show or professional organization’s dinner, maybe cooler heads will prevail. Sometimes that’s an opportunity.  If you have a chance meeting with a former boss where you left on bad terms, the tendency is to avoid them. I would recommend the opposite.  Walk up to them and say hi.  And if they don’t spit in your face and walk away, that’s always a good sign. Some people will just make awkward small talk and then lie about how nice it was to see them again. I would recommend confronting the issue.  Say something like, “Last year when I left the firm, I said a few things I regret and I’m sorry for that.” Showing some humility and apologizing for anything you did that might have been unprofessional will go a long way. Even if they were the one at fault, you can apologize for leaving them in a jam.  If they’re human at all, this will go a long way toward melting the ice.  It may take a couple of chance meetings like that before they fully warm back up to you. You could also throw them some business by referral.  If you’re talking to someone who needs some business that your former employer can do, set them up with some business.  That’s a great way to mend bad feelings. Most forward thinking firms maintain a strong alumni network.  They know that people don’t work for the same company for their entire careers anymore.  They also know that you may move on to companies that need consulting services.  If they maintain good ties with their former employees, they stand a better chance that you will hire them as consultants when you’re in a decision making role at a future employer.   Any final thoughts on leaving a consulting firm? The key is to leave on good terms.  Always be professional, even if they aren’t. It can be very tempting at times to go in and say “Take this job and shove it”, but it can leave very long-term negative effects on your career. And being negative will never do anything but give you short-term satisfaction that doesn’t last long at all.    Next week’s topic: Consulting Mentors

When someone joins a consulting firm, it creates the inevitable day when they will leave the firm. <a href="http://www.spreaker.com/user/usanzem/leaving_the_firm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> It may be after just a few months or several years.  We wanted to speak in this week’s podcast about the steps a consultant should take to leave professionally on good terms.<a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Saying_goodbye_to_client.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> <ol> <li>What are the major considerations a consultant should think about when leaving a firm: <ol> <li>It often depends on why you’re leaving a firm. I’ve seen people leave on good terms and bad terms and I’ve seen it have ramifications to their career years after they’ve exited the firm.</li> <li>People leave a consulting firm for any number of reasons.  They may decide to leave consulting altogether.  Maybe they’ve decided that a consulting career is not for them or that they’re just burned out on it.</li> <li>Consulting can be a launching pad for a successful career in some other industry. We’ve talked in the past about how people get a few years of consulting experience serving clients in a specific industry such as Healthcare consulting or financial consulting services.</li> <li>Consulting provides excellent experience for them to move into a company in that industry and allows them to be far ahead of people with the same number of years of experience that have been with that company for the same amount of time.</li> <li>Some people leave to go to another consulting firm.  When this happens, the firm you’re leaving wants to know the reason or reasons you’re leaving.</li> <li>Did a competing firm just make a better salary offer?  Often, a consulting firm will offer you a higher consulting salary to steal you away. If that’s the case, some firms will make a counter-offer to match or exceed the other firm’s offer.</li> <li>I’d advise against accepting this.  If you tell a firm that you’re leaving, you should leave.  I don’t believe in bluffing the firm just to get a higher salary.</li> <li>I’m also not a big proponent of leaving a firm just because of the money.  There are so many other factors that influence how happy you are at a job.  For instance, the amount of travel, work hours or opportunities to move up and work on more interesting technology.</li> <li>You may also leave a firm for another consulting firm because of its size.  Perhaps you’ve been at a boutique firm for a couple of years and would like to give a top tier firm a chance.  Or the other way around.</li> <li>People who work for the large firms can feel lost in the shuffle after a while and want to move to a smaller firm or even start their own.</li> </ol> </li> <li>How do firms usually respond when someone leaves the firm? <ol> <li>It always depends on the situation.  For instance, if you’re in the middle of a critical project, the timing may put the firm in a real bind.</li> <li>You can’t always control when you’ll get an offer from another firm, but if you want to leave on good terms, it’s always a good idea not to leave when your current firm needs you the most.</li> <li>It also depends on whether you’re leaving to work at a competitor or for other reasons.</li> <li>I worked at a firm once where, if you left to go to a competitor, you were asked to leave that day, regardless of how much notice you had given them.</li> <li>If the employee left to go to another industry outside of consulting it was usually another story.  They often want to stay on good terms with you because your new company is a potential client.</li> <li>I’ve also seen consultants leave their firm to be hired on at their current client.</li> <li>Most firms have agreements with their clients that they won’t hire each other’s employees, but when a client hires a consultant, the firm usually allows it to happen in order to stay on good terms with that client.</li> <li>I once saw it happen that the client I was working on hired one of our team members.  The consulting firm’s partner had a going away party for him at his house, inviting employees from the firm and the client.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Some firms make it difficult to leave on good terms.  How does one consider that situation? <ol> <li>Yes.  There are some, what I would consider short-sighted firms, who are only interested in your billable hours.  So no matter what the reason is that you’re leaving, you’ll be persona non grata if you leave.</li> <li>We always joked that if you quit to take care of your ailing mother the boss would kick you out of the office.</li> <li>But those firms are more the exception than the rule.  I think the key things that cause firms to be upset with you leave are a) when you leave to work at one of their head-to-head competitors and b) when you leave at a critical time in a project.</li> <li>Another factor is when they’ve spent a significant amount of time and money sending you to training.  They invested a lot of money in you and now you’re taking it to help another company.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Is it different when your leaving a firm is not your choice? <ol> <li>Usually. One of the big dependencies is why they’re asking you to leave the firm.</li> <li>If you’re an underperformer and they’ve worked with you to improve with no success, you may just want to walk away and try to cut your losses.</li> <li>But I’ve seen firms make cutbacks where they need to layoff large numbers of people.  Make no mistake about it, firms don’t enjoy this.  Everyone who is left working at the firm feels that awkwardness and survivor’s guilt.</li> <li>It’s like when there’s a death in your family.  Some people avoid contacting you. It’s not that they don’t care. They just don’t know what to say, so they don’t say anything.</li> <li>I was part of a large round of layoffs from a firm I worked at several years ago.  Soon after it happened, there were several partners in the firm who called me to tell me how sorry they were and offered to help me in my job search.</li> <li>That was something I really appreciated.  It showed me that it wasn’t a performance issue but that they just had to reduce headcount.  The fact that partner-level people were willing to be references for me helped to build my self-confidence back up.</li> <li>But there were a lot of my former co-workers who didn’t know what to say, so they didn’t call.</li> <li>So I took on the initiative to call them.  They were uncomfortable at first, but I talked to them and told them how much I enjoyed working with them and wanted to make sure we kept in touch.</li> <li>Once they realized that I wasn’t devastated and was moving on, they felt much better.</li> <li>But that’s a critical step in networking.  Once you bind those ties with your former co-workers, they’ll be more willing to contact you if they see an opportunity in the job market.</li> </ol> </li> <li>If a consultant leaves a firm and realizes they made a mistake, are firms usually willing to hire them back? <ol> <li>I’ll give you my standard answer: It depends.  It depends on the terms you left under.</li> <li>I’ve worked for four different firms, and I’ve seen every one of them hire back employees who had left to pursue other things.</li> <li>But if someone left under bad terms and burned bridges, they’re much less likely to consider hiring you back.</li> <li>Consulting firms are always looking to hire good people.  If you left to start your own company or you just decided to get out of consulting, they usually understand that.</li> <li>Once you get out there and realize the grass wasn’t actually greener, they’ll often take you back.  They know your skill set and they probably won’t have to spend a lot of time in orientation and training you up since you already know their organization.</li> </ol> </li> <li>So let’s say you want to leave on good terms.  What are some of the specific things one should do? <ol> <li>First, you want to make sure you inform them correctly.  You should tell the person that you directly report to.  That may be a partner or a project manager.  If possible tell them both together.</li> <li>I’ve seen situations where people tell a couple of their friends and ask them not to tell anyone.  This never works.  Invariably, they tell other people and ask them not to tell and it just goes viral.</li> <li>I’ve heard of bosses hearing through the grapevine before the employee has a chance to tell them and it doesn’t go well.</li> <li>When you go to tell them, make sure it’s in as private of a location as possible.  Stop by their office or do it in a conference room where you can have a frank conversation.</li> <li>Have a professionally written resignation letter to give to them.  But tell them verbally.  The letter is a formality and should not be used to tell them that you’re leaving.</li> <li>They will more than likely ask you why you’re leaving and where you are going to work.</li> <li>I always recommend putting this in as positive of a light as possible.  If you’re leaving because you think this boss is a jerk and you hate his guts, you have nothing to gain by telling him.</li> <li>It’s better to say that you’ve found a better opportunity and have decided to move on.</li> <li>If you’re leaving for a competitor it’s best to tell them.  Often, if you give a 2-week notice and tell them you’re leaving for a competitor, they’ll ask you to leave that day and just pay you for the 2 weeks.</li> <li>They figure that’s better than allowing you to have access to critical files and other information before you go to a competitor.</li> <li>I knew someone who left their firm and refused to tell them where they were going.  This left the firm with some trust issues and they ended up telling the person to leave that day rather than risk leaving them with access to their critical files in case they were going to a competitor.</li> <li>The key is to take the high road.  No matter how unhappy you are, or how much you may hate your firm or your boss, be professional.  If they choose to be unprofessional, don’t stoop to that level.</li> <li>And make sure to say a formal, professional goodbye.  Send an email to everyone that you had a close enough relationship with at your firm that simply says that you’ve decided to move on, that you enjoyed working with them and that you wish them luck.</li> <li>If you aren’t going to a competitor, it’s ok to tell them where you’re going.  If you are going to a competitor, leave it out of the email.  Many of the folks will reply and ask you where you’re going and you can tell them in a one-on-one email rather than broadcasting it.</li> <li>It’s just another way to leave on good terms with your firm.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What is the appropriate way to maintain ties? <ol> <li>Well, hopefully you were doing a good job of networking while you worked there.  As I mentioned, it’s good to connect on <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/linkedin/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> with co-workers and to stay in touch with them.</li> <li>We’ve also talked before that simply connecting on <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/linkedin/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> isn’t enough.  You need to interact with your <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/linkedin/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> connections and make sure they remember you.</li> <li>But when you do leave a firm, make sure you have the appropriate people in your network.  If there are people you worked with that you’re not connected with, add them and start interacting with them.</li> <li>You can do this with clients also.  You should connect on LinkedIn with client employees that you’ve developed relationships with.</li> <li>And don’t be afraid to let them know that you’re looking for a new position.</li> <li>If you were let go by the firm or left because you were unhappy with your firm, you need to continue to put things in a positive light.</li> <li>If you badmouth your firm with former co-workers or clients, they’re going to be less likely to help you.  Think about it, if someone badmouths their former employer, I’m not going to be as willing to put my name on the line by recommending them for a new employer that they may end up criticizing down the road.</li> <li>And one other point, I’ve talked about staying in touch.  I’ve known many people who only contact their connections when they’re looking for a job.  That’s bad form.  It’s important to post articles that you think people in your network will be interested in.</li> <li>And just check in with them.  Send them an email to see how things are going, offer to meet for coffee or lunch or an after-work drink.</li> <li>Take an interest in them and they’ll be more likely to maintain an interest in you.</li> </ol> </li> <li>When a consultant leaves on bad terms, what type of things can happen to them career-wise. <ol> <li>Whether you’re in consulting or some other industry, I’m not a proponent of leaving a company on bad terms.</li> <li>When I was in high school and college I worked as a waiter in a few restaurants.  I always made sure I didn’t burn bridges even when I submitted my notice to those employers.</li> <li>You never know when a bad relationship will come back to haunt you.</li> <li>I’ve worked my entire career in Chicago, and I’m amazed at how small the <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/it/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">IT</a> consulting industry is in this large metropolitan area.  I’ve run into some of my former bosses and clients repeatedly.</li> <li>References are pretty big.  If you leave on bad terms, it will be hard to get a reference for a future job.</li> <li>If you’re trying to join a new firm, they’ll see in your resume or LinkedIn profile where you worked before or maybe a former client, and may talk to people they know at one of those organizations – even if you didn’t give that person’s name as a reference.</li> <li>If you left on bad terms, that may come out.  You could do permanent damage to your career prospects just by blowing off a little steam.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Once you’ve burned that bridge or damaged a relationship, are there ways to go about repairing it? <ol> <li>Well, time heals all wounds.  Sometimes, no matter how positive you tried to be, your boss blows up and tells you to just get the hell out of there.</li> <li>Or maybe you blew off some steam and it became a rather heated conversation when you left.</li> <li>But things are said in the heat of battle that not everyone means. If you ran into that boss a year later at a trade show or professional organization’s dinner, maybe cooler heads will prevail.</li> <li>Sometimes that’s an opportunity.  If you have a chance meeting with a former boss where you left on bad terms, the tendency is to avoid them.</li> <li>I would recommend the opposite.  Walk up to them and say hi.  And if they don’t spit in your face and walk away, that’s always a good sign.</li> <li>Some people will just make awkward small talk and then lie about how nice it was to see them again.</li> <li>I would recommend confronting the issue.  Say something like, “Last year when I left the firm, I said a few things I regret and I’m sorry for that.” Showing some humility and apologizing for anything you did that might have been unprofessional will go a long way.</li> <li>Even if they were the one at fault, you can apologize for leaving them in a jam.  If they’re human at all, this will go a long way toward melting the ice.  It may take a couple of chance meetings like that before they fully warm back up to you.</li> <li>You could also throw them some business by referral.  If you’re talking to someone who needs some business that your former employer can do, set them up with some business.  That’s a great way to mend bad feelings.</li> <li>Most forward thinking firms maintain a strong alumni network.  They know that people don’t work for the same company for their entire careers anymore.  They also know that you may move on to companies that need consulting services.  If they maintain good ties with their former employees, they stand a better chance that you will hire them as consultants when you’re in a decision making role at a future employer.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any final thoughts on leaving a consulting firm? <ol> <li>The key is to leave on good terms.  Always be professional, even if they aren’t.</li> <li>It can be very tempting at times to go in and say “Take this job and shove it”, but it can leave very long-term negative effects on your career.</li> <li>And being negative will never do anything but give you short-term satisfaction that doesn’t last long at all.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/consulting-mentors/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Consulting Mentors</a>

