“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

Consultants don’t do anything

In the video, a man dressed in athletic shorts stands on a train platform. He puts chalk on his hands and limbers up. As a train approaches the station, he positions himself next to the train track reaching out to slow the train to a stop. As passengers disembark our super athlete puts more chalk on his hands and limbers up some more. As the train starts to depart he runs next to it and throws it forward hurtling the train on to the next stop.

As a retired consulting lifer I write about consulting on social media thereby exposing myself to ridicule and lots of consulting jokes, most of which I have heard multiple times before. Someone attached the video descried and pictured above. It is a creative version of the old consulting joke:

“A man walks into a pet store to buy a money. The store owner shows him three monkeys says:

‘That one is $600 -he plays the banjo.

That one is $1200. -he tends bar. He can understand ten languages and mixes cocktails.

That one is $4000.’

“$4000? What can he do?” says the man

The shop owner says, “I’ve never seen him actually do anything, but he calls himself a consultant.’”

This is a common theme. A client once said as much as he recommended me to another CEO.

“You understand, Alan doesn’t do anything. He makes you do all the work and then sends you a bill.”

Ralph added, “but my company is always better when I hire him.” That part was said sotto voce. I heard the under his breath part and felt good about it. To me it was evidence that I transferred ownership back to my client, which was a source of pride to a process consultant like me. Evidently the CEO heard the doesn’t do anything part; anyway, he didn’t hire me.

Thinking back, my client was probably embarrassed to publicly admit that he hired a consultant, someone who didn’t do anything, but waste your money. Perhaps he really did look upon me with disdain, but if so, why did he hired me several times over fifteen years.

So perhaps giving the impression that one asked for help is perceived as weakness and that is one reason for consultant jokes.

Consultants don’t know anything

“A consultant is a man who knows a thousand ways to make love, but doesn’t know any women.”

“A consultant is a person with a black briefcase, more than 50 miles from home, who has an opinion on absolutely everything without the hinderance of knowledge or experience.”

“A consultant tells a sheep farmer that he can tell him exactly how many sheep he has if he’ll give him one sheep as payment. Without waiting for an answer, the consultant pulls out a computer and begins analysis.

Shortly, the consultant raises his head gives a number and takes a sheep.

The shepherd says ‘Typical consultant!. You use a computer to give me information I already know, get the numbers wrong and expect me to pay you. Now go away and gimme back my dog!”

Consultants may deserve some of this criticism. Planning strategy and executing it are different and executing is an order of magnitude more difficult. So the “if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?” argument has some merit.

Also there are many times when someone who has worked in an industry for their entire life might know more than someone who has just done some analysis. “Consultant, eh? Good money for old rope” was how a Scottish borderlands truck manufacturing manager put it to me on my first project.

There are times when consultants do suggest something new and valueable precisely because they have worked in many different companies in many different industries. But as a consultant you can’t assume what you see hasn’t been seen many times before by those with years of experience in one company or industry. A little humility is called for. Never be afraid to say “I don’t know.”

Consulting firms should never send junior consultants on site without a thorough briefing on the company and industry.  I loved the learning curve that a new project represented, but I did work with consultants whose view of their own intelligence and ability to sound knowledgeable led them to shortcut even reading the briefing deck or annual report.

“I just need three interviews to understand everything I need to know and figure out the problem,” an experienced consultant once bragged.

Values, Attitudes and Ethics

I  summer-interned at Harbridge House Europe, while at the London Business School, I talked with the Managing Partner, David Hussey, who responded to my inquiry about his job.

“Consider a group of people, educated to the point of considerable ego, who have come to such an elevated view of themselves that they believe that people should pay them for their advice. Now imagine managing such people. Managing consultants is an oxymoron, a complete and utter contradiction in terms.”

“Arrogant” is a word one often hears to describe consultants. This comes from the ego that David Hussey described. It comes from thinking you are smart, and from the insecurity that causes some consultants to be allergic to saying “I don’t know enough to talk intelligently about that” or “I really can’t take credit for that idea. That was Bill in your marketing department.”

Some think of consultants as being inherently dishonest.

“A consultant borrows your watch to tell you the time and then steals your watch.”

“How many consultants does it take to change a light bulb?

What’s your budget?”

“I’m looking for a one-armed consultant.”

