Listener Q&A: Your Burning Questions on Consulting Answered!
We address some listener questions:
- How do you set boundaries for handling requests for out-of-hours work?
- What do you do when clients ask for 'freebies' before engaging on paid work?
- So many people these days have jobs entitled 'consultant' - but who's REALLY a consultant?
- What's the most difficult thing Ian & Mike have every been asked to do in consulting?
- Who do you know who is most like a consultant, without actually being one?
- Is it better to have some ex-clients in a consulting team?
... and finally we take a look at some consutant-baiting humour from The Economist!
Remember you can reach out to Ian and Mike to ask a question or share your thoughts - email them at consultingforhumans@p31-consulting.com
You can follow the show on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13116342/
And you can follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/learn.consulting
The Consulting For Humans podcast is brought to you by P31 Consulting LLC
Transcript
Welcome luminaries.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker A:As we dig deeper in a new way this week, Mike, we're digging into our first set of listener questions and our answers to those questions.
Speaker A:We've got a long and diverse list of questions.
Speaker A:Let's see where our answers take us.
Speaker A:Mike, help us get into it here.
Speaker B:Well, it's a great set of questions yet about human life in consulting.
Speaker B:So very much on target for the podcast here.
Speaker B:So today we're going to talk about setting boundaries, doing work for free.
Speaker B:The definition of a real in air quotes consultant.
Speaker B:The most difficult thing we've ever done as consultants.
Speaker B:Who is like a consultant but isn't actually one, and how firms can make the best use of ex clients vs long term consultants and how that team is composed.
Speaker A:Okay, so questions about that, the big picture and the details of life as a consultant.
Speaker A:We're also going to touch on a really funny article that we've come across from the Economist.
Speaker A:We'll get into sharing you economist consultant baiting humor right at the end of the episode here.
Speaker A:Now let's get back into these questions.
Speaker A:Mike, we were asked this by someone who I think is thinking through how to cope with the consultant work ethic.
Speaker A:How?
Speaker A:Asks our listener, how do I set boundaries for working after hours?
Speaker A:Now we've heard about this from listeners.
Speaker A:We've also seen a bit about this on LinkedIn from folks in the profession as well.
Speaker A:So this seems like it has the chance to be something of a hot topic.
Speaker A:What do you think, Mike?
Speaker A:How do we set boundaries?
Speaker B:I think it is a great question, Ian.
Speaker B:I mean, without boundaries you run the risk of burnout in any profession.
Speaker B:But I think consulting is particularly susceptible to it.
Speaker B:Like so much of what we've discussed in the past four weeks, it's a matter of balance and prioritization here.
Speaker B:So I for me, one thing that helps is to remember that we teach people how to treat us.
Speaker B:So we're teaching our clients, we're teaching our bosses, we're teaching our peers.
Speaker B:So part of that is how you are going to get sucked into this is going to depend a lot on what you do and how you behave and what you establish with people that you are and are not willing to do, Right?
Speaker A:So a little bit we get the behavior from others that we educate them to be.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Now Mike, at some point in the show we're going to have to dig into getting you to tell your fantastic feeding the Swans story because I think that kind of relates here.
Speaker A:But I think we'll save that for another moment.
Speaker A:We'll save that for a forthcoming episode.
Speaker A:So we should try to think about how people learn from how we behave towards them.
Speaker A:I think it's also going to be a good idea, just at the very simple practical level, to have a discussion either in the team or in the firm or with just you and the boss about working hours.
Speaker A:Talk about it early and refresh that conversation often.
Speaker A:What's the policy?
Speaker A:What are our objectives?
Speaker A:What's everybody's at home situation as well, a little bit.
Speaker A:And what are the consequences for us all?
Speaker A:Some people with some particular kind of patterns of their working lives and their personal lives will have particular times when they know they can be available for work activities and when they need time for some personal and leisure and self care activities.
Speaker A:If we can talk about what the boundaries are and talk about it calmly and talk about it openly and positively, then maybe we can help to reduce the number of times when we have to think about curtailing unnecessary overtime.
