Life Like Train

Will You Make a Good Managment Consultant? What is Life Like?

For over 20 years in the UK, I have worked successfully as a business/management consultant. In my late 50s, I feel that it is time that I share some of my interesting and useful experiences with fellow, would be consultants, clients, prospects or those interested. Interestingly, I have been asked a number of questions, such as:

What is life really like as a consultant?

What types of clients or prospects do you meet?

What types of projects have I done?

Does a consultant get any non financial rewards?

What are the key traits for a successful consultant?

I will try to answer briefly some of these questions here.

Life can be both rewarding and frustrating in management consulting. As one Chinese saying goes “Every piece of ginger is hot”. There are many types of interesting characters that one might meet in the course of finding business. Examples are what I would call – Timewaster, Hotcolds, Windies, Gratefuls etc. My projects have ranged from helping clients to increase their sales, improve their processes and efficiencies and leadership/management performance. The latter is the most interesting for me since it deals with human motivation, behaviours, fears and psychology. There are always rewards for the successful; job satisfaction is normally high. To partly answer the last question, I would quote from my latest book: “What Clients Don’t Tell Management Consultants in Consulting” -

Key personality traits

First, it is the issue of having the right combination of relevant personality traits. As I have alluded to before, intelligent persistence is certainly essential to ensure success in obtaining work. This must be the true test of success. I have come across many fellow consultants who have lacked the mental stamina and emotional resilience to succeed. In reality, this means persisting till the practical end with a targeted prospect even though the immediate prospect of any work forthcoming might appear almost zero. People do change their minds; it is a matter of timing and being convinced. Indeed, it is a trait which has been used and aimed at myself by a few of my ‘hunters’! I do have real life examples where someone else in my shoes could have easily given up on a prospect but I have persisted. Sometimes, I have been rewarded eventually, after investing several years’ efforts. As time goes on, you can become wiser as to when you should give up the chase and call it a day.

As explained, persistence is essential but you have to be realistic too and be slightly sensitive to the circumstances. It might be the case of ‘throwing in the towel’ after a certain point. There have been many occasions when I have felt that, if the truth be known, I have invested enough time, energy and pennies in my efforts to convince certain prospects of my worth. There are reasons, whether justified or not, for not eliciting a positive response. Some reasons have been mentioned earlier on. I think that some of the main ones are:

• Resistance, reluctance or inability to accept outside help

• Your competitors have already established a strong psychological foothold

• There is no strong perceived need for any help and/or desire/ability to pay for it

• Your expertise etc. are not what is apparently sought

• There may be something ‘unacceptable’ about you or your company.

In my opinion, apart from the key personality traits already mentioned, other essential personal attributes/skills for a successful consultant are:

*Wisdom and gravitas to guide and lead

*Strong analytically *Intelligent research and synthesising ability

*Application of cold, incisive logic (common sense?) to business/management issues *Objective and impartial in approach Effective influencing and communication skills

*Good overview (unblinkered) of the bigger picture

*Survive amidst any dirty internal politics

*Has had exposure to many situations, thus leading to the ‘seen it, done it’ confidence

Excerpt from: “What Clients Don’t Tell Management Consultants”,

ISBN-10: 0755204387    ISBN-13: 978-0755204380

Author’s webpage: www.k-lassociates.combook.htm 

About the Author

Y Kwan Loo, BSc(Eng) MBA CEng MiMechE MIET MCIM MCMI FRSA has a career that spans over 34 years in engineering, manufacturing, packaging, tooling, construction, telecommunications, education, rapid prototyping, IT, air conditioning, pharmaceutical, defence, elevator, scientific, furniture, security services and healthcare. He has held key positions in design, engineering, manufacturing/operations and general management in several British and multinational organisations. Originally trained as a Chartered Engineer, he has assisted clients to adopt competitive World Class philosophies to reduce lead times, organisational ‘wastes’, costs via LEAN techniques and Kaizen (‘continuous improvements’), developing efficient organisational structures and supply chain operations. Through focused feedback, coaching/mentoring and research, his Clients have achieved a strong vision, strategic direction and Board level understanding with added insights to lead high performing, motivated teams, resulting in higher corporate value. Using his incisive and holistic approach, supported by proven techniques from psychometric instruments and NLP to troubleshooting and organisational audit/appraisal, he can diagnose obstacles to sales growth, good morale and communications, management effectiveness and efficient processes. Pragmatic solutions and their implementation would follow.

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