Why?
Every consultant I’ve met constantly says ‘On-the-other hand’ while they have one hand on your shoulder and the other in your pocket.”

“The Devil promised the consultant he could make him rich and famous beyond all expectation if only the consultant would sell his soul, and the souls of his entire family and descendants for five generations.

The consultant said, “What’s the catch?”

“Hiring consultants to conduct studies can be an excellent means of turning problems into gold, your problems into their gold.” Norman R. Augustine, president and chief operating officer of Martin Marietta

I have seen consultants who are less than truthful. “This is the worst I’ve ever seen”

I have seen consultants sell by inducing fear. “You better hope [the analysts, your bosses, the board] don’t get wind of how bad this is.”

I have also seen consultants walk away from a project where they couldn’t be helpful or offer value. I have seen consultants teach clients what they did so the client could solve the same problem themselves the next time. I have personally done both of those things, bu my values and attitude weren’t always so perfect. I found it easier to maintain my values working for myself than when I worked for firms.

I often described my values to colleagues and new consultants I trained or coached:

• Be helpful – but remember that help is defined by the recipient, not you. Wait to be asked to help because help that isn’t asked for isn’t help; it’s interference.
• Focus on results – a client hired you to increase revenue or profit. Make sure that will be delivered. If they hired you for people stuff make sure you have a metric that can be delivered.
• Remember and respect that it’s the client’s business -your job is to help them change to the better and in a sustainable way and then leave. Pitching additional work when the client has not achieved results from your curre3nt project may get you promoted, but it damages your credibility and that of the entire profession..

I’d like to say that such values eliminated my exposure to consultant jokes. It did not.

Consultants even tell jokes on themselves.

“You might be a consultant if:

• You introduce yourself to your next door neighbor,  for the third time this month.
• You feel naked without “The Oracle” (your laptiop) hanging from your left shoulder.
• You are annoyed that your spouse doesn’t offer turn-down service and leave chocolates on your pillow..
• Your backyard barbecue conversation includes words like, paradigm, value-added, synergy, and heuristics.”
• You have a workplan for weekends.”

“A surgeon, an engineer, and a consultant argued about which was the oldest profession:

Surgeon: And God created woman from Adam’s rib – obviously a complex surgery!

Engineer: Before that God,  designed the world’s first infrastructure engineering project. He created heaven and earth and brought forth Order from Chaos.

Consultant: Ah, and who do you think created the Chaos.”

As a consultant it helps to keep your values and attitude on straight and to be able to laugh at yourself

Here is the Link for the video described above

And the link to shamelessly hawk my book.

In 1991 I wrote about how I was continually amazed at the ubiquity of consulting and how I found it in the most unexpected situations.

My hair cutter then was an unusual man, a dark-skinned Mediterranean, a guy’s guy, a salesman, a dealmaker, quick with a joke or a story. I went to him not just for his stories, but because he cut my hair really well.  I found it difficult to find a good cutter, and Mico was a good cutter.

But I did like his stories. I collect stories the way other guys collect beer mats or coins.

One day, Mico started by saying, “You may appreciate this.  I mean, because you’re a consultant.”

I told him once what I did; he remembered a lot, at odd times perhaps, but I was still flattered.

“I was a consultant once, to a college, a community college. . . . me, a guy who just made it outta high school. This is one of the only colleges in the country with a course in cosmetology.  The state wanted to close them down. They weren’t making any money. They’d had these statistical engineers come in. The state sent them . . . they couldn’t find out what was wrong.”

Mico went on to tell me how he went into the school, observed for two days, then talked to the faculty together and individually and talked to the students together and individually. He explained to each of them:

“This school is yours. When I leave, you’re gonna work or go to school here, if you save it.”

His real-world experience (he had successfully run his own shop for years) and his down-to-earth manner apparently won over faculty and students alike. He made some suggestions; they made some suggestions. They took action.

“A year later they paid for my ticket to come back and see what they did. They were profitable.  The state was happy. They were happy. And it made me feel good, you know. They gave me a lotta credit when I was there. You know, they said I had turned it around. That made me feel good. But they did it. Probably could do it again without me now if they had to. I see why you like what you do . . . You know, I get a lotta guys who don’t like what they do and I think . . .”

Mico was off on another tale, but I was back at that community college with him. He had described a near-perfect process intervention that had left the client empowered to continue on after he left.