Speaker A:Because as we said in our lazy versus hardworking episode, Mike, lots of the extra hours that people work are actually unnecessary and a bit unproductive.
Speaker A:Not everything is an emergency, unless maybe you as the consultant have become complicit in making it one.
Speaker A:So give yourself some rules about staying away from work texts and emails and voicemails and calls, except in limited circumstances outside of designated hours.
Speaker A:I will say one more thing, Michael, before I pass this back to you for a few more thoughts here.
Speaker A:I wouldn't caution against saying never because I can also think of some genuine emergent situations that come under the heading of outside hours that were really great learning opportunities for me, that were a chance for me to grow in my career.
Speaker A:So I'm not going to say never.
Speaker A:I'm going to say let's keep talking about it.
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I think one of the things I see people get sucked down the vortex is they happen to be up for whatever reason at 2am and that text or whatever comes in and they respond immediately because that's how we're starting to teach people.
Speaker B:Yeah, how to treat us, that they'll start expecting us to respond at 2am they'll expect us to do these things on off hours and if it's not an emergency, as you said, maybe save it.
Speaker B:I used to love the thing that used to allow me to respond to emails and set what time my reply was going to go back out so that despite working in crazy time zones around the world, I made sure that my response was going to come back to that person.
Speaker B:Maybe 9am in their time zone, not at 1am in mind.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I think we need to know the difference between out of hours and emergency.
Speaker A:Not everything that comes up out of hours is emergency.
Speaker A:Not everything that is an emergency needs to be taken care of out of hours.
Speaker A:There is such a thing as an emergency.
Speaker A:And people who can't tell the difference, I think are going to have a hard time whether they're on the boss side of things or on the employee side of things.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So we're going to have to be good at time management.
Speaker A:We're going to have to be good as well, I think, Mike, at judging results.
Speaker A:And this is, I think a perfectly sensible answer to lots of the debate around working hours.
Speaker A:It shouldn't really be about making sure that your face is seen or that your emails and your IMs are seen at a particular time of the day.
Speaker A:It's got to be about the results.
Speaker A:Because we get paid for results.
Speaker A:Our clients pay us for results delivered in good quality and on time.
Speaker A:And I think we should all feel that the project's shared success is our shared success.
Speaker A:But that success is going to come by us being good at talking about time, good at delivering effectively within the time budgets that we have and encouraging everybody else to do their share.
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely agree.
Speaker B:And I think it's important to learn how to say no and how to say no in the right way.
Speaker B:So quick freebie hint here.
Speaker B:Learn about the power of a positive no.
Speaker B:And I would just say, hey, Google that.
Speaker B:Google that.
Speaker B:Power of a positive no.
Speaker B:Some great wisdom from one of the alumni of the Harvard Negotiation Project.
Speaker A:Excellent.
Speaker A:So thank you.
Speaker A:That was a great question to get us started and a good dose of real life in consulting, I think.
Speaker A:Mike, here's our next question.
Speaker A:And this is in a slightly different world from the corporate world of project managers and employees and partners and associates.
Speaker A:This is from the world of self employment.
Speaker A:This person says, I'm a self employed consultant and my client often asks me for something for free before they commit to a contract.
Speaker A:How do I respond?
Speaker A:So this isn't even scope creep, Mike.
Speaker A:This is the client sliding in a request for a freebie as a kind of inducement to be given the project.
Speaker A:And it already has a little bit of a difficult taste in my mouth, this one.
Speaker A:What do you think is our advice here?
Speaker B:It's, it's funny.
Speaker B:And the thought also comes to mind, remember, we teach people how to treat us.
Speaker B:We also teach people what our work products are worth.
Speaker B:But with that in mind, I would say at first, maybe Consider just saying no and see what their response is.
Speaker B:They may be asking for the simple reason that it's worked for them before.
Speaker B:And maybe you want to find out, is this just a, you know, is this just a routine ask that really doesn't have great consequence or not?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Indeed, indeed.
Speaker A:Though be a little bit patient, be a little bit curious.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:I think it's worth bearing in mind that we get the chance to choose what it is that we agree to do for free or for very little.