Leaving a Consulting Firm

In the business world, organizations regularly implement and redefine processes as a response to various issues.  This is usually done in an effort to have standardized approaches so that stakeholders know how to address various situations in a consistent manner.  In this week’s podcast, we’ll address the delicate balance of applying process and encouraging people to think for themselves in challenging situations.  What prompted you to make this a topic for this week’s podcast?    It’s a debate that I’ve seen for quite some time, particularly in the consulting industry. As organizations grow, they start to see inconsistencies in how various individuals handle situations. Let me give an example.  Let’s say you run a clothing store and you see that a lot of people purchase clothes on Fridays and return the clothes after the weekend. You start to see a pattern and you notice that the clothes that are brought back are worn. You realize that people are purchasing clothes to wear to a weekend event and then returning those clothes on Monday and getting their money back.  They’re abusing your return policy to wear clothes for free. So you institute a policy that any returns of clothing must have the tags still attached.  You know that people aren’t going to wear the clothing to a function with the tags on.  So if they remove the tags to wear in public, the item can’t be returned. Now there are many of situations where a customer legitimately might take the tags off and want to return the item without planning to fraud the store. Let’s say I purchase as suit jacket.  I tried it on at the store and it fits fine.  Then, when I go to wear it out to dinner, I take off the tags and put it on and my wife points out that there’s a bad tear in the back. I didn’t see that when I tried it on in the store. So I end up wearing something else to dinner and the next day, I go to return it to the store.  Since I took the tags off, they won’t allow me to return it, even though there’s an unsightly tear in the back. So this is where we start talking about exceptions within policies.  The store could create the exception that if the item is damaged, it can be returned without the tags. But then this creates incentives for people to just tear the clothing items after they’ve worn them in order to be able to make a return. The point is that we need policies and procedures to ensure consistency and to avoid having people take advantage of things. But we also need to allow flexibility and common sense along with that.   So what are the considerations of this in the consulting industry? One of the things clients like about hiring consultants, besides having specialized knowledge in certain areas, is the fact that a firm often has a well defined and proven methodology. Many firms use that as a selling point and use their methodology as a competitive advantage.  “Our firm follows a step-by-step methodology to make sure that your project is done on time and under budget”. And I believe that having a well defined methodology is a good thing. But it should be driven more by guidelines and parameters rather than a formal and inflexible process that doesn’t allow for exceptions. Here’s an example that I saw once in a consulting environment. I knew a project manager at a client who followed a strict change management policy after business requirements had been defined. So any time we had a change, no matter how small, he completed a change request form, documented the impact to the project regardless how small and submitted it to the client. Change requests usually cause significant overhead for the client.  They have to submit changes up through management to get approvals and signatures, so every one of these can cost fairly significant time and money.  Besides, they get the feeling they’re being nickel and dimed with every one of these small changes. After a while, our client got tired of going through this process for every little change.  This created some bad blood between the client and the project manager and they eventually went to the firm and asked them to replace the project manager. If the project manager had put some thought into it and realized that he didn’t have to submit a change request for each tiny little change.  But what if we allow little changes here and there that continue growing until you’ve got what we call scope creep.  It becomes a death by a thousand paper cuts.   So how to you prevent it from growing out of control like that? A better approach to this would have been to have a threshold of reasonableness for the impact of the change.  If it’s a small and reasonable change, we’ll go ahead and implement it.  Then we would just keep of log of these small changes. At some point, when we accumulate a certain level where the changes have added up to a significant amount, you can submit a change request to the client that represents all of the small changes. The client will see that all of these small changes added up to some significant extra work.  It’s easier for them to go through their management approval efforts for significant changes like that. So here is a situation where you have a defined process that is necessary for change management on a project. But you’ve taken a step back and purposely decided the scenarios where it makes sense and the situations where you can modify the process a bit to accomplish the same goal, but avoid blindly implementing process when it doesn’t necessarily make sense and provides better client satisfaction.   Can an organization go to one extreme or the other with thought and process? Absolutely.  I think the situation where the project manager submitted a change request for changes of any size is one good example. Another good example is airport security after the September 11th and other terrorist attacks. Think about the fact that one person made a failed attempt at lighting a shoe bomb on an airplane, and now for over 10 years, everyone has had to take their shoes off to get on an airplane. This was an example of policy makers rushing into a solution that we’re stuck with for the foreseeable future that I think is more of an irritant than anything that’s resolved any problems. But that’s where I see policies and processes designed in this situation.  We see a problem and implement a way to stop people from thinking.  We just want them to follow rules and not have to think.  That way we can insure a uniform approach that will always be consistent. The problem lies in the fact that not every problem that comes along is consistent.  We end up applying the same rules to different issues that are categorized as the same. The change request process was applied the same way for changes that had major impact on the project as well as for changes with minimal to no impact. I think we have to stop and ask ourselves, will we accomplish what we’re trying to accomplish? Now, with that being said, it can be taken to the other extreme as well.  If we have no process defined, it can be chaos. Imagine going into a restaurant and there are no processes in place to serve your food.  They don’t have any recipes in the kitchen. They just wing it with whatever you order. And every cook makes it just a little bit differently.  So if you order your favorite item in two visits, it can be completely different each time. You want some consistency and predictability. But at the same time, if you don’t like some particular ingredient, you want the freedom to say ‘no anchovies please’ for your pizza. Think about going to McDonalds, where they’re strict followers of process.  If you want a Big Mac without pickles and onion, it interferes greatly with their process of making every order as consistent as possible. But, if you want a custom meal every time, it will take much longer and probably be much more expensive. You need to determine what will best serve your market and define as little process as necessary and as much flexibility as possible to serve your clients best.   What do you think are the downsides to each extreme in a consulting environment? I talked a little about the lack of flexibility when you have too much process defined.  In the example of the change request, the project manager on that project blindly implemented a defined process so that it worked for him and our firm. He didn’t stop to think what the effect was on the client or the extra work the client had to go through as a result. He made life more difficult for the client and that’s not what defined processes should do. So the effect was inflexibility which resulted in a very dissatisfied client. Let’s look at the other extreme for that same situation.  If we had no process in place for change management, perhaps the project manager would just accept every change the client requested. Then, as we approach the projected end date of the project, the project manager would realize that we had added so much scope to the project that we won’t even come close to completing the project in time for our end date.  Either that or we would take the project live and not all of the functionality is there. Having the process in place is there to help the client keep the scope intact as well as protect the firm from doing extra work without pay. So going to either extreme will result in poor client satisfaction.  The secret is working to balance the process with stopping to think about how it will affect the client and your firm and trying to determine the best way to optimize your service to the client.   What do you think is the optimum balance? I don’t know that there is an optimum balance per se.  It’s sort of like striving for utopia or perfection. You’re never going to be perfect.  Every client is different.  Every situation is different. And when you define procedures, there’s no way you can think of all of the variations and permutations for how the procedure can affect the outcome. I’m reminded of one of Bill Cosby’s jokes about raising children and how they came to him complaining that someone was touching them. His response was “OK, from now on, I don’t want anyone in this family to touch anyone ever again.” It’s obviously an exaggeration.  But we see processes and procedures and rules implemented that are designed to stop a certain bad behavior and they end up stopping good behavior at the same time. So my suggestion is to implement processes as a set of parameters. Define up front, ‘This is the behavior we’re trying to encourage or avoid’.  Then define a process that addresses that situation with enough flexibility to allow for legitimate exceptions and encourages employees to be able to think and make decisions for each unique situation. There are some that argue that the more flexibility you build into a process, the more you’re opening yourself to abuse. There is no process that is 100% fool-proof.  You have to be able to trust your people to make good decisions.  And if they don’t, you need to deal with that.  But it’s a different situation.  You can’t inflict cumbersome process on your clients because of a lack of trust with your employees. So while it seems vague, the optimal balance is letting your people know the intended consistent result you want, while giving them the freedom to make decisions based on all the variables in each situation. Those variables include the people involved, how volatile the situation is, and the impact that any decision will have in that situation.   Any final thoughts about balancing process with thought. The difficulty with this is that it’s got to be a balance.  Defining too much process will create an environment that doesn’t deal with reality.  People will unthinkingly just implement process without a thought of trying to do a job right. It creates an environment of bureaucracy. On the other end of the spectrum, if no process is in place, you create an environment of chaos where there is no consistency and people have too much freedom.  Few things get done right in that environment either. My preference is to give people more freedom rather than less.  Hire good employees, train them well and then set them free and let them make decisions. If you need some parameters, make sure they know what your ultimate goal is.  Tell them what you are trying to accomplish and they’ll more often than not make good decisions for you, for the client and for the situation in general.    Next week’s topic: Leaving a Consulting Firm

