March 2024

Hello Mid-Career Consultants

by Alan Culler | Mar 29, 2024 | Consulting

You know who you are.

You decided to become a consultant for a good reason. Maybe you liked business, loved problem-solving and were good at the analytics. Maybe you were freaked out by how much to had to borrow to get the degree that was your ticket to consulting. Maybe everyone in your top of your class cohort joined the consulting club and the discussion was electrifying and you aced the interview case prep.

So you interviewed. The interview team was impressed by your volunteer work and, once again, you aced the case they asked you about and loved it. You felt at home. They made an offer to you – one of the very few they offered to anyone at your school. They liked you.

Or maybe you were headhunted or sought out a consulting firm after you had worked in industry and had some specific expertise. Your accomplishments were impressive. They liked you.

You joined the firm. You worked very hard. You knew there was an “up or out” policy, (even though it’s now called “grow or go” by HR) but it never worried you. Even among the other smart, nice, interesting people you work with, managers and partners are impressed with you. You got promoted, maybe even more than once.

No one calls you “Newbie” anymore.

You hear yourself referred to as a “Journeyman” or a “real Yeoman.” (Maybe you didn’t have to look that one up and enjoy the compliment of being called the first medieval farmer who actually owned the land he farmed or carried a longbow and was the backbone of the English Army in the thirteen century.) Even though you hated the term newbie, you hear yourself referring to the newest class that way.

You’ve gone from crunching numbers till long after dark, to managing schedules and budgets and supervising the people who crunch numbers till late at night. You are a lot nicer to the newbies than some managers were to you.

Now what?

If you are asking yourself this question, you have raised your head from the work and are considering (reconsidering) your career.

Maybe that is because salary increases have levelled out. Maybe you are looking at the personal relationship challenges from your travel schedule. Or maybe you are feeling that the job has changed and is changing as you rise. Are you managing the work more than doing it? Is there pressure to “extend” or “expand” your project, i.e., sell more work?

You have reached a fork in the consulting road.

You might have easily missed the earlier “doesn’t have ‘right stuff’” fork. You know the one I’m talking about – the associate that can’t estimate how much time a task takes and misses a deadline. You’ve never been the associate who gets too chummy with a junior client and shares a finding before the presentation.

If you joined from your undergraduate university you might be up against a bias in some firms, “real consultants have graduate degrees,” and be considering a return to school. You might even be among the infinitesimal percentage of consultants in the big firms that might be sponsored for a graduate degree.

But even so or if you joined from graduate school, suddenly you are faced with choices:

Do you like managing? Mid-career consultants, manage the team, manage the schedule with the client, manage the client’s acceptance of findings. They know when they can manage the “big client” on their own and when they need to “roll out the partner.”
Can you, do you want to, sell? OK, maybe they never use the word “sell” in your firm. Maybe they use euphemisms like “extension” (more work from the same client buying center) or “expansion” (additional similar work from another part of the organization). Maybe bringing in new project work is called “business development” or “client development,” or maybe there is a quasi-mystical language like “we’ve been asked to serve,” but if you’ve gotten this far you know, partnership and the real money in consulting, is reserved for the people who “feed the firm,” ”bring in new business,” “acquire clients,” “establish relationships.” There are two primary sales paths:
- Rainmaker – direct sales. These partners often maintain excellent relationships with people who currently hire consultants or will shortly rise to that role.
- Thought Leader – indirect sales. These people attract clients with research, published books and speaking or media engagements that turn into service offerings that clients want to buy.
Do you want to keep the multiplier? Clients pay fees that are two and a half to five times what you are paid. At mid-career, many consultants say to themselves, “if I worked for myself I could keep some of that money.” At this point some mid-career consultants consider, starting their own firm, or “going independent.” If you are in this group, think carefully. All of the above choices will still apply, all at once, immediately. Ask yourself, who are the clients that will hire me, right now? Next month? Next year or the year after?
Do you want to stay a consultant? I was a consulting “lifer.” Over almost forty years, I worked for five different consulting firms and worked for myself as a firm founder, independent, and as part of a network of independent consultants. You could say I liked the field. I loved the learning curve associated with a new client or new project. I loved working with smart, nice, interesting people. I loved helping clients change their business for the better. In my retirement, I still write about the industry. I also recognize that consulting isn’t for everyone.