Speaker A:As a kind of introducer, and I would say let's avoid giving a freebie that has very obvious costs and timescales associated with it.
Speaker A:I think it can be a smart thing to offer something for free that's intangible advice is intangible and potentially priceless activity.
Speaker A:Something that has a hard scope like a document or a report or attendance at an event, has a sort of very clear and obvious investment of time.
Speaker A:And I don't think I like the idea of letting people feel like they can control our time just for the asking.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And certainly if you're going to consider doing it, measure it against all the other marketing investments you could be making with your non billable time.
Speaker B:Is this going to show you at your best?
Speaker B:Is it going to build trust?
Speaker B:The genuine desire to buy on their side?
Speaker B:Is it something you'd enjoy and learn from doing it yet you've got to create some value on your own.
Speaker B:Well, if the answer to those are all yes, then maybe it's worth doing.
Speaker B:Now I would add anytime I think there's a Scope Creek thing, anytime there's an ask for something like this, I always want to make sure that we determine what the value is to the person making the request because we're about to perhaps agree to say for free, which then becomes in their mind the value of whatever we're going to do.
Speaker B:So as you say, let's ask those questions.
Speaker B:Why do you want this?
Speaker B:What are you going to do with this?
Speaker B:How is that going to add value?
Speaker B:How's it going to help you?
Speaker B:And let's create the value that's going to come and then decide whether that's free or something else or what we're going to ask for in exchange for that.
Speaker A:Yeah, very good, Very good.
Speaker A:I like this idea of just continually testing out the link between our work product and value.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Now we talk about this a lot with our coaching clients.
Speaker A:We talk about time and time management a lot with our corporate clients for a number of different reasons.
Speaker A:We're going to come back to this idea of scope and scope creep because it's part of the eternal life of a consultant, wherever you're working, however you're working.
Speaker A:So, Mike, we've talked about handling client requests for freebies.
Speaker A:This next question here digs into identity a little bit, which is something we've played with already on previous episodes of the show.
Speaker A:Take us into this one here.
Speaker B:Well, I love this one.
Speaker B:Our listener said, when I say to friends and family that I'm a consultant, it seems like everyone else in my friendship circle knows someone else who's a consultant.
Speaker B:But what they're doing seems very different from what I do.
Speaker B:They might be writing software or doing market research or selling soft furnishing or home appliances.
Speaker B:Which of these is right?
Speaker B:Is there a definition of who's a real consultant?
Speaker B:Ian, what do you think?
Speaker A:Well, Mike, it's.
Speaker A:Where does an answer come from?
Speaker A:Part of the authority.
Speaker A:And an answer comes from looking it up.
Speaker A:So we looked it up.
Speaker A:Dictionary definition says a consultant is someone who provides expert advice or services in a particular field, either to organizations or individuals.
Speaker A:This includes characteristics such as providing expertise or support that the client lacks.
Speaker A:Providing an independent perspective, operating from the outside as it were, bringing an objective third party view.
Speaker A:And I think we might come back to that shortly as well.
Speaker A:And working in a professional manner with appropriate qualifications.
Speaker A:So my first answer to the question is if you'd like to be sure of your own status, then think about yourself against those criteria.
Speaker A:If you're doubting someone else's status.
Speaker A:If you want to invest your time in doubting someone else's status, then you could think about it against those criteria of expertise and being independent and working professionally.
Speaker A:What else do you think might come into this idea of working professionally here?
Speaker B:So while many roles can be considered consulting, be a real consultant is somebody who has that ability to provide the advice or solutions to somebody that add value, whatever their area of specialization or expertise.
Speaker A:And if you're providing an independent perspective and providing advice and your clients are paying for the advice, then I think it's fair to call yourself a consultant regardless of which industry or focus area employs you, Whether the consultant label is a commonly given one in your industry or not.
Speaker A:I don't think there's any reason to mind about the client.
Speaker A:Might be even your employer, it might be the firm that you work for.
Speaker A:There are people in our industry who are internal consultants and they go by different names as well.
