*Disclaimer: The following review is based on the author’s understanding and maybe biased towards consulting given the author’s background.
One of the hyped books that B-school students read to get the right mindset for the sought-after consulting job interviews. But having bootstrapped a boutique consulting set-up, I read this Mck bundle to rather understand what is makes McK and likes of MBB and Big4 different that the boutique set-ups. Most importantly, leveraging brand value by managing to retain the ‘most’ premier talent and consistently deliver value.
Although I was also curious about their ability to scale beyond the ‘valley of death’ for professional practices, this bundle did not quench my curiosity. However, I did eventually found the answer from HBR cases that were a part of ‘Strategy Implementation’ elective at IIM Bangalore.
Getting back to the subject of the book; if you’re yet to become a consultant then this will serve as a quick guide to the approach and mindset you need to inculcate to survive and thrive in this profession. And for those outside of consulting disagreeing with our methods, this book will help clear all your misconceptions about our approach, conduct, and ‘way of being’. It lucidly narrates the reasoning behind – why – consultants do what they do and why consultants are the way they are.
And if you’ve already survived in consulting for long enough – thriving to become a manager or partner – this book will definitely give you the ‘Deja vu’ – Slumdog Millionaire – and ‘Aha!’ moments. Also, as you might already know, these are some of the most effective ways for not only solving problems but also getting things done.
For instance, one thing per slide! One of my struggles as a faculty and also student was trying to identify what the slide wants to communicate. ‘What is the home-run’ that the presenter is trying to score. It is not a matter of making fancy slides with minimal content but the flow of content smoothly letting the facts sink-in and the single important conclusion to emerge. Rather it is a matter of approach that can be inculcated to everything, as today even as a project manager, I am able to simplify my MIS slides to say just ‘The One Thing’.
There are many other examples such as that of prior stakeholder buy-in. Most seasoned project managers do it; however, the way consultants do this from a solution sales perspective it is difficult to say who did it better. One more example is the issue tree; different than the fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram used in project management, is far more effective as it is bit more free flowing and can also be used in reverse.
In addition to these techniques, this also narrates the dos’ and don’ts for surviving and thriving at the firm. For those who have read the McK way, this might seem as a bit of overlap. But given the way that this overlapping content is weaved in, I believe that the purpose was to make both these books MICE (Mutually Independent, Collectively Exhaustive) rather than maintaining individual exclusivity.
Overall, this is an easy-read that you should be able to finish on a long-haul flight and if you’re flying a non-stop transatlantic, you should be able to finish the combo. And disregard to whether you are a part of consulting or services industry, you’ll have a few important takeaways to make your work life easier and effective.
Feature Image Photo by Jason Dent on Unsplash
Savvy Munshi 