His principles are the consulting process: Enter- Diagnose-Solve – Implement – Disengage

Observe with the eyes of the outsider who knows something about what they do.

Gather input from many sources.

Make suggestions.

Give them their ball back, and then

Leave, get out. fish, relatives, and consultants stink if they’re around too long.

* Always be prepared to find wisdom in unusual places.  Drawing wisdom from Mico’s stories started me on my career as a writer. This one is the Preface to Traveling the Consulting Road.

Until January 9^th the eBook is available to subscribers, reviewers and friends for $1.99, the lowest price Amazon would let me set.

Click Here

And now some expressed and much deserved gratitude:

Acknowledgements: Traveling the Consulting Road

In my life, I have had lots of help. I am not an easy person to help so let me express my gratitude to all who have helped me or tried to help me even if I seemed less than grateful at the time.

Thanks to Dr. George H. Litwin, a mentor who provided me with many exciting clients including the British Airways project I talk so much about. Thanks also to the late Dr. Richard W. Taylor; our work together inspired much of the continuous improvement content of the book.

I’m grateful to all those who have supported my writing over the years, subscribers to my blog, LinkedIn, beBee, Medium, and Dennis Pitocco and my colleagues at BIZCATALYST 360°.

The following people helped me bring this book to fruition:

I thank Bob Frisch of Strategic Offsites Group, Robert Shaffer of Shaffer Consulting and Roopa Unnikrishnan of Center 10 Consulting, all of whom read an early draft and gave feedback that sharpened my audience focus. Thanks especially to Bob Frisch and Roopa Unnikrishnan for their kind words reproduced in the front matter and excerpted on the back cover.

I am grateful to Sandy G. Hickerson for early review and feedback and for much advice on self-publishing. I also thank Aiman Ezzat and Ashwin Yardi of Capgemini Group for arranging a detailed review of a later draft and to Sanjay Negi of Capgemini for that review and his feedback. I appreciate Joe Barnes, Jere Cowden,  Kaye Foster, Naresh Jessani, Brad Martin, Florence Woo, and Bob Yardis for their recommendations.

Thanks to Sean Riley of Kelly Consulting who, along with several current and former BCG, McKinsey, and Gemini consultants (not named by their request), for input to the chapter on mid-career transitions.

I am grateful to Art Kleiner and Wallace Mohlenbrok  for a substantial developmental edit, which changed the structure and flow of the book. Thanks to Lisa Monias of South River Design Team for the cover design and for the interior design and to my son Zac Culler for designing my blog logo and publisher imprint. Thanks to Jay Seldin for the author photograph.

Most of all thank you to my wife, Billie Smith Culler. Billie earned her living as a business writer and editor for more than twenty years. I am extremely fortunate that she has been my first reader, my first and second to nth editor. She has shown amazing patience when I whined, resisted, and ignored her editorial advice only to accept it from someone else later. She has encouraged me,  pulled me out of discouragement periodically, and supported my writing, even when it took time away from our time together. Thank you, Billie! This book wouldn’t have happened without you.

Even though I had a great deal of assistance with this book, any errors are my own and probably due to my obstinate rejection of offered advice.

Thank you also to all my clients and consulting colleagues who made my thirty-seven years in the field a good run and a wild ride.

Consulting Wisdom from Unusual Places

Is Consulting Wisdom an Oxymoron?

Hey Newbie, Listen up!

So You Want to be a Consultant?

Traveling the Consulting Road.

Almost six years ago I retired from consulting after thirty-seven years and I hatched a plan. I would write -first on LinkedIn, then on other social media platforms. I would share what I had learned so far in my life and maybe I might save others from making the same boneheaded mistakes I made along the way.

Then I put up this blog in three categories: Consulting, Leading and Living. Now I’m going to publish my first book:

Traveling the Consulting Road: Career wisdom for new consultants, candidates and their mentors.

The book is about consulting for consultants and those investigating the field. It is what I wish I knew at each stage of my career: Newbie, Journeyman, Pro. And of course there are stories, but also some tools and methodologies I found useful in helping clients change their business.

The book will be out in early January, but subscribers to Wisdom from Unusual Places, will get early access and at a discount.

 Watch this space!

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).

EBooks are now available in many places, print copies still just on Amazon (for now), but coming soon to a bookstore near you.

I would be grateful if you read it. Thanks.