Mid-career in consulting is a time of choices. Choose wisely.

I wrote a book. (Maybe you know that .)

Cover Traveling the Consulting Road

EBooks are now available in many places. Print is only available on Amazon (for now) but will be coming soon to a bookstore near you.

I would be grateful if you read it. Thanks

Fear and Leading Change

by Alan Culler | Mar 25, 2024 | Leading

Accountability and Development vs. Direction and Followers

I made a differentiation that permeated much of my work life.

Managers manage in steady state circumstances. They are responsible for getting the work done and for ensuring their people have the knowledge and skills to get the work done.
Leaders lead in abnormal circumstances (emergencies, war, change). They are responsible for direction (Go this way!) and ensuring that people want to go with them.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I said this, in leadership workshops, in facilitating teams of leaders implementing new strategies or organizations, or wrote it in blogposts like this one.

I can’t quite call it a silly distinction. I still believe it. It is so simple as to be as laughable as:

“There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who do not.”

After all, as several people said to me,

“Hey Alan, I’m expected to both get the work done and lead change. So which am I?” or

“Hey Alan, just when is this steady state you’re talking about?”

In most organizations managers and leaders are the same person and it certainly feels like we’re experiencing continuous change. I now say these are “different and overlapping skillsets.”

Recently I have thought some about another difference between managers and leaders, the degree to which they have to deal with fear, both their own fear and the fear of others.

“I ain’t ‘fraid o’ no ghosts”

One of the folk tales that Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm gathered in order to preserve German culture in the time of the Napoleon’s conquest is entitled “The youth who went forth to learn what fear was.” It was read to me as a child under the title, “The boy who couldn’t shudder.”

This boy wasn’t afraid of the dark like some in his family. He didn’t fear walking through the graveyard at night. Creepy stories failed to scare him. He didn’t refuse dangerous work like repairing the roof; he tied a rope around his waist and went about standing on the joists to replace the thatch. Enough people told him he was “too stupid to be afraid” that he began to think there was something wrong with him. He just couldn’t “shudder” like they could.

The boy asked several townspeople to help him learn to shudder. These people told him frightening tales at bedtime and he slept; they moved his bed and he slept on the floor. They impersonated ghosts and he pulled their sheets off. The hangman had him spend the night with hanged corpses. The boy put them in coffins. There were several even more tasks in the in my childhood book, involving threats from a king, a giant, lifting heavy gold, etc., but the youth never did learn to shudder. Ultimately, the fear-deficient boy married without learning to shudder, until his wife poured a bucket of cold water with a hundred small fish on him as he slept and he woke up shuddering. Then he and his wife laughed while he dried by the fire eating porridge.

As a child I thought this was just a funny story. On reflection there are some lessons about fear:

Fear of the unreal (ghosts, the dead) can be overcome by seeing the truth, (pulling off the sheets) combined with action, (putting dead men in coffins).
Feeling real fear (the water and the fish, falling from the roof) is fine, no matter how unpleasant, if you can act to mitigate the risk (tie off and watch where you step) and laugh about it later.

Beyond Fairy Tales

The unpleasant emotion of fear or its lesser cousin, anxiety, has its place the world. Fear is sometimes a rational reaction to known risk. For example, it is reasonable to be afraid of heights. I am not afraid of heights; I am afraid of falling. More specifically I am afraid of landing after falling from a height of anything over about six feet.

So when I work on a step ladder I am certain the ladder is firmly positioned on a flat surface and stay off the top step. I no longer work on a roof, but when I did, I was certain to tie-off. Known risks can be prevented and most of the unpleasant consequences can be mitigated.

In change, the risks are unknown. It was a running joke between Saturday Night Live’s Mike Myers’ and Dana Carvey’s characters Wayne and Garth, “We fear change.”

People don’t really fear change. They fear unknown risks. They fear a possible loss of job, pay or status; they fear a loss of work relationships or the peace of mind that comes from knowing that today will likely be pretty much like yesterday – that feeling of “no worries – I got this.”

People react differently to unknown risks. Some freeze; some charge ahead with reckless abandon. In leading change, the leader’s responsibility is to remove the unknown where possible. For example, be as transparent as possible. “I will tell you what I know when I know it.”

Another role of the leader is, where you can, to allow choice. People are less likely to resist a change they have had input into or when it is their choice to commit to the change.