In the business world, organizations regularly implement and redefine processes as a response to various issues.  This is usually done in an effort to have standardized approaches so that stakeholders know how to address various situations in a consistent manner.  In this week’s podcast, we’ll address the delicate balance of applying process and encouraging people to think for themselves in challenging situations. <ol> <li>What prompted you to make this a topic for this week’s podcast? <ol> <li>   It’s a debate that I’ve seen for quite some time, particularly in the consulting industry.</li> <li>As organizations grow, they start to see inconsistencies in how various individuals handle situations.</li> <li>Let me give an example.  Let’s say you run a clothing store and you see that a lot of people purchase clothes on Fridays and return the clothes after the weekend.</li> <li>You start to see a pattern and you notice that the clothes that are brought back are worn.</li> <li>You realize that people are purchasing clothes to wear to a weekend event and then returning those clothes on Monday and getting their money back.  They’re abusing your return policy to wear clothes for free.</li> <li>So you institute a policy that any returns of clothing must have the tags still attached.  You know that people aren’t going to wear the clothing to a function with the tags on.  So if they remove the tags to wear in public, the item can’t be returned.</li> <li>Now there are many of situations where a customer legitimately might take the tags off and want to return the item without planning to fraud the store.</li> <li>Let’s say I purchase as suit jacket.  I tried it on at the store and it fits fine.  Then, when I go to wear it out to dinner, I take off the tags and put it on and my wife points out that there’s a bad tear in the back.</li> <li>I didn’t see that when I tried it on in the store.</li> <li>So I end up wearing something else to dinner and the next day, I go to return it to the store.  Since I took the tags off, they won’t allow me to return it, even though there’s an unsightly tear in the back.</li> <li>So this is where we start talking about exceptions within policies.  The store could create the exception that if the item is damaged, it can be returned without the tags.</li> <li>But then this creates incentives for people to just tear the clothing items after they’ve worn them in order to be able to make a return.</li> <li>The point is that we need policies and procedures to ensure consistency and to avoid having people take advantage of things.</li> <li>But we also need to allow flexibility and common sense along with that.</li> </ol> </li> <li>So what are the considerations of this in the consulting industry? <ol> <li>One of the things clients like about hiring consultants, besides having specialized knowledge in certain areas, is the fact that a firm often has a well defined and proven methodology.</li> <li>Many firms use that as a selling point and use their methodology as a competitive advantage.  “Our firm follows a step-by-step methodology to make sure that your project is done on time and under budget”.</li> <li>And I believe that having a well defined methodology is a good thing. But it should be driven more by guidelines and parameters rather than a formal and inflexible process that doesn’t allow for exceptions.</li> <li>Here’s an example that I saw once in a consulting environment. I knew a project manager at a client who followed a strict change management policy after business requirements had been defined.</li> <li>So any time we had a change, no matter how small, he completed a change request form, documented the impact to the project regardless how small and submitted it to the client.</li> <li>Change requests usually cause significant overhead for the client.  They have to submit changes up through management to get approvals and signatures, so every one of these can cost fairly significant time and money.  Besides, they get the feeling they’re being nickel and dimed with every one of these small changes.</li> <li>After a while, our client got tired of going through this process for every little change.  This created some bad blood between the client and the project manager and they eventually went to the firm and asked them to replace the project manager.</li> <li>If the project manager had put some thought into it and realized that he didn’t have to submit a change request for each tiny little change.  But what if we allow little changes here and there that continue growing until you’ve got what we call scope creep.  It becomes a death by a thousand paper cuts.</li> </ol> </li> <li>So how to you prevent it from growing out of control like that? <ol> <li>A better approach to this would have been to have a threshold of reasonableness for the impact of the change.  If it’s a small and reasonable change, we’ll go ahead and implement it.  Then we would just keep of log of these small changes.</li> <li>At some point, when we accumulate a certain level where the changes have added up to a significant amount, you can submit a change request to the client that represents all of the small changes.</li> <li>The client will see that all of these small changes added up to some significant extra work.  It’s easier for them to go through their management approval efforts for significant changes like that.</li> <li>So here is a situation where you have a defined process that is necessary for change management on a project.</li> <li>But you’ve taken a step back and purposely decided the scenarios where it makes sense and the situations where you can modify the process a bit to accomplish the same goal, but avoid blindly implementing process when it doesn’t necessarily make sense and provides better client satisfaction.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Can an organization go to one extreme or the other with thought and process? <ol> <li>Absolutely.  I think the situation where the project manager submitted a change request for changes of any size is one good example.</li> <li>Another good example is airport security after the September 11th and other terrorist attacks.</li> <li>Think about the fact that one person made a failed attempt at lighting a shoe bomb on an airplane, and now for over 10 years, everyone has had to take their shoes off to get on an airplane.</li> <li>This was an example of policy makers rushing into a solution that we’re stuck with for the foreseeable future that I think is more of an irritant than anything that’s resolved any problems.</li> <li>But that’s where I see policies and processes designed in this situation.  We see a problem and implement a way to stop people from thinking.  We just want them to follow rules and not have to think.  That way we can insure a uniform approach that will always be consistent.</li> <li>The problem lies in the fact that not every problem that comes along is consistent.  We end up applying the same rules to different issues that are categorized as the same.</li> <li>The change request process was applied the same way for changes that had major impact on the project as well as for changes with minimal to no impact.</li> <li>I think we have to stop and ask ourselves, will we accomplish what we’re trying to accomplish?</li> <li>Now, with that being said, it can be taken to the other extreme as well.  If we have no process defined, it can be chaos.</li> <li>Imagine going into a restaurant and there are no processes in place to serve your food.  They don’t have any recipes in the kitchen. They just wing it with whatever you order.</li> <li>And every cook makes it just a little bit differently.  So if you order your favorite item in two visits, it can be completely different each time.</li> <li>You want some consistency and predictability. But at the same time, if you don’t like some particular ingredient, you want the freedom to say ‘no anchovies please’ for your pizza.</li> <li>Think about going to McDonalds, where they’re strict followers of process.  If you want a Big Mac without pickles and onion, it interferes greatly with their process of making every order as consistent as possible.</li> <li>But, if you want a custom meal every time, it will take much longer and probably be much more expensive.</li> <li>You need to determine what will best serve your market and define as little process as necessary and as much flexibility as possible to serve your clients best.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What do you think are the downsides to each extreme in a consulting environment? <ol> <li>I talked a little about the lack of flexibility when you have too much process defined.  In the example of the change request, the project manager on that project blindly implemented a defined process so that it worked for him and our firm.</li> <li>He didn’t stop to think what the effect was on the client or the extra work the client had to go through as a result.</li> <li>He made life more difficult for the client and that’s not what defined processes should do.</li> <li>So the effect was inflexibility which resulted in a very dissatisfied client.</li> <li>Let’s look at the other extreme for that same situation.  If we had no process in place for change management, perhaps the project manager would just accept every change the client requested.</li> <li>Then, as we approach the projected end date of the project, the project manager would realize that we had added so much scope to the project that we won’t even come close to completing the project in time for our end date.  Either that or we would take the project live and not all of the functionality is there.</li> <li>Having the process in place is there to help the client keep the scope intact as well as protect the firm from doing extra work without pay.</li> <li>So going to either extreme will result in poor client satisfaction.  The secret is working to balance the process with stopping to think about how it will affect the client and your firm and trying to determine the best way to optimize your service to the client.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What do you think is the optimum balance? <ol> <li>I don’t know that there is an optimum balance per se.  It’s sort of like striving for utopia or perfection.</li> <li>You’re never going to be perfect.  Every client is different.  Every situation is different.</li> <li>And when you define procedures, there’s no way you can think of all of the variations and permutations for how the procedure can affect the outcome.</li> <li>I’m reminded of one of Bill Cosby’s jokes about raising children and how they came to him complaining that someone was touching them.</li> <li>His response was “OK, from now on, I don’t want anyone in this family to touch anyone ever again.”</li> <li>It’s obviously an exaggeration.  But we see processes and procedures and rules implemented that are designed to stop a certain bad behavior and they end up stopping good behavior at the same time.</li> <li>So my suggestion is to implement processes as a set of parameters.</li> <li>Define up front, ‘This is the behavior we’re trying to encourage or avoid’.  Then define a process that addresses that situation with enough flexibility to allow for legitimate exceptions and encourages employees to be able to think and make decisions for each unique situation.</li> <li>There are some that argue that the more flexibility you build into a process, the more you’re opening yourself to abuse.</li> <li>There is no process that is 100% fool-proof.  You have to be able to trust your people to make good decisions.  And if they don’t, you need to deal with that.  But it’s a different situation.  You can’t inflict cumbersome process on your clients because of a lack of trust with your employees.</li> <li>So while it seems vague, the optimal balance is letting your people know the intended consistent result you want, while giving them the freedom to make decisions based on all the variables in each situation.</li> <li>Those variables include the people involved, how volatile the situation is, and the impact that any decision will have in that situation.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any final thoughts about balancing process with thought. <ol> <li>The difficulty with this is that it’s got to be a balance.  Defining too much process will create an environment that doesn’t deal with reality.  People will unthinkingly just implement process without a thought of trying to do a job right.</li> <li>It creates an environment of bureaucracy.</li> <li>On the other end of the spectrum, if no process is in place, you create an environment of chaos where there is no consistency and people have too much freedom.  Few things get done right in that environment either.</li> <li>My preference is to give people more freedom rather than less.  Hire good employees, train them well and then set them free and let them make decisions.</li> <li>If you need some parameters, make sure they know what your ultimate goal is.  Tell them what you are trying to accomplish and they’ll more often than not make good decisions for you, for the client and for the situation in general.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: Leaving a Consulting Firm