Speaker A:I think we should probably be cautious about being too precious about the title.
Speaker A:I mean, I think it's good and honorable, that we feel proud of our profession and proud of the value that we bring.
Speaker A:But I don't think we've got very much to stand on.
Speaker A:Is there, do you think, a legal definition anywhere of who's a consultant?
Speaker B:You know what?
Speaker B:I think it varies from country to country, but in most places, certainly places that I've worked, there isn't a formal legal qualification or a protected professional status the way there are for doctors or lawyers or accountants.
Speaker B:And that's probably a good thing both ways, right?
Speaker B:I think it's a good thing that they have them.
Speaker B:I think perhaps it's a good thing that we don't because of the variety, the huge variety of people who do and do well.
Speaker B:Consulting.
Speaker A:We said before the show, bail bondsmen have a professional status.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Sex workers don't.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:So where do we fall in that category?
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Ed, you had a.
Speaker B:An interesting thought there.
Speaker B:If somebody out there is worried that, hey, there are others encroaching on their profession, this is.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:This is the Consulting for Humans podcast.
Speaker A:So we're getting back again, I think, to the human aspect of this.
Speaker A:If you're feeling a little bit like somebody else is encroaching on your turf, if that feels like a bit of a threat, I can completely understand how that is.
Speaker A:But you know what?
Speaker A:If you're worried that somebody else is parking their tanks on your consulting lawn, maybe that's just the very beginnings of incipient consultant imposter syndrome taking its effect.
Speaker A:Welcome to the club.
Speaker A:We're getting T shirts made.
Speaker A: or at least there will be in: Speaker A:So let's relax, and we can be a little bit generous.
Speaker A:I think we can afford to be generous with our definition of who's a consultant and who's not.
Speaker B:The next question is a great one.
Speaker B:This is one of those ones, I think, that I've heard on panels.
Speaker B:I've heard from people new to the industry.
Speaker B:I've heard when we're out for drinks and old hands in the industry, having this chat about what's the most difficult thing you've ever had to do as a consultant?
Speaker B:For me, I can think of a number of things here, but one of the ones that jumps to mind really stemmed from my work in turnarounds.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Because clearly we had firms that were dead or dying, and we were coming in to try to stem that, turn that around.
Speaker B:And I very quickly learned to ask a question of the people who were Hiring us, particularly people who are going to be directing our work.
Speaker B:And I would say something like, in the course of determining the answer to your current problem, if we find out that you are a significant source of the problem, do you want us to tell you or should we call that out?
Speaker B:And if people said no, then I really, I tried to make it a policy to pass on that engagement because I thought this is something that I found incredibly difficult.
Speaker B:Yeah, I remember specifically one big exception to that policy was when we jumped in to save a failing engagement, one that we hadn't sold.
Speaker B:It was really in the ditch and parachuted in and the project was being run by a me, a cxo.
Speaker B:Let me in anonymity here, let just put that there.
Speaker B:And clearly that person was a significant source of the problem and was standing in the way of a solution.
Speaker B:I had that conversation to say this is what we're finding.
Speaker B:And I was told in no uncertain terms that none of that was going into our report.
Speaker B:None of that was going to be involved in our discussion and we could figure out another answer.
Speaker B:We could just pack our bags and get to the airport.
Speaker B:Well, this was a big, big, big client and that was unacceptable because, you know, more of the same was not going to give them a different result.
Speaker B:We swapped our presentation going into the board and didn't know whether we'd be dismissed out of hand.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Or taken apart or we were going to have a big thing.
Speaker B:We, we had this discussion ahead of time and it turned out that we weren't the CXO was, he was the one sent off.
Speaker B:But wow, I really never wanted to be in a situation like that.
Speaker B:I certainly felt it was my responsibility to have those conversations, but personally I just felt much better having them one on one and trying to come to a resolution with the individuals involved, not having to do it in such a confrontational way.
Speaker A:Yeah, and it's funny, it's a cliche about our industry that if you going back to that, you tell people at dinner parties, what do you do?