Fear of failure

Many change leaders, including me, are overly concerned that they will not be up to the task of leading others to change. We discount what we know and what skill we have and think that the world will end because of our inadequacy.

Throughout my life I have had a recurring type of dream. When I was younger I was in a classroom taking a test. I had no memory of having taken a class or read any text material for this test, but somehow my whole future depended on my test score.

Later, when I was an actor, I dreamed I was on stage in a play I had not rehearsed or even read. When I was a trainer, I was teaching something I not only didn’t know, but everyone’s life depended on it.

Even in retirement, I sometimes have such dreams. Now, they are seldom about school. I guess I’ve finally “graduated.” I am still occasionally on the stage, but mostly today these dreams are set in the work I left six years ago. I came to call these “unprepared dreams.”

I view these dreams as representations of a fear of failure, my anxiety that I have not done enough preparation or am overcommitted. The only remedy is prioritization and preparation.

Of course, there really is no failure in my retired life that has a life or death aftereffect (not that there ever was). For any goal I have I can choose to double down and persevere or choose to revise the goal. I now realize that this was always true. Most of my fears were always self-inflicted.

I do think about leaders for whom failure has greater consequence. Leaders in wartime or safety in potentially dangerous operations, whose decisions may have injurious outcomes. Prioritization and preparation still seem like appropriate actions.

For most leading change, prioritization and preparation, signing up for the risks of change and encouraging others to choose to follow, may not eliminate fear, but it will make it more manageable. When I was first learning to facilitate leadership groups, an old pro with whom I was co-facilitating said something I still find comforting:

“The butterflies never go away, you just teach them to fly in formation.”

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Not Ready for the “Reeks and Wrecks”

by Alan Culler | Mar 17, 2024 | Living

Stuff Needs Fixing

The lamp is twelve years old. It was a gift from a family member because it went with our last house, an Arts & Crafts fairy-hut in a stately home neighborhood about two miles from where we now live. It does have a Dirk Van Erp vibe, the San Francisco Arts & Crafts metal worker that made those gorgeous bronze-base-mica-shaded lamps we could never afford. The metal-framed shade is made of oiled parchment and is showing its age.

The copper watering can is about six years old. The handle is soldered on in two places and I have resoldered it once at the base. I did a sloppy solder job, but held for a couple of years. The watering can was functional and still pretty if you didn’t examine the handle too closely.

Call Mr. Fix-it

I describe myself as a “fix-or-repair guy” as differentiated from a “throw-away-and-buy-new guy.” I am concerned about all the broken, but repairable stuff filling up landfills. In the words of the old Phil Ochs song “we’re filling up our world with garbage.”

I also get an unreasonable amount of satisfaction from fixing and reusing stuff, so sometimes I spend hours in my workshop fixing something that I could easily repurchase for under twenty dollars. Now in my retirement that is slightly less stupid than it was when I was making hundreds an hour as a consultant, but it still makes no financial sense.

My wife Billie is more practical than I am. She is researching online to replace the shade; I am struggling in my workshop to repair the watering can. It appears at this juncture that she will win this particular competition. I offered to strip the old shade down to the metal frame and put a reattach a covering of her choice. She has declined such assistance.

Mr. Fix-it fails again

I don’t blame her. Right now I am a fix-or-repair-guy who sucks at fixing things. My soldering skills have declined miserably. I made three attempts to resolder the handle, which detached at the top of the handle, while I was attempting to resolder the bottom. Just knowing about Murphy’s Law neither prevents nor mitigates its application.

In frustration, I decided to bolt the handle on. So I drilled a hole in both the top and the bottom of the watering can and attached the handle with some copper bolts I had. What could go wrong with this plan?

The top of the can is, of course, no problem. The watering can is never filled to the point where water would touch the hole. The bottom of the can enjoys no such advantage. Yes, it leaks. In fairness to my apparent failure to anticipate this outcome, I did mix some epoxy to fill around the hole under the head of the bolt and the handle. The watering can still leaks.

That’s the thing about water; it finds its way. The Taoists say, ”Faced with an obstacle become water.”

Now I have a watering can. . . with a hole and a bolt that is epoxied in. . . that still leaks.

My father passed away in 2000. I don’t have to close my eyes to see him shaking his head.

Handy Ray

My father was born in 1904. His father was a printer and so he was around machinery growing up. “There were no repair shops; you had to fix things yourself,” he told me.