Maintaining Balance Between Process and Thought

Confidence is one of the critical aspects of being a consultant. Many consultants cross the fine line of confidence and develop an arrogance that turns a client off and hurts their chances for advancement in their consulting career.  In this week’s podcast, we will discuss the difference between confidence and arrogance and how to avoid crossing the line.  How do you see the difference between arrogance and confidence?  Arrogance is defined as an exaggerated sense of self worth.  But one person’s confidence is another person’s arrogance. I remember early in my consulting career, I was watching someone speaking who knew a lot about their subject. Perhaps there was some jealousy on my part, and I thought they were very arrogant.  I made a comment to one of my co-workers and they disagreed.  “He just knows what he’s talking about and speaks with confidence.” So there isn’t a set definition.  We see this in the political world too.  You’ve got to be pretty confident to run for president. And I’ve seen in presidential campaigns where members of each party complain that their candidate’s opponent is arrogant. It’s really a perception thing. So let’s take this to a client site.  You’re supposed to be an expert in your subject area and you’re supposed to be confident. What happens when you present yourself to the client like the speaker I was just talking about?  The client could see it like I did and assume that I’m arrogant, or they could see it like my co-worker and say “that guy knows what he’s talking about and speaks with confidence.”   So is it really just the fact that different people will have different perceptions? Different people will see things differently.  So from that perspective, it really is. But like many things, a lot of that perception is going to be determined based, not so much on what you say, but how you say it. And one of the biggest ways your ‘how you say it’ approach will indicate arrogance is if you’re condescending or patronizing while you talk to the client. One of the best examples of this was when Al Gore hosted Saturday Night Live in December of 2000, after losing the presidential election to George W. Bush. He said in his monologue that maybe he came off a little patronizing.  And then he said “You see, patronizing is when you talk to someone like their stupid.” So he was able to laugh at himself for it. But the point is that you want to be very careful about how others will perceive you.   What would you say are the warning signs that you may be perceived as arrogant? Well you want to start observing people as soon as you meet them.  Your first impression is critical. It’s kind of an assessment of your own credibility. As a consultant, I try to see how open they are to consulting.  If they have the feeling that their boss is cramming consultants down their throat, you may have someone who doesn’t want some arrogant consultant telling him how to do his business. But as I talk to a client, I’m constantly trying to get feedback from their verbal queues as to how they perceive me. Some consultants try to use self-depreciating humor by jokingly putting themselves down.  I don’t think that will always work.  It sometimes makes the other person uncomfortable and could even be seen as a lack of confidence.  The tough part is striking that balance where you are perceived as confident yet humble. And I think the happy medium between the two is credibility. So if you get feedback, either through their comments or their facial expressions, you need to be careful.  Because once you start to lose credibility with a client, it’s very hard to win it back. Part of what makes that so difficult is that the harder you try to convince them that you have credibility, the less credibility you have. But it’s important to keep a close eye and ear on your audience.   How do you deal with it when you realize you’ve crossed the line? You usually don’t see it yourself.  Few people walk around knowing their arrogant. When I was in high school, the seniors had senior sayings next to their pictures in the yearbook.  These were usually witty sayings that reflected the person’s personality. I knew a guy in high school who I thought was very arrogant.  His senior saying was “I’m not arrogant, although I have every right to be.” Now this was a guy who evidently knew people thought he was arrogant and didn’t care.  He kind of played it up. I’m not sure how to deal with people like that. But there are people who think their arrogance is simply confidence. But as I said, it isn’t up to you, it’s up to the client who is perceiving it. One way that you will come off as arrogant is if you focus too much on yourself.  If you feel you’ve crossed the line, refocus your attention to the client. I’ve always been a big believer in the Dale Carnegie approach.  Dale Carnegie wrote the classic best-selling book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. His philosophy was that people like to talk about themselves.  So instead of focusing on yourself, ask them questions about them.  And it’s not just a matter of asking them questions.  If you start interrogating people, you’re probably not going to make friends very quickly. It’s really more a matter of taking an interest in the other person. You can show some interest in them initially by asking about them.  If you’re in someone’s office and they have a picture of their kids, ask about them.  If the person is really worried about the personal privacy of their children, they probably won’t be displaying pictures of their kids. Some people have other personal things in their office.  I met with a woman once who had a calendar of horses near her desk.  I asked her about it and she talked to me for five minutes about how she owns horses and the joy she gets out of riding.  It started the meeting out nicely because she got to tell us all a little about herself.  All I had to do was take a little interest. Then, once you begin talking about business, keep it focused on the client.  Instead of telling them about your company’s experience and capabilities, ask them about their business and specifically about their business unit. Ask about their pain points.  Depending on the meeting, they might have called you in specifically to talk about a problem they’re having.  Focus on that. They could have just let you come to talk as an initial getting-to-know you meeting.  You still want to focus on their business; what they do, how they do it. Then, once you know a little more about their business, and they’re ready to hear about you and your consulting firm, you can customize what you say about your firm’s capabilities to be more focused on how it will affect them.   Have you ever had to deal with someone you felt had to deal with their arrogance? Yes and that’s not an easy thing to do.  If you come out and just tell someone they’re arrogant or acting that way, they may get defensive. When I’ve met consultants that I think have been condescending to the client, I try to strike up a conversation to find out why. Many times, arrogance is a mask for insecurity.  If this person deep down, feels inferior to the person they’re talking to, they often will compensate for that by trying their best to show the other person how much better they are. I’ve seen people go on and on about their accomplishments, telling them how much experience they have and how much they know about a subject. And that’s always been kind of a give-away for me.  If someone has to tell me what a great leader they are or how much they know about something, it raises a red flag that that they may be compensating for something. I’ve always felt that if you’re that good, show me don’t tell me. So if I just saw a consultant in a client meeting that I thought tooted his own horn too much, I might talk to them afterwards about why they felt it was necessary to tout their qualifications. I’d encourage them to focus more on the client’s issues and give them the attention.  Once the client explains their issues and what kinds of problems he wants to resolve, use all that knowledge to start helping them resolve their issues. That’s the way to show them your knowledge rather than telling them about it and it’s going to impress the client so much more.   What if they actually think they’re better than the client? I’ve seen some consultants that actually walk around believing that.  I’ll see them start to use big words and a lot of consultant-eze and be very patronizing to the client. And some of the firms actually promote that concept with their employees. Top consulting firms particularly tell their consultants in their consulting orientation that if the entire business world is major league baseball, then you as a consultant are part of the all-star team. It’s meant to build their employees up which is a good intention, but then the consultant goes to the client who starts turning to him for advice.  I’m not surprised the consultants start to get a big head. If I think that’s the reason for their arrogance, I try to convince them that the client is really not that inferior to us. We all have a specialty that we’ve focused on.  We may be strategy or finance consultants or healthcare consultants. The client is a specialist in what they do.  If they manufacture widgets, they may be experts at that.  And they’ve called you in to help in your area of expertise. I’m an IT consultant and I probably know more about IT or project management than a manufacturing expert. But the goal is to bring our heads together and solve a problem as a team rather than trying to show the other why we’re so good. I’ve often given the analogy of home-ownership to consulting.  Let’s say you own your own home and your washing machine goes out. You call a repairman and they come out to your house to fix it.  They’re your personal consultant in this situation. If they came in and acted like they were smarter than you and that you were an idiot for not knowing how to fix a simple washing machine, you’re probably not going to want to deal with them again. The fact is that you have skills that your company pays you for and so does he.  The same goes for consulting.  The goal is to complement each other’s skills and get the job done.   Final thoughts on arrogance consulting? Every industry has arrogant people.  It’s not unique to consulting.  I’ve gone to car dealerships where the car salesman acts like a snob. But I think consultants have a self-imposed reputation of arrogance either because they think they’re so much better than the client, or because they don’t, and the feel the need to compensate for it. If a consultant goes into a client meeting assuming they’re equals who need each other’s knowledge, it will improve the chances of the two parties having a more workable and long-term relationship that works for both of them.    Next week’s topic: Process or thought.