Speaker A:You say, I'm a consultant.
Speaker A:A fair amount of the assumption might be, oh, so you go around factories and tell the management who to fire.
Speaker A:And there are consulting firms that do that kind of turnaround work, but it's actually not the majority of the work that our profession does.
Speaker A:And I've, I thank Lord, the Lord, I've never, I've been in close proximity to quite a few of those situations, but I've never been the one to say, sir or madam, your employment is at an end Now, I think that what's difficult, as you say, are things that reflect uncertainty rather than just effort.
Speaker A:I'm going to rule out all the working late under a deadline stories because pulling an online isn't necessarily a difficult thing.
Speaker A:Even though the post project brain fade and my blood pressure results might tell a temporarily different story.
Speaker A:It's not intellectually or personally a difficult thing.
Speaker A:It's demanding, but it's not difficult.
Speaker A:And I'm thinking of what's been difficult.
Speaker A:And two things come to mind.
Speaker A:One is knowing some way in advance that you're going to get extensive, deep and potentially personal angry client feedback and just having to watch it coming towards you.
Speaker A:I remember once traveling a day and a half and many time zones just to go see a client, just to be yelled at for something that went wrong that was only 25% my fault.
Speaker A:Well, maybe 30% my fault.
Speaker A:And all the way across, in the car, on the airplane, in the taxi, across town, flicking through my emails, I know this is coming and there's nothing I can do about it.
Speaker A:And I found that very difficult.
Speaker A:The other thing that I've seen in my life and I think in other people's lives is needing to be in two places at once.
Speaker A:Like as consultants, we do things that we get enthusiastic and committed about.
Speaker A:We feel really committed to a client and their problem.
Speaker A:We feel really committed to other things, work things and personal things.
Speaker A:Feeling that impossible need to be in two places at once, feeling sincerely, 100% committed to two things in parallel, but being unable to practically do both at once is really tough in the work sphere and in the personal sphere.
Speaker A:And I've seen lots of people in our profession wrestle with it, and I think it comes under the heading of genuinely difficult.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:Gosh, yeah, we're digging deep here.
Speaker A:We're going to dig inside a little.
Speaker B:Well, thank goodness that every once in a while there's a question that's not quite that powerful because I was falling right in there with you on that last one.
Speaker B:Boy, I was thinking about all those times I wish I could have a do over and a clone so I could have been in both of those things.
Speaker A:So, Mike, then here's our next question.
Speaker A:Who do we know who is most like a consultant without actually being one.
Speaker A:So who's on your list here, Mike?
Speaker B:Yeah, well, you know, I think that the first people that come to mind are a handful of people that I turn to routinely to help me take an action or make a decision.
Speaker B:Something that we do big time as consultants and especially the ones who don't necessarily have deep expertise in the source of my problem or opportunity, but who I find time in memoriam always manage to help me regardless.
Speaker B:Maybe this is more process consulting than content consulting, but there are people that I go, wow, they just have this uncanny knack for doing that.
Speaker B:And I think, boy, that's.
Speaker B:Yeah, they may not have the shingle consultant, but for me, oh, that's some of my consultants, my personal consultants, if you will.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's really great examples.
Speaker A:In thinking about this question, I too was going away from the traditional definition of expertise and knowing about content.
Speaker A:The people I think of that I know who are most like consultants without actually being one are not people who've got expertise on their spreadsheets.
Speaker A:I'm thinking of anyone who has or uses influence without authority.
Speaker A:Those are the people that I see the most having the human quality of a consultant.
Speaker A:That includes school teachers and by the way, parents, bartenders, nightclub doormen.
Speaker A:Anybody in our life who helps to smooth things and make things happen without having the authority to point the finger and go tell somebody what to do.
Speaker A:Anybody who does that and does it with humanity, I think is a consultant without actually realizing it.
Speaker B:Nice.
Speaker B:Well, one listener says, in my last consulting firm there were quite a few people who were ex clients and knew something about the client's business world.
Speaker B:In my current firm, we all seem to be long tenured consultants and not much else.
Speaker B:Is that better or not?