My dad was what today you’d describe as “handy.” He fixed stuff and he fixed it the right way. I don’t think he ever used duct tape for anything but sealing the ducts of their forced-air heating system. My father and mother built their own house from plans they got at a lumber yard.

My parents took a freighter trip around the world in their late sixties. They were going to be gone for eight months and my father hatched the idea to rent the house while they traveled. His basement workshop was overstuffed and he asked me to help box things.

In a canvas roll were some tools I had never seen. “What’s this stuff?”

“Oh, that’s from Bessie.”

My father’s first automobile was a 1926 Ford Model T Tudor Sedan. Guys’ first cars are often an object of nostalgia and Bessie was no exception.

“That’s a wheel truer and that’s a spoke shave.” Ray was soon “lost in let’s remember.”

“The Model T wheels had metal rims with wooden spokes. Roads weren’t paved so if you hit a rock or a hole the wheel went out of true and maybe you broke a spoke or two. Well, you carried a spare, but you still had to fix the wheel.”

He went on to describe the process, as my expanding exasperation filled the basement. To my shame I think he threw away those tools based upon my youthful impatience. Even though he finally abandoned the rent-the-house-while-we’re-gone idea, the Bessie tools were gone when we cleaned out the house twenty years later.

What was left in the house? There were eight working electric motors stripped from old refrigerators and washing machines. He had out and replaced the brushes and rewired each.

An apple too far from the tree

He taught me many skills, but most have atrophied over the years. Some of the woodworking skills I’ve kept up, but when I look at the dresser built by my great grandfather and chairs by my great, great grandfather, I realize I am not very good. Plumbing related skills like soldering are long gone. I worked on cars as a kid, but now I have idea what or how. I was shocked to find that my latest car doesn’t have a dipstick. “How do I check the oil?”

“The onboard computer will notify you if the car needs oil or it needs an oil change.”

I think about lost capabilities, the knowledge and skills of daily life that are no longer in demand that we’ve forgotten. When the Zombie Apocalypse comes, most of us will be truly screwed.

In the future

I read and watch a lot of apocalyptic science fiction and fantasy. Whenever I get concerned about the state of the world these stories seem to improve my mood. “At least there’s still electricity and people aren’t eating each other,” (yet).

Right now I’m reading Justin Cronin’s The Ferryman, about a world where renewable clones live in an island world called Prospera and Support Staff with service and maintenance skills live in poverty nearby in the Annex. The class struggle aspect of the book is a disturbing reminder of the inequity that exists in our world.

The book reminds me of a book I first read in high school. Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Player Piano, was written in 1952, the same year that my parents build their house. Vonnegut was a General Electric public relations manager who left the corporate world to write full-time.

Player Piano is set in a future world where all work is automated. A few engineers design and maintain factory machinery. Computers maintain all the data. (They are vacuum tube monstrosities, but ignore that.) We meet a young Paul Proteus, Vonnegut’s main character, when he is a trainee engineer listening to his boss:

“If only it weren’t for the people, the goddamned people,” said Finnerty, “always getting tangled up in the machinery. If it weren’t for them, earth would be an engineer’s paradise.”

Engineers are high priests. Any non-engineering jobs with the large corporations are menial drivel waiting to be replaced by computers. Corporations fund a government sponsored minimal middle-class lifestyle. Everyone has big TVs and radar ranges and wall-to wall carpeting. It’s a bleak vision and everyone seems depressed, but the Vonnegut’s cynical humor makes it readable.

There are a few artists, writers, bartenders, and large standing army. Ten year olds take a test to see if they have the aptitude to become engineers. If you are not in that one percent of the population, you join the army or get shunted to the Reeks and Wrecks, the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps. Some of the Reeks and Wrecks scratch out a living replacing radio and TV tubes in their own repair shops, but most travel like tinkers moving from factory to factory fixing whatever they could fix with old hand tools.

Paul Proteus ponders industrial revolutions. The first “devalued muscle work, then came the second one that devalued routine mental work. I guess the third would be machines that devalue human thinking . . . the real brainwork. I hope I’m not around to see that.”

Prescient much, Kurt? I’m struck by the nearly straight line between the world Vonnegut satirized and today. Artificial Intelligence? Machine learning? We haven’t even mastered real intelligence yet or understand how people learn and we’re teaching it to computers? What could go wrong with this plan?