Confidence is one of the critical aspects of being a consultant. Many consultants cross the fine line of confidence and develop an <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/arrogance-confidence.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>arrogance that turns a client off and hurts their chances for advancement in their consulting career.  In this week’s podcast, we will discuss the difference between confidence and arrogance and how to avoid crossing the line. <ol> <li>How do you see the difference between arrogance and confidence? <ol> <li> Arrogance is defined as an exaggerated sense of self worth.  But one person’s confidence is another person’s arrogance.</li> <li>I remember early in my consulting career, I was watching someone speaking who knew a lot about their subject.</li> <li>Perhaps there was some jealousy on my part, and I thought they were very arrogant.  I made a comment to one of my co-workers and they disagreed.  “He just knows what he’s talking about and speaks with confidence.”<a href="http://www.spreaker.com/user/usanzem/arrogance_vs_confidence" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></li> <li>So there isn’t a set definition.  We see this in the political world too.  You’ve got to be pretty confident to run for president. And I’ve seen in presidential campaigns where members of each party complain that their candidate’s opponent is arrogant. It’s really a perception thing.</li> <li>So let’s take this to a client site.  You’re supposed to be an expert in your subject area and you’re supposed to be confident.</li> <li>What happens when you present yourself to the client like the speaker I was just talking about?  The client could see it like I did and assume that I’m arrogant, or they could see it like my co-worker and say “that guy knows what he’s talking about and speaks with confidence.”</li> </ol> </li> <li>So is it really just the fact that different people will have different perceptions? <ol> <li>Different people will see things differently.  So from that perspective, it really is.</li> <li>But like many things, a lot of that perception is going to be determined based, not so much on what you say, but how you say it.</li> <li>And one of the biggest ways your ‘how you say it’ approach will indicate arrogance is if you’re condescending or patronizing while you talk to the client.</li> <li>One of the best examples of this was when Al Gore hosted Saturday Night Live in December of 2000, after losing the presidential election to George W. Bush.</li> <li>He said in his monologue that maybe he came off a little patronizing.  And then he said “You see, patronizing is when you talk to someone like their stupid.” So he was able to laugh at himself for it.</li> <li>But the point is that you want to be very careful about how others will perceive you.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What would you say are the warning signs that you may be perceived as arrogant? <ol> <li>Well you want to start observing people as soon as you meet them.  Your first impression is critical.</li> <li>It’s kind of an assessment of your own credibility. As a consultant, I try to see how open they are to consulting.  If they have the feeling that their boss is cramming consultants down their throat, you may have someone who doesn’t want some arrogant consultant telling him how to do his business.</li> <li>But as I talk to a client, I’m constantly trying to get feedback from their verbal queues as to how they perceive me.</li> <li>Some consultants try to use self-depreciating humor by jokingly putting themselves down.  I don’t think that will always work.  It sometimes makes the other person uncomfortable and could even be seen as a lack of confidence.</li> <li> The tough part is striking that balance where you are perceived as confident yet humble. And I think the happy medium between the two is credibility.</li> <li>So if you get feedback, either through their comments or their facial expressions, you need to be careful.  Because once you start to lose credibility with a client, it’s very hard to win it back.</li> <li>Part of what makes that so difficult is that the harder you try to convince them that you have credibility, the less credibility you have.</li> <li>But it’s important to keep a close eye and ear on your audience.</li> </ol> </li> <li>How do you deal with it when you realize you’ve crossed the line? <ol> <li>You usually don’t see it yourself.  Few people walk around knowing their arrogant.</li> <li>When I was in high school, the seniors had senior sayings next to their pictures in the yearbook.  These were usually witty sayings that reflected the person’s personality.</li> <li>I knew a guy in high school who I thought was very arrogant.  His senior saying was “I’m not arrogant, although I have every right to be.” Now this was a guy who evidently knew people thought he was arrogant and didn’t care.  He kind of played it up.</li> <li>I’m not sure how to deal with people like that.</li> <li>But there are people who think their arrogance is simply confidence. But as I said, it isn’t up to you, it’s up to the client who is perceiving it.</li> <li>One way that you will come off as arrogant is if you focus too much on yourself.  If you feel you’ve crossed the line, refocus your attention to the client.</li> <li>I’ve always been a big believer in the <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/dale-carnegie/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dale Carnegie</a> approach.  <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/dale-carnegie/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dale Carnegie</a> wrote the classic best-selling book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”.</li> <li>His philosophy was that people like to talk about themselves.  So instead of focusing on yourself, ask them questions about them.  And it’s not just a matter of asking them questions.  If you start interrogating people, you’re probably not going to make friends very quickly.</li> <li>It’s really more a matter of taking an interest in the other person. You can show some interest in them initially by asking about them.  If you’re in someone’s office and they have a picture of their kids, ask about them.  If the person is really worried about the personal privacy of their children, they probably won’t be displaying pictures of their kids.</li> <li>Some people have other personal things in their office.  I met with a woman once who had a calendar of horses near her desk.  I asked her about it and she talked to me for five minutes about how she owns horses and the joy she gets out of riding.  It started the meeting out nicely because she got to tell us all a little about herself.  All I had to do was take a little interest.</li> <li>Then, once you begin talking about business, keep it focused on the client.  Instead of telling them about your company’s experience and capabilities, ask them about their business and specifically about their business unit.</li> <li>Ask about their pain points.  Depending on the meeting, they might have called you in specifically to talk about a problem they’re having.  Focus on that.</li> <li>They could have just let you come to talk as an initial getting-to-know you meeting.  You still want to focus on their business; what they do, how they do it.</li> <li>Then, once you know a little more about their business, and they’re ready to hear about you and your consulting firm, you can customize what you say about your firm’s capabilities to be more focused on how it will affect them.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Have you ever had to deal with someone you felt had to deal with their arrogance? <ol> <li>Yes and that’s not an easy thing to do.  If you come out and just tell someone they’re arrogant or acting that way, they may get defensive.</li> <li>When I’ve met consultants that I think have been condescending to the client, I try to strike up a conversation to find out why.</li> <li>Many times, arrogance is a mask for insecurity.  If this person deep down, feels inferior to the person they’re talking to, they often will compensate for that by trying their best to show the other person how much better they are.</li> <li>I’ve seen people go on and on about their accomplishments, telling them how much experience they have and how much they know about a subject.</li> <li>And that’s always been kind of a give-away for me.  If someone has to tell me what a great leader they are or how much they know about something, it raises a red flag that that they may be compensating for something.</li> <li>I’ve always felt that if you’re that good, show me don’t tell me.</li> <li>So if I just saw a consultant in a client meeting that I thought tooted his own horn too much, I might talk to them afterwards about why they felt it was necessary to tout their qualifications.</li> <li>I’d encourage them to focus more on the client’s issues and give them the attention.  Once the client explains their issues and what kinds of problems he wants to resolve, use all that knowledge to start helping them resolve their issues.</li> <li>That’s the way to show them your knowledge rather than telling them about it and it’s going to impress the client so much more.</li> </ol> </li> <li>What if they actually think they’re better than the client? <ol> <li>I’ve seen some consultants that actually walk around believing that.  I’ll see them start to use big words and a lot of consultant-eze and be very patronizing to the client.</li> <li>And some of the firms actually promote that concept with their employees.</li> <li>Top consulting firms particularly tell their consultants in their consulting orientation that if the entire business world is major league baseball, then you as a consultant are part of the all-star team.</li> <li>It’s meant to build their employees up which is a good intention, but then the consultant goes to the client who starts turning to him for advice.  I’m not surprised the consultants start to get a big head.</li> <li>If I think that’s the reason for their arrogance, I try to convince them that the client is really not that inferior to us.</li> <li>We all have a specialty that we’ve focused on.  We may be strategy or finance consultants or healthcare consultants.</li> <li>The client is a specialist in what they do.  If they manufacture widgets, they may be experts at that.  And they’ve called you in to help in your area of expertise.</li> <li>I’m an <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/it/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">IT</a> consultant and I probably know more about <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/tag/it/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">IT</a> or project management than a manufacturing expert.</li> <li>But the goal is to bring our heads together and solve a problem as a team rather than trying to show the other why we’re so good.</li> <li>I’ve often given the analogy of home-ownership to consulting.  Let’s say you own your own home and your washing machine goes out.</li> <li>You call a repairman and they come out to your house to fix it.  They’re your personal consultant in this situation. If they came in and acted like they were smarter than you and that you were an idiot for not knowing how to fix a simple washing machine, you’re probably not going to want to deal with them again.</li> <li>The fact is that you have skills that your company pays you for and so does he.  The same goes for consulting.  The goal is to complement each other’s skills and get the job done.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Final thoughts on arrogance consulting? <ol> <li>Every industry has arrogant people.  It’s not unique to consulting.  I’ve gone to car dealerships where the car salesman acts like a snob.</li> <li>But I think consultants have a self-imposed reputation of arrogance either because they think they’re so much better than the client, or because they don’t, and the feel the need to compensate for it.</li> <li>If a consultant goes into a client meeting assuming they’re equals who need each other’s knowledge, it will improve the chances of the two parties having a more workable and long-term relationship that works for both of them.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Next week’s topic: Process or thought.