Speaker A:Mike, this is a really fascinating one.
Speaker A:I've worked in and worked for firms that had both of those profiles.
Speaker A:You know, the super specialist.
Speaker A:We are consultants and nothing but versus the we have X industry and X clients, people in our teams here.
Speaker A:There are pros and cons, I think, to being an ex client in a world of consultants, being a gamekeeper turned poacher if you like.
Speaker A:Now there are pros and cons.
Speaker A:If there were only pros, if it was an unvarnished advantage to be a former client, then there would be loads more of them.
Speaker A:There would be ex clients in consulting firms around the world, sitting back, bossing the newbie consultants around, delivering fantastic work that clients love with ease for enormous paychecks while they swill martinis.
Speaker A:I can, except in one or two very rare situations.
Speaker A:I can't think of many cases where I've seen that.
Speaker A:So let's talk about the pros and cons.
Speaker A:I think the pro the advantage of being an ex client among consultants is there is understanding, problem, context, right?
Speaker A:If you understand the client's world, if you can articulate their business problems Articulate those problems back to the client and articulate them clearly back to the consulting colleagues in your team, then you're a potential winner.
Speaker A:We talk about this a lot with our clients that we teach and coach.
Speaker A:To me, this is maybe even more important than having personal relationships on the client side.
Speaker A:I've seen people get really bent out of shape about whether they can or can't or should or shouldn't exploit their personal relationships, for example, to make sales.
Speaker A:I've seen plenty of people be successful at using what they know about the client world to show that we understand the context for the problem.
Speaker A:The downside of being a client in a team of consultants is that, well, one of the things that you're paid for as a consultant is perspective, your point of view.
Speaker A:And it's hard to be respected for your independent perspective if you always act like an insider in front of your clients.
Speaker A:If you're kind of one of the client gang still, and we talked about this a little bit in our confidence versus humility episode, sometimes we need as advisors to stand on our authority a little bit to stand on our status.
Speaker A:And that might not be easy if you're not seen as bringing in the outside world of expertise with you.
Speaker A:And I've seen some people have a really, really hard time as ex clients trying to find their feet in the consulting profession if they weren't able to do that.
Speaker A:Plus, Mike, there's one more.
Speaker A:So the social consequence here, there's another set of tribes to be insiders or outsiders of.
Speaker A:That's the tribes of consulting.
Speaker A:If you're always one of the clients, whereas you're simultaneously not one of the gang of consultants who your actual colleagues then being kind of an eternal outsider like that also has its drawbacks.
Speaker A:And again, I've seen one or two people get a little bit stuck, never really managing to get to be part of the social fabric of the practice as well.
Speaker B:Nice.
Speaker B:It.
Speaker B:All these great questions about consultants and consulting, I think took our minds back to a great Economist article from a few years back here.
Speaker B:It's written by somebody who appears to be having a great deal of fun with the way consultants and clients view the profession.
Speaker B:I think perhaps someone who's written this with their tongue firmly in their cheek.
Speaker A:Yes, indeed.
Speaker A:Let's take a look.
Speaker A:This is from the Bartleby column, and if you've never read the Economist, then read it for two reasons.
Speaker A:First of all, the puns in the headlines are excellent.
Speaker A:And second of all, the Bartleby column is pretty good.
Speaker A:The rest of the stuff is super good as well.
Speaker A:But these are my two highlights.
Speaker A: n the Bartleby column back in: Speaker A:And this is a letter, a fictional letter from a friend to another.
Speaker A:You'll get the context as I start to read out the letter.
Speaker A:Dear Robin, it begins, I was delighted when you commissioned me to prepare this report for you after our discussion at the club.
Speaker A:As a newly appointed CEO at a Fortune 500 company, a thrilling yet perilous adventure awaits you.
Speaker A:I commend your wisdom in choosing to hire a management consultant to guide you on your way.
Speaker A:And here's the rest of his introductory paragraph.
Speaker A:I naturally would have been ideally positioned given my many years of experience, but alas, the time comes in every man's life when he must hang up his hat and retire to his home in the Bahamas.