A late adopter like me can get left behind quickly. Even little day-to-day fix-it skills deteriorate if not used. I guess I better start relearning to solder or I won’t even make the Reeks and Wrecks.

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What Do Consultants Know, Anyway?

by Alan Culler | Mar 11, 2024 | Consulting

“What? Me Worry?”

Consultants, especially young consultants, take some stick from time to time. There are consultant jokes. There is some under-the-breath name calling. It is all born of envy. It isn’t easy work for a company for ten years and watch the company hire a team of consultants, many younger than you, but making more money. So some hazing happens.

I arrived at a client site with a young team. We were shown to our dedicated office space, which was an old storeroom “cleaned” for our use. The was one eight foot table and two electrical wall sockets for six people. This was pre-WIFI so we had one ethernet connection so we could get on Lotus Notes and one old laser printer, for which we had to go buy a multipin connector cable, and access to an ancient photo copier and one landline phone. The room had no windows, but the door could be locked and we had one filing cabinet that also locked. Over the filing cabinet someone had hung a plastic framed poster of Alfred E. Neuman, the mascot of Mad Magazine from the 1960s, complete with his catch phrase: “What? Me worry?” Alfred was a symbol of complete cluelessness.

Nobody on the young team recognized Alfred, but I grew up with him and got the joke and the insult instantly. When I got a moment I spoke to my client “work-with” who was closer to my age. “None of the kids get it, but I think the addition of Alfred E. Neuman is hilarious. You know though, that poster’s probably worth some real money; they sure ain’t making ‘em anymore.”

Next day Alfred was gone, but the message was clear. “Until proven otherwise, you kids don’t know anything,” We had our work cut out for us.

Why do clients hire consultants?

First off, the parts of the client system who were most offended by our presence and the folks doing the hazing were not those who hired us. The hiring client was two or three levels above the people who were asked to “cooperate” with consultants. So from the start we were foisted on those we had to work with. Sometimes even the “hiring” client was told to hire us. Division heads were directed by the CEO; CEOs were directed by the Board. So proving our worth was often the order of the day.

There was usually a problem to resolve. Sometimes revenue was declining; sometimes costs were increasing squeezing profits. Sometimes the causes of the problem were clear. A new competitor had entered the market; a new technology changed the cost profile. Most times the causes weren’t clear. And that was part of why we were hired.

When I was an independent consultant I was frequently hired for “people stuff,” e.g., the leadership team couldn’t agree, or a project was behind schedule, or critical customer information wasn’t getting to decision makers. There was always “people stuff’ that complicated revenue or cost projects that I worked on at larger firms too. Consulting is always about changing something and that means people have to do more of something, less of something, or do something differently.

Therein lies one of the reasons for the hazing. People don’t like change that is imposed upon them and that’s what consultants represent.

There are times when a client hires a consultant to “shake things up,” or to implement the latest management fad. I am sorry to say that too much of the reengineering work I saw at Gemini Consulting fell into that category. Sometimes there was real resistance to that work, which nearly always resulted in “POP” (people off payroll). When I worked at Gemini, a chemical industry team was working one night in a site Quonset hut when someone fired a rifle shot through the wall. Thankfully no one was hurt. The team de-crewed immediately and the project was ultimately cancelled.

However, most times, even during reengineering work, Gemini consultants were able to earn respect, demonstrate their worth, get people on board, and solve the presenting problem. Even when you are taking steps out of a process, which eliminates jobs, you can treat people well. My role on many of those projects was to look at redeployments within the company or to ensure severance to cushion the blow and/or outplacement to help people find other jobs. I still didn’t like that kind of work much, and when I graduated to continuous improvement work later, I made sure that I had client commitment that no one would lose their job as a result of CI work.

What do consultants contribute?

Some consultants bring unique expertise that would be too expensive to hire and keep on staff, e.g., a level of content knowledge about a technology, or a new market the firm is entering, a once-in-a-generation skillset like a major acquisition.

Some consultants bring a process adeptness that truly saves time. My work in leadership team facilitation around strategy and organization design as well as my work with innovation and improvement initiatives might be so described. I always worked to transfer as much of this process adeptness to others as I could, which is why a lot of my work included training.