Arrogance or Confidence?  The fine line

As the world economy continues its slow and jagged recovery, people are slowly reentering the job market.  As they attempt to find work, many are trying consulting either in a firm or going independent.  In this week’s podcast, we will discuss the trend towards consulting and the pros and cons of this trend.  Is everyone really becoming a consultant? I’ve seen a big trend towards people calling themselves consultants. As you mentioned in the introduction, a lot of that is attributable to the economic problems we’ve had the last several years. There are two factors at play here.  First, there are a lot of people who are between jobs right now.  Apparently, between jobs is the new unemployed. As these people are out looking for jobs, they don’t want to show an employment gap that can sometimes be multiple years long. To accommodate for that, they say that they were an independent consultant.  Now they may have had a consulting career with a few companies and it may be legitimate consulting. But I’d venture to bet that there are quite a few out there that didn’t do any consulting and are just trying to put window dressing on a period of unemployment. The second trend that is creating a large influx of consultants is the fact that companies are more reluctant to hire a full-time employee and more likely to contract with a consultant for a short-term gig. The layoffs that companies went through over the past four or five years was very painful.  Nobody enjoys laying employees off.  Managers who went through that don’t want to start adding to the ranks if they know they may have to go lay some of them off again. It was also very damaging to morale.  People saw their friends leave and, in addition to suffering survivor’s guilt, they lost any loyalty they may have felt before the layoffs. So companies are much more willing to pay the hourly rate of a consultant that they can simply end the contract and have the consultant walk. Going through the HR process of layoffs is expense if in terms of dollars and employee morale.   Is it good or bad that more people are becoming consultants? I do think it’s bad that people are calling themselves consultants if they don’t actually have a consulting career.  It gives the industry a bad reputation.  Nobody wants a big gap in their work history, but you just can’t lie on your resume.  Enough people do that and hiring companies will suspect anyone that has consulting experience on their resume. I do think more people should consider a consulting career. It’s not only a great career move, It’s kind of a mind-set for your career. Tom Peters is largely credited with starting that philosophy with his article in the late 1990s in Fast Company called “A Brand Called You”.  In that article, he proposed that everyone brand themselves like Nike has so successfully branded itself. Over the years, he’s preached about the fact that we should all treat our careers as if we were independent consultants.  We don’t necessarily need to always be in job search mode, although I know those kinds of people.  But we should always be prepared to look for out next gig. You could be let go from your job on any given day.  Or you could decide that you aren’t’ growing enough in your job, or you’ve outgrown it and decide that you need to find a new position. If you kept in touch with your network and branded yourself well, you can be much more nimble in changing jobs than if you start all over trying to brand yourself from scratch. Branding yourself effectively can take a couple of years of consistent work.  If you start from zero at the time you need a job, you’re a little behind the eight-ball. It’s also easier to brand yourself while you’re working based on what you’re currently doing rather than branding yourself based on what you used to do.   So are there legitimate consultants and illegitimate consultants? I once heard an author tell a story about talking to his father about what he wanted to be when he grew up.  He told him he wanted to be a writer. His father told him, “If you want to be a writer, write.”  In other words, you can go to school and read all kinds of books and do everything you need to do to prepare for what you want to be. But you can’t really call yourself something until you actually start doing it. The same goes for consulting.  You can print up business cards and create a website touting your capabilities as a consultant.  But you really can’t put Independent Consultant on your resume until you’ve actually done some consulting. So with that in mind, I’d say yes.  There are illegitimate consultants that are that in name only.  They may have all of the credentials to give businesses advice and provide a valuable service.  But if you haven’t found anyone that will pay for those services, you may not be a legitimate consultant. One caveat there.  I have known people during times of unemployment who have donated their time to charitable organizations. In these cases, they may have been legitimate consultants but not have had anyone pay for their services. I think in this case, you have to ask yourself if it was really legitimate consulting that provided value and gave you marketable experience that a future employer would benefit from. It’s great to brand yourself in the best light possible, you just need to be honest about it. And that might be the test of legitimate consulting.  Is it experience that added skills to your repertoire that will provide your future employee with value?   How does a consultant establish legitimacy? It’s very similar to getting your foot in the door when you’re trying to get a job.  When you’re looking for a job, if you just send a resume to a company blindly, they don’t know you from Adam. There’s always a chance you have some experience that catches their eye, but that chance is pretty low. Even if you list experience that they’re looking for, since they don’t know anything about you, they’re not likely to just call and have you come in. As a consultant trying to sell to a client, if you just stop by or send them a folder of information, if they don’t know who the heck you are, there isn’t much reason for them to call and say come on in, we’ve been looking for you. They get that kind of unsolicited sales stuff almost every day and it just becomes noise. I spent five years outside of consulting and it was a good experience for me to see what it’s like on the other side of the desk. I got calls on an almost daily basis from people who found my name in the company’s directory and they wanted to sit down and talk to me about how they could help me. I got to a point where I started just ignoring the voice mails and emails and throwing away the packets I got in the mail. So just like getting a regular full-time job, you need two things to really improve your chances. First, you need to have proven experience.  Experience that you can convey to them is credible and will provide them with value. Secondly, you need to have contacts and references that can introduce you to the people in the company that make decisions. Hopefully, they can not only introduce you, but also vouch for your experience.  If the decision maker knows that someone they trust trusts you, you’re going to have a much better chance of getting in front of them and making the sale. And once you’ve gotten in to some clients and do a good enough job to show your value, they can help you by introducing you to businesses that they know and can be references for you. It’s very hard at the beginning, but if you can create some fans out of some clients, they’ll start helping you out to make it a little easier.   You mentioned that more people should be consultants.  What do you mean by that? Well, I understand that consulting is not for everybody.  But I do think people should act more like consultants. Consultants are always looking for their next gig before they finish their current one.  If they oversell, they can hire more staff and ramp them up.  But if you wait until your project is done, you’re going to have long periods of unbillable time. People who don’t want to go into consulting and just work full-time for a company need to understand that it’s not likely to be a lifetime thing. As I said, I don’t necessarily advocate that you start looking for a new job as soon as you start a new one, but always keeping your feelers out and being aware of the job opportunities will get you ahead of the game. Whenever you finish a project or develop a new skill in your current job, it doesn’t hurt to update your resume with that.  I’ve always tried to keep my resume up to date.  Every couple of months I take a look at my resume and see if there is anything that I could add to it that would make me more marketable. I’m very happy with the job I have today and I’m not looking.  But you never know when an opportunity could come along that’s just too good to ignore. And you never know when your firm may cut people back and you end up on the street. So just being aware and ready to jump into job search mode will have you on the ready if you’re ever forced out there against your will.   Do you see a future where everyone is essentially independent? Yes, I think that could happen.  We could get to a day where we only have entrepreneurs.  People who start their own companies and hire only contractors or temporary people with firms for project-based work. Companies may decide they don’t want full-time hires anymore.  Their needs for skills change so often that it doesn’t make sense. In this type of world, everyone will be responsible for their own training and sales.  We’ll all purchase our own health insurance and we’ll all go from company to company applying our skills to their current project. Then we’ll move on to the next project at the next company. I’m not necessarily advocating this or saying it’s any form of utopia.  I’m just saying that this could happen. In a world like that, people who keep their skills up to date and marketable and are best at selling themselves will be the most successful. Like I said, I’m not saying this is what I want to happen; I’m really saying that everyone should be prepared for this to happen.  Because it’s already sort of happening on a small scale. Companies are moving more to consultants than full-time hires.  If you’re looking for a job and ignore any opportunities for contracting, you’re closing doors on yourself.   Any final thoughts on everyone being a consultant these days? I’ve talked to many people who claim they’re not interested in consulting.  They prefer the security of having an employer and knowing they have a job every day. That’s a false sense of security.  We’ve evolved to a point where full-time jobs are not much more secure than consulting positions, especially if companies move more towards consultants. Whether you like consulting or not, you may have that lifestyle forced upon you.    Recommended Books: Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used Starting up on your own: How to succeed as an independent consultant or freelance   Next week’s topic: Arrogance or Confidence.  How attitude affects you success.