Speaker A:By the way, Mike, I love the perspective here.
Speaker A:And of course it's funny that all retirement consultants have retirement villas in the Bahamas and hang out as a gentleman's club.
Speaker A:But anyway, we'll take that as part of the funny setup here.
Speaker A:Anyway, goes on Robin's advisor here as my swan song.
Speaker A:I have thrown together, as requested, a few thoughts on how to handle my kind.
Speaker A:He means how to handle management consultants.
Speaker A:I hope you find the attached 120 page PowerPoint presentation useful.
Speaker A:Below you will find a brief summary.
Speaker A:So Mike, let's go through this summary here.
Speaker B:I think in the context as you've read the first paragraph, we now have a number of paragraphs that are trying to make his main point.
Speaker B:Beware as you look at consultants.
Speaker B:So the first main one is be ready for the bait and switch.
Speaker B:And he's of course pointing out that those great veterans that turned up to sell the business are not going to be the ones that are back in to actually perform the business.
Speaker B:Those he says will be done by clever but pimply 20 somethings armed with 2 by 2 matrix frameworks recycled from client to client.
Speaker B:Not to worry, there'll be long hours, they're well taken care of and they live this lavish lifestyle.
Speaker B:And be careful because every once in a while those gray haired senior partners going to be back in.
Speaker B:So you got to be aware of both the bait and the switch.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:You know what?
Speaker A:It's funny because it's true.
Speaker A:It's funny because it's true.
Speaker A:Having myself been the gray haired eminence flitting in and flitting out.
Speaker A:Yeah, touche.
Speaker A:I feel a bit seen by this one.
Speaker A:Okay, the next piece of advice.
Speaker A:Watch out he says.
Speaker A:Watch out for land and expand.
Speaker A:Consultants are masters of the clandestine sale.
Speaker A:And he talks about consultants expanding their tentacles and spreading throughout the firm.
Speaker A:Blink and they will be doing all these other pieces of work, cost cutting, fixing your it.
Speaker A:What's the phrase you and I have used, Mike?
Speaker A:Go out there to the client, find some budget and bring it home to the team.
Speaker B:Right, right, exactly.
Speaker A:But land and expand is a phrase I've heard consultants use a lot.
Speaker A:I think he's got a fair point here.
Speaker A:Now, to be momentarily only a tiny bit serious.
Speaker A:Land and expand is fine if you're actually helpful, if you're actually doing something valuable, like doing more valuable work for a valued client is what our careers are made of.
Speaker A:When things go well, that's what we all get rewarded for.
Speaker A:But do you know what it must look to the client like sometimes the monster lands and as the article says here, the tentacles expand into every corner of the business.
Speaker A:So we've got be ready for bait and switch.
Speaker A:We've got watch out for land and expand.
Speaker A:What's the next piece of advice for dealing with consultants?
Speaker B:It's headed Ian questioned everything, but it's really talking about that if you have big recommendations, they demand big numbers.
Speaker B:And so he said, you know, divide everything at least by 2.
Speaker B:Never trust a benchmark.
Speaker B:I made most of mine up.
Speaker B:We remember Marty in a prior episode and where these numbers come from.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:And he says pay particular attention to those tiny little notes at the bottom of the charts or in the appendix.
Speaker B:That's where the dirty secrets are buried here.
Speaker B:And he said, particularly if you're going to question everything, if any of the folks who report to you have brought you reports from consultants that they hired that end in anything talking about a bigger budget for them, doubly question those.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think that's advice.
Speaker A:If somebody once bitten, twice shy, I think that's fair.
Speaker A:I think that's very fair.
Speaker A:Now of course I think it to myself that's all those other consultants, right, doing self serving stuff.
Speaker A:But you can see where the temptation comes from, right?
Speaker A:So besides questioning everything, what other advice have we got for a client buying from consultants for the first time?
Speaker A:He says take none of the blame.
Speaker A:You as a newly minted CEO are brimming with ideas.
Speaker A:Many of them are terrible.
Speaker A:Yeah, word.