It’s funny, but trainers don’t get hazed nearly as much as other consultants, because when people are learning they tend to value the person who facilitates that learning. I liked training and I got reasonably good at it, but the challenge I faced was not to get defined as a trainer. Training only solves the knowledge and skill part of the problem, not the root cause. Companies that throw training at lost revenue or profit problems often fail to solve the problem, then quickly cut the training.

Those companies aren’t a good referral source for a consulting business. All of my business development came from referrals. Too much training equaled lots of LinkedIn connections and people who called to “pick my brain” about becoming a consultant and too few referred new clients.

So why do consultants have such a bad reputation?

One thing I learned from training is to ask questions. As a trainer you ask questions to promote discussion, which is how many people learn. As a consultant you ask questions to understand the problem, to uncover areas to analyze, to build understanding of findings, to build commitment to a solution, and to facilitate change.

Asking questions requires a certain amount of humility. You don’t know and can’t always anticipate the answer. If you can, then you aren’t really asking questions; you’re just manipulating people with a question mark or rising inflection in your voice.

Consultants, in my view, spend far too much time presenting. Humility can be seen as a detriment in presenting. Confidence, or at least sounding confident, is seen as critical. Some consultants get very good at sounding confident. Then they think that is the “name of the game.” Then, over time, some consultants become “humility challenged,” at least, some of the time. I have learned, often the hard way, that people don’t much like “humility challenged” people, especially if “the boss hired them, I have to educate them and they make three times what I make.”

Consultants do know some things. I believe that hiring a consultant can identify how to solve a tough problem, maybe even get people started on the change necessary. However, there comes a point when the consultant must turn the client’s business back over to the client to run.

In my work as a process consultant, I learned to telegraph early on that this was their business, with the following admission:

“I’m a consultant. In my work I talk to people like you about their jobs and the challenges of their business. The net effect is that I have become quite good at talking about work; please don’t mistake that for proficiency at doing work. On the contrary, I have developed an abiding respect for people who do real work. So questions I ask or a conclusion I draw are based upon something I’ve heard or seen; if doesn’t jibe with your experience, please consider that an opportunity for discussion.”

By this admission, I hoped to communicate that everything I know as a consultant I learned from people like you. I may know some things, but certainly not everything, regardless how confident I might sound.

My book is now available in print or eBook on Amazon

or on several other eBook publishers

Becoming Interesting

by Alan Culler | Mar 4, 2024 | Living

The LinkedIn Wisdom Elders

I’m connected on LinkedIn to several men about my age or a little older who write posts like I do. Some also have weekly newsletters on LinkedIn where they publish slightly longer pieces, similar to what to these pieces on Wisdom from Unusual Places. I think what we have in common is that we’ve all reached the age, where we feel the need to share wisdom we’ve uncovered or accumulated before we die. We think we’re interesting and I admit I learn some things from these men.

I’m connected to a lot of wise women too. Often I learn more from the women. They are often more interesting and insightful than the men, because different genders have very different perspectives on life. The women’s stories often create what I call “flat head moments,” in reference to that spot on my forehead derived from smacking it with the heel of my hand in astonishment, “Oh man, really? I didn’t see that at all!”

I might tell some of those on another day. This is about the ‘wisdom” shared by old men, guys who think we’re interesting and that there is someone out there listening to us. To be fair judging by the comments a few people are listening, reading our posts and getting something out of it. There are some comments by women, and some comments by younger men, but all too frequently it’s other older men who read, relate and comment. We find each other interesting.

The Most Interesting Man in the World

This week a post from this wisdom brigade started me pondering about what I think is interesting, which led me to the Dos Equis beer commercial “The most interesting man in the world.” (It is amazing how the guy-mind works; somehow it always gets back to beer.)

This television commercial aired in the United States between 2006 and 2018. I’m not sure if it aired outside the US, but maybe as it was created by the EuroRSCG agency, (which became Havas Worldwide in 2010).

The ad ran for twelve years. It won a Clio award, which means a bunch of ad agency creative directors thought it was cool, and it was admitted to the Advertising Hall of Fame, which I think recognizes both creativity and sales. The campaign lasted more than ten years, continuing even after Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery, was acquired by Heineken in 2010. So no doubt it sold a lot of Dos Equis beer.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the ad, it portrays an attractive bearded older gentleman, a vaguely Latin looking and sounding bon vivant whose “personality is so magnetic that he cannot carry credit cards.”