As the world economy continues its slow and jagged recovery, people are slowly reentering the job market.  As they attempt to find <a href="http://www.cpsradio.com/show/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Consultant_leaving_client.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>work, many are trying consulting either in a firm or going independent.  In this week’s podcast, we will discuss the trend towards consulting and the pros and cons of this trend. <ol> <li>Is everyone really becoming a consultant? <ol> <li>I’ve seen a big trend towards people calling themselves consultants.</li> <li>As you mentioned in the introduction, a lot of that is attributable to the economic problems we’ve had the last several years.</li> <li>There are two factors at play here.  First, there are a lot of people who are between jobs right now.  Apparently, between jobs is the new unemployed.</li> <li>As these people are out looking for jobs, they don’t want to show an employment gap that can sometimes be multiple years long.</li> <li>To accommodate for that, they say that they were an independent consultant.  Now they may have had a consulting career with a few companies and it may be legitimate consulting.</li> <li>But I’d venture to bet that there are quite a few out there that didn’t do any consulting and are just trying to put window dressing on a period of unemployment.</li> <li>The second trend that is creating a large influx of consultants is the fact that companies are more reluctant to hire a full-time employee and more likely to contract with a consultant for a short-term gig.</li> <li>The layoffs that companies went through over the past four or five years was very painful.  Nobody enjoys laying employees off.  Managers who went through that don’t want to start adding to the ranks if they know they may have to go lay some of them off again.</li> <li>It was also very damaging to morale.  People saw their friends leave and, in addition to suffering survivor’s guilt, they lost any loyalty they may have felt before the layoffs.</li> <li>So companies are much more willing to pay the hourly rate of a consultant that they can simply end the contract and have the consultant walk.</li> <li>Going through the HR process of layoffs is expense if in terms of dollars and employee morale.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Is it good or bad that more people are becoming consultants? <ol> <li>I do think it’s bad that people are calling themselves consultants if they don’t actually have a consulting career.  It gives the industry a bad reputation.  Nobody wants a big gap in their work history, but you just can’t lie on your resume.  Enough people do that and hiring companies will suspect anyone that has consulting experience on their resume.</li> <li>I do think more people should consider a consulting career. It’s not only a great career move, It’s kind of a mind-set for your career.</li> <li>Tom Peters is largely credited with starting that philosophy with his article in the late 1990s in Fast Company called “A Brand Called You”.  In that article, he proposed that everyone brand themselves like Nike has so successfully branded itself.</li> <li>Over the years, he’s preached about the fact that we should all treat our careers as if we were independent consultants.  We don’t necessarily need to always be in job search mode, although I know those kinds of people.  But we should always be prepared to look for out next gig.</li> <li>You could be let go from your job on any given day.  Or you could decide that you aren’t’ growing enough in your job, or you’ve outgrown it and decide that you need to find a new position.</li> <li>If you kept in touch with your network and branded yourself well, you can be much more nimble in changing jobs than if you start all over trying to brand yourself from scratch.</li> <li>Branding yourself effectively can take a couple of years of consistent work.  If you start from zero at the time you need a job, you’re a little behind the eight-ball.</li> <li>It’s also easier to brand yourself while you’re working based on what you’re currently doing rather than branding yourself based on what you used to do.</li> </ol> </li> <li>So are there legitimate consultants and illegitimate consultants? <ol> <li>I once heard an author tell a story about talking to his father about what he wanted to be when he grew up.  He told him he wanted to be a writer.</li> <li>His father told him, “If you want to be a writer, write.”  In other words, you can go to school and read all kinds of books and do everything you need to do to prepare for what you want to be.</li> <li>But you can’t really call yourself something until you actually start doing it.</li> <li>The same goes for consulting.  You can print up business cards and create a website touting your capabilities as a consultant.  But you really can’t put Independent Consultant on your resume until you’ve actually done some consulting.</li> <li>So with that in mind, I’d say yes.  There are illegitimate consultants that are that in name only.  They may have all of the credentials to give businesses advice and provide a valuable service.  But if you haven’t found anyone that will pay for those services, you may not be a legitimate consultant.</li> <li>One caveat there.  I have known people during times of unemployment who have donated their time to charitable organizations.</li> <li>In these cases, they may have been legitimate consultants but not have had anyone pay for their services.</li> <li>I think in this case, you have to ask yourself if it was really legitimate consulting that provided value and gave you marketable experience that a future employer would benefit from.</li> <li>It’s great to brand yourself in the best light possible, you just need to be honest about it.</li> <li>And that might be the test of legitimate consulting.  Is it experience that added skills to your repertoire that will provide your future employee with value?</li> </ol> </li> <li>How does a consultant establish legitimacy? <ol> <li>It’s very similar to getting your foot in the door when you’re trying to get a job.  When you’re looking for a job, if you just send a resume to a company blindly, they don’t know you from Adam.</li> <li>There’s always a chance you have some experience that catches their eye, but that chance is pretty low. Even if you list experience that they’re looking for, since they don’t know anything about you, they’re not likely to just call and have you come in.</li> <li>As a consultant trying to sell to a client, if you just stop by or send them a folder of information, if they don’t know who the heck you are, there isn’t much reason for them to call and say come on in, we’ve been looking for you. They get that kind of unsolicited sales stuff almost every day and it just becomes noise.</li> <li>I spent five years outside of consulting and it was a good experience for me to see what it’s like on the other side of the desk.</li> <li>I got calls on an almost daily basis from people who found my name in the company’s directory and they wanted to sit down and talk to me about how they could help me.</li> <li>I got to a point where I started just ignoring the voice mails and emails and throwing away the packets I got in the mail.</li> <li>So just like getting a regular full-time job, you need two things to really improve your chances.</li> <li>First, you need to have proven experience.  Experience that you can convey to them is credible and will provide them with value.</li> <li>Secondly, you need to have contacts and references that can introduce you to the people in the company that make decisions.</li> <li>Hopefully, they can not only introduce you, but also vouch for your experience.  If the decision maker knows that someone they trust trusts you, you’re going to have a much better chance of getting in front of them and making the sale.</li> <li>And once you’ve gotten in to some clients and do a good enough job to show your value, they can help you by introducing you to businesses that they know and can be references for you.</li> <li>It’s very hard at the beginning, but if you can create some fans out of some clients, they’ll start helping you out to make it a little easier.</li> </ol> </li> <li>You mentioned that more people should be consultants.  What do you mean by that? <ol> <li>Well, I understand that consulting is not for everybody.  But I do think people should act more like consultants.</li> <li>Consultants are always looking for their next gig before they finish their current one.  If they oversell, they can hire more staff and ramp them up.  But if you wait until your project is done, you’re going to have long periods of unbillable time.</li> <li>People who don’t want to go into consulting and just work full-time for a company need to understand that it’s not likely to be a lifetime thing.</li> <li>As I said, I don’t necessarily advocate that you start looking for a new job as soon as you start a new one, but always keeping your feelers out and being aware of the job opportunities will get you ahead of the game.</li> <li>Whenever you finish a project or develop a new skill in your current job, it doesn’t hurt to update your resume with that.  I’ve always tried to keep my resume up to date.  Every couple of months I take a look at my resume and see if there is anything that I could add to it that would make me more marketable.</li> <li>I’m very happy with the job I have today and I’m not looking.  But you never know when an opportunity could come along that’s just too good to ignore.</li> <li>And you never know when your firm may cut people back and you end up on the street. So just being aware and ready to jump into job search mode will have you on the ready if you’re ever forced out there against your will.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Do you see a future where everyone is essentially independent? <ol> <li>Yes, I think that could happen.  We could get to a day where we only have entrepreneurs.  People who start their own companies and hire only contractors or temporary people with firms for project-based work.</li> <li>Companies may decide they don’t want full-time hires anymore.  Their needs for skills change so often that it doesn’t make sense.</li> <li>In this type of world, everyone will be responsible for their own training and sales.  We’ll all purchase our own health insurance and we’ll all go from company to company applying our skills to their current project.</li> <li>Then we’ll move on to the next project at the next company.</li> <li>I’m not necessarily advocating this or saying it’s any form of utopia.  I’m just saying that this could happen. In a world like that, people who keep their skills up to date and marketable and are best at selling themselves will be the most successful.</li> <li>Like I said, I’m not saying this is what I want to happen; I’m really saying that everyone should be prepared for this to happen.  Because it’s already sort of happening on a small scale.</li> <li>Companies are moving more to consultants than full-time hires.  If you’re looking for a job and ignore any opportunities for contracting, you’re closing doors on yourself.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Any final thoughts on everyone being a consultant these days? <ol> <li>I’ve talked to many people who claim they’re not interested in consulting.  They prefer the security of having an employer and knowing they have a job every day.</li> <li>That’s a false sense of security.  We’ve evolved to a point where full-time jobs are not much more secure than consulting positions, especially if companies move more towards consultants.</li> <li>Whether you like consulting or not, you may have that lifestyle forced upon you.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Recommended Books: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470620749/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0470620749&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0273731173/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0273731173&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Starting up on your own: How to succeed as an independent consultant or freelance</a> Next week’s topic: Arrogance or Confidence.  How attitude affects you success.

Why is Everyone a Consultant These Days?

What a fantastic podcast! I&#39;ve learned lots and really enjoy the discussions. Wish they had better audio quality and maybe some guests, but this is still a great listen for consultants!