Speaker A:I've met lots of CXOs who have terrible ideas.
Speaker A:They're second only to the terrible ideas brought to them by their consultants.
Speaker A:Among the valuable services offered by management consultants says the article is the human shield.
Speaker A:Your consultants may from time to time stumble On a good idea, by all means, use them.
Speaker A:But remember you thought of it first.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'd like to say as a consultant, in my defense, I've never been played that way, at least not as far as I know.
Speaker A:But I've been in the profession for more than a couple of decades now.
Speaker A:I think it's very unlikely that I've never been had by a client that wanted to burnish their idea with my team's reputation.
Speaker A:We will have to see about that.
Speaker A:So taking none of the blame sounds like a good recipe for marriage as well, Mike.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then there was an interesting one here.
Speaker B:It ends with experiment with polygamy.
Speaker B:He said, there's going to be a lot of talk of trying to woo you with this talk of a long term partnership, a monogamy, let us serve all your needs.
Speaker B:And he said, consultants fidelity is not one of their strong suits.
Speaker B:They're probably already working with all your competitors and they have the very thinnest of Chinese walls in between them.
Speaker B:So take a page out of their book, hire their rivals, sit them in adjacent offices next to each other, because that will, you know, really entice their spirit of cooperation and competition.
Speaker B:Cooperation with you and competition between the two rivals here as they watch these guys walking the halls of your business.
Speaker B:And these guys and gals are just saying, okay, we've got to really perform here.
Speaker B:Essentially throw them all in and watch them tussle.
Speaker A:Having been in the room with other consulting firms around the same table, and we were all tussling, I remember the feeling of my own butt cheeks being quite clenched at the very beginning of that conversation and then realizing, actually, this is no problem.
Speaker A:This is no problem if we know our stuff.
Speaker A:It was clearly a test of.
Speaker A:Test of bravado, though, and a test of whether you know your stuff.
Speaker A:So it's good advice.
Speaker A:Experiment with a couple of different advisors.
Speaker A:Why not?
Speaker A:Mike, the author, wraps up this article, which has been really funny.
Speaker A:I've enjoyed it.
Speaker A:Wraps up with this.
Speaker A:He says, look back on my career.
Speaker A:I am not too proud to admit that I've occasionally fleeced the old client, but I maintain my profession is a noble one.
Speaker A:I don't think any of us, Mike, would ever say out loud that we fleeced anybody.
Speaker A:At least I hope not.
Speaker A:But I'm there with the claim that our profession is a noble one.
Speaker A:One final thought, he says, to conclude, there is never a problem too big or small for a consultant.
Speaker A:That I can confirm from experience.
Speaker A:Your bill, including expenses, is attached.
Speaker A:Good luck.
Speaker A:Very good.
Speaker A:Somebody with a certain amount of inside knowledge there, I think.
Speaker A:And this is humor, not analysis.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:But we still feel a little bit seen.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's funny because talking about feeling a little bit seen, I think you have to say that it's as consultants we joke about this with each other, believing that only another consultant really can penetrate the mystique of this profession and see us for what we are sometimes or who we could be.
Speaker B:But I do think that many of our clients, our spouses, our partners have an even clearer view that we do ourselves of what we do and how we come off.
Speaker B:We should probably talk to them about it from time to time.
Speaker A:I think that's very good advice.
Speaker A:A little bit of self awareness, Mike, is called for in our profession.
Speaker A:And meanwhile, take a look at the Economist.
Speaker A:It's great.
Speaker A:And the Bartleby column's funny, too.
Speaker A:Mike, we've had some really, really great questions.
Speaker A:We've dug into some really interesting places as we've explored our answers.
Speaker A:I want to say thank you to everybody for the questions.
Speaker A:We're still interested in what's on your mind.
Speaker A:We'd love to hear more from you.
Speaker A:All of our contact details are there in the show notes.
Speaker A:Please tell us what's on your mind.
Speaker A:We're going to come back to listener Q and A and we'd love to keep this dialogue going.
Speaker B:Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker A:Until next time on the Luminaries.