The actor who starred in the ad from its inception was Jonathan Goldsmith, who allegedly auditioned improvising for thirty minutes with one sock off, before closing with the line he was given “. . . and that’s how I wrestled with Fidel Castro.” Goldsmith says he modelled the character on his friend and sailing partner, the archetypical Latin lover, deceased actor Fernando Lamas.

“The most interesting man in the world” was an object of admiration, perhaps even envy, to the target demographic young beer dinking guys. The character was well-travelled, shown in settings around the world. He was brave, shown releasing a bear from a bear trap. He was eccentric; he is shown cooking, shooing a mountain lion from the counter, obviously a pet.

He was sophisticated and supremely confident.

“If opportunity knocks and he’s not home, opportunity waits.”

“His beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man’s entire life.”

“He had an awkward moment once, just to see how it feels.”

Most importantly, he was attractive to women. (This was an ad for young beer drinking guys.) Beautiful younger women are always seated with him. The attraction is not purely physical; The Most Interesting Man (TMIM) is portrayed as sensitive, a listener, wise.

“A wingman? It never takes more than one man to have a conversation than with a woman.”

The pitch was always: “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do I prefer Dos Equis.”

The message: “You wanna appear suave and sophisticated like me, have chicks hang on your every word? Dude, ditch the Bud Light and order Dos Equis.”

Then TMIM spouts a philosophical zinger, “Stay thirsty, my friends.” The implication was if you want to be interesting, thirst for experiences, learning, and a high class brew.

Personal Branding

Jonathan Goldsmith became branded as “The Most Interesting Man in the World.” He was frequently stopped on the street. Celebrities wanted to meet him. He was invited to meet President Barach Obama more than once.

In 2016 Havas worldwide made a goodbye ad for Goldsmith where TMIM was launched to Mars, from which journey there was no return. In 2016 the new agency Droga5 launched a new campaign for Dos Equis featuring a younger more Latin-looking actor Augustin Legrande. It started airing in 2018 and closed the same year. Apparently Goldsmith was TMIM and less than replaceable. Havas tried to use Goldsmith to Pitch Stella and a tequila without success; TMIM and Dos Equis were co-branded.

This is also the period when people began to talk about personal branding. Tom Peters, the former McKinsey consultant who burst on the scene with In Search of Excellence, wrote a book called Brand You 50: Fifty Ways to Turn Yourself from an ‘Employee’ into a Brand That Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion!

It is easy to see how this evolved into the YouTuber, Instagram, and TikTok influencer, everybody’s a star getting their “fifteen minutes of fame,” as Andy Warhol predicted in 1968.

But are we interesting?

Learning from TMIM

OK, there’s a lot of stuff that I think is negative about these ads. They promote some macho male ego crap that I think is damaging to both men and women. But I’m going to leave aside the men must be strong and brave, not dress in tight pants “if I can count the coins in your pocket, spend your change to call a tailor.” I don’t support the have a ‘real man’s drink’ message, “Unless your drink is expecting rain, you should probably reconsider the drink umbrella.”

But occasionally TMIM made sense:

“Find out what it is in life that you don’t do well and then don’t do that thing.”

“In another life . . . I was myself.”

“It’s never too early to start beefing up your obituary”

“I once found the fountain of youth, but I wasn’t thirsty.”

Back to the LinkedIn Wisdom Elder-Guys

Well, us old guys on LinkedIn may not be as interesting as TMIM, but we have a good time sharing what we’ve learned:

Charles Hamm, Texas Grit: “Knowledge is knowin’ ya can do sumtin. Wisdom is knowin’ if ya should. Ponder on it, pilgrims.”

Dr. Ali Anani: “I was looking at the image of trees facing a big storm. The big tree showed character by deepening its roots.
What makes people who have all the means to make strong choices but allow events to knock them over and fall?
Be strong. Be resilient with strong roots of values, ethics and thoughts.”

Bob Musial: I found books at my local library. The harried young woman said ”Checking out?”

To which I replied in a concerned tone, “I hope not.”

She didn’t get it, but I did thank the woman next to her for laughing”

Me: “A chip on your shoulder cuts off blood flow to the brain.”

Rached Alimi: There is a road in the world, a single road that no one else can travel except you: where does it lead? Don’t ask yourself, walk.