Great discussions and ideas about consulting

podcast – Consulting and Professional Services Radio

In addition to being an enthusiastic and passionate problem solver, a good consultant has a great thirst for knowledge. We’ve never known a good consultant that wasn’t also a voracious reader. We’ve often been asked to recommend books for consultants to read and have available in their personal libraries. This week Lew and I will discuss some of our favorite consulting and business related books. Just to demonstrate how important it is to be versed in good books and other resources in your field of expertise, I heard of an incident recently where a client was speaking with a consultant, and at their initial consultation the client asked for recommendations of some books on the subject they were working on so she could get some initial insight. When the consultant answered with “sorry, I don’t know of any” the client was taken aback. This simple misstep has undermined the consultant’s credibility in the clients mind from day one. So, be well read within your specialty, on current and evolving issues and on general business matters it helps build credibility and trust with your clients. We’ll take turns discussing books that we would recommend to consultants or aspiring consultants.  (Lew) Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni. It’s Lencioni’s style to write a story, a parable to make a point and teach a lesson. Getting Naked is not about being unclothed. It’s about being vulnerable with the client. Saying ‘I don’t know’ when you don’t know and not being afraid to ask a dumb question. He also advocates being their advisor as a sales approach. His advice is ‘Consult, don’t sell’. Meaning, when you begin talking to a client, let them talk. Ask them questions about their business and the challenges they’re facing and help them. If they like your help, they’ll keep coming back to you. In most consulting firms, a sales call is a PowerPoint that brags about all of their experience and how many offices they have. Clients just aren’t interested in that. They want their problems solved. The story in Getting Naked shows how a consultant in a traditional consulting firm sees the light. It advocates selecting good clients. He says a bad client is worse than having no client at all. It prevents you from finding other good clients.  And it’s unlikely to get a good reference. It destroys your culture. It points out 3 fears that consultants have when it comes to selling: – – fear of losing business – – fear of being embarrassed – – fear of feeling inferior This is an important book for consultants because it very clearly points out that selling services is not like selling a tangible product. It’s about developing relationships and developing a collaborative approach so that they come to you for help rather than you always hawking your services to them.  (Jeff) Lincoln on Leadership (currently reading – after seeing the movie ‘Lincoln’) Written by Donald T. Philips who says early in the book “Curiously, with everything that has been written about Abraham Lincoln, little is known about his extraordinary leadership ability”. Donald uses examples of Lincolns own work from speeches, letters and so forth to explain his principles of leadership in 4 sections: a. People b. Character c. Endeavor d. Communication Although so many of his anecdotes and doctrines are in the context of the 19th century and governing a nation at war, the underlying messages apply in almost every instance to a consultant client relationship: Get Out of the Office and Circulate Among the Troops – Today we might call this networking…. Or maybe hand-on management. Persuade Rather Than Coerce – Relationship selling Keep searching until you find your ‘Grant’ – Building strong teams and mentoring leaders. There are so many principles in this book that when you read the title initially it can be easy to dismiss as obvious or trite, but Don Philips does a great job bringing out Lincolns deeper thoughts on each subject.    (Lew) The three signs of a miserable job – Another parable by Patrick Lencioni of a man that retires as the CEO of a large company, gets bored and decides to manage the local pizza place in a vacation resort town. He goes through the culture shock of having people work for him that are not career minded and he begins working on figuring out – regardless of what kind of work you do – what is it that motivates people and makes them happy in their jobs. This applies directly to consulting for a number of reasons. For one thing, you need to figure out what makes you happy. If you’re not fulfilled in your work, you’re not going to perform well. So you need to figure out if consulting is for you or if it’s just the situation you’re in. It’s also important to know if you’re managing people on a team. I think this is a must read for any manager to help them understand how to motivate a team of people and make them as productive as possible. And finally, if you’re at a client and part of your responsibility is the help them solve problems, the source of many clients’ problems often root from employee satisfaction, morale and the effects it has on productivity. So this is important information for consultants from many different perspectives.    (Jeff) Flawless Consulting by Peter Block. For many years this has been considered by some as the Consultants Bible. I’m not sure if it’s in this book or other writings, but one point has always stuck in my mind from Peter and that is “People don’t hire experts they hire those they want to work with”. – This fundamental is so important for a consultant to understand and apply. Of course you need to be an “expert”, or at least your firm does, but more importantly, as far as the client is concerned, you have to make them want to work with you. Another point he makes is that all organizations are political systems and hierarchies. Instituting change and reform from a consultants perspective needs to acknowledge this from the context of where they sit outside the hierarchy and who they are working with inside the structure. All in all this is a great book, I have to admit it’s many years since I’ve picked it up but this weeks episode has motivated me to do just that.  (Lew) Seeing the Big Picture: Business Accumen to Build your Credibility, Career and Company by Kevin Cope. This book discusses business from two primary aspects. In part I, Cope covers the 5 key drivers of business and how to influence them. He discusses areas like cash, profit and assets. In part II, he discusses financial statements such as the annual report, the income statement and balance sheet. Cope uses a fictional business called Austin’s Cycle Shop to relate these concepts in meaningful terms. He takes some of the things you probably learned in finance and accounting classes and simplifies them, putting them in meaningful contexts and shows how they’re all interrelated to the big picture of business. In each chapter, he relates that concept to how it affects decision making in the business. This is important for consultants to understand so that they know the building block to how and why business managers at their clients make decisions. It’s imperative to understand this in order to frame issues and their resolutions in business terms.  (Jeff) Grown up digital by Don Tapscott. I guess the best way to summarize this book is that it addresses the issues and differences of the Baby Boomer generation versus the Millenials, mostly people born from about 1980 onward. These are the people that have “Grown up Digital” – Technology as the Boomers know it is simply a way of life for this generation, the internet is like running water, it’s just there. There’s no direct correlation between this book and the profession of consulting, but the impact of Millenials in workplaces created by Baby Boomers and Gen X’s is creating a new dynamic that consultants need to understand and embrace. Don Tapscott does a great job at pointing out some things that we have all observed but rarely acknowledge. Next week: About being ‘On the Bench’ as a Consultant.

In addition to being an enthusiastic and passionate problem solver, a good consultant has a great thirst for knowledge. We’ve never known a good consultant that wasn’t also a voracious reader. We’ve often been asked to recommend books for consultants to read and have available in their personal libraries. This week Lew and I will discuss some of our favorite consulting and business related books. Just to demonstrate how important it is to be versed in good books and other resources in your field of expertise, I heard of an incident recently where a client was speaking with a consultant, and at their initial consultation the client asked for recommendations of some books on the subject they were working on so she could get some initial insight. When the consultant answered with “sorry, I don’t know of any” the client was taken aback. This simple misstep has undermined the consultant’s credibility in the clients mind from day one. So, be well read within your specialty, on current and evolving issues and on general business matters it helps build credibility and trust with your clients. We’ll take turns discussing books that we would recommend to consultants or aspiring consultants. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0787976393/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0787976393&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> (Lew) Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni. It’s Lencioni’s style to write a story, a parable to make a point and teach a lesson. Getting Naked is not about being unclothed. It’s about being vulnerable with the client. Saying ‘I don’t know’ when you don’t know and not being afraid to ask a dumb question. He also advocates being their advisor as a sales approach. His advice is ‘Consult, don’t sell’. Meaning, when you begin talking to a client, let them talk. Ask them questions about their business and the challenges they’re facing and help them. If they like your help, they’ll keep coming back to you. In most consulting firms, a sales call is a PowerPoint that brags about all of their experience and how many offices they have. Clients just aren’t interested in that. They want their problems solved. The story in Getting Naked shows how a consultant in a traditional consulting firm sees the light. It advocates selecting good clients. He says a bad client is worse than having no client at all. It prevents you from finding other good clients.  And it’s unlikely to get a good reference. It destroys your culture. It points out 3 fears that consultants have when it comes to selling: – – fear of losing business – – fear of being embarrassed – – fear of feeling inferior This is an important book for consultants because it very clearly points out that selling services is not like selling a tangible product. It’s about developing relationships and developing a collaborative approach so that they come to you for help rather than you always hawking your services to them. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446394599/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0446394599&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> (Jeff) Lincoln on Leadership (currently reading – after seeing the movie ‘Lincoln’) Written by Donald T. Philips who says early in the book “Curiously, with everything that has been written about Abraham Lincoln, little is known about his extraordinary leadership ability”. Donald uses examples of Lincolns own work from speeches, letters and so forth to explain his principles of leadership in 4 sections: a. People b. Character c. Endeavor d. Communication Although so many of his anecdotes and doctrines are in the context of the 19th century and governing a nation at war, the underlying messages apply in almost every instance to a consultant client relationship: Get Out of the Office and Circulate Among the Troops – Today we might call this networking…. Or maybe hand-on management. Persuade Rather Than Coerce – Relationship selling Keep searching until you find your ‘Grant’ – Building strong teams and mentoring leaders. There are so many principles in this book that when you read the title initially it can be easy to dismiss as obvious or trite, but Don Philips does a great job bringing out Lincolns deeper thoughts on each subject. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0787995312/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0787995312&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> (Lew) The three signs of a miserable job – Another parable by Patrick Lencioni of a man that retires as the CEO of a large company, gets bored and decides to manage the local pizza place in a vacation resort town. He goes through the culture shock of having people work for him that are not career minded and he begins working on figuring out – regardless of what kind of work you do – what is it that motivates people and makes them happy in their jobs. This applies directly to consulting for a number of reasons. For one thing, you need to figure out what makes you happy. If you’re not fulfilled in your work, you’re not going to perform well. So you need to figure out if consulting is for you or if it’s just the situation you’re in. It’s also important to know if you’re managing people on a team. I think this is a must read for any manager to help them understand how to motivate a team of people and make them as productive as possible. And finally, if you’re at a client and part of your responsibility is the help them solve problems, the source of many clients’ problems often root from employee satisfaction, morale and the effects it has on productivity. So this is important information for consultants from many different perspectives. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470620749/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0470620749&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> (Jeff) Flawless Consulting by Peter Block. For many years this has been considered by some as the Consultants Bible. I’m not sure if it’s in this book or other writings, but one point has always stuck in my mind from Peter and that is “People don’t hire experts they hire those they want to work with”. – This fundamental is so important for a consultant to understand and apply. Of course you need to be an “expert”, or at least your firm does, but more importantly, as far as the client is concerned, you have to make them want to work with you. Another point he makes is that all organizations are political systems and hierarchies. Instituting change and reform from a consultants perspective needs to acknowledge this from the context of where they sit outside the hierarchy and who they are working with inside the structure. All in all this is a great book, I have to admit it’s many years since I’ve picked it up but this weeks episode has motivated me to do just that. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1608322467/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1608322467&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> (Lew) Seeing the Big Picture: Business Accumen to Build your Credibility, Career and Company by Kevin Cope. This book discusses business from two primary aspects. In part I, Cope covers the 5 key drivers of business and how to influence them. He discusses areas like cash, profit and assets. In part II, he discusses financial statements such as the annual report, the income statement and balance sheet. Cope uses a fictional business called Austin’s Cycle Shop to relate these concepts in meaningful terms. He takes some of the things you probably learned in finance and accounting classes and simplifies them, putting them in meaningful contexts and shows how they’re all interrelated to the big picture of business. In each chapter, he relates that concept to how it affects decision making in the business. This is important for consultants to understand so that they know the building block to how and why business managers at their clients make decisions. It’s imperative to understand this in order to frame issues and their resolutions in business terms. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071508635/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0071508635&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=cpsradio-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> (Jeff) Grown up digital by Don Tapscott. I guess the best way to summarize this book is that it addresses the issues and differences of the Baby Boomer generation versus the Millenials, mostly people born from about 1980 onward. These are the people that have “Grown up Digital” – Technology as the Boomers know it is simply a way of life for this generation, the internet is like running water, it’s just there. There’s no direct correlation between this book and the profession of consulting, but the impact of Millenials in workplaces created by Baby Boomers and Gen X’s is creating a new dynamic that consultants need to understand and embrace. Don Tapscott does a great job at pointing out some things that we have all observed but rarely acknowledge. Next week: About being ‘On the Bench’ as a Consultant.

Our Favorite Consulting Books – The first half

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