Welcome back, and without further ado here we go, how to avoid gruesome consulting. First of all, I'd like to state 3 general rules of consulting:
1. Create value - Ask yourself, what benefits your customer most.
2. Make a point - After all analysis and evaluation, put your findings in few comprehensive points. Pick the most crucial ones (A-issues) and drop the rest - yes, just cut it out.
3. Enjoy - most of the time, you'll love what you're doing. That is the easy part, because folks tend to be best at things they enjoy and are passionate about. But once in a while, you won't enjoy everything. Be a professional: Embrace the suck! It's part of consulting. :-D
And now, back to the game: 40 tips of how not to suck at consulting.
First one is a good point related to customers. Your customers are not only the ones you can bill. Your customers are all people that have expectations towards you. Your consultants expect you to be a good manager and give them advice, support and direction, when necessary. Your general manager/ CEO/ shareholder/ boss/ is your customer, entrusting you with responsibilities. Make them smile each day...or whenever they ask you to :-)
Cut this one short: Be efficient! I. e.: Don't waste anything! (time, energy, ressources, money, electricity, water, whatever is short in supply and valuable). This does not only concern your own ressources, but foremost the ressources of others! E.g. being late is a waste of time for the people waitig on you. Be (pareto)efficient! I will, so this ends here.
No, actually do the opposite: pay attention to the past. In case you don't have any better information to prepare for the future (most of the time you won't have any): You can use insights of the past in order to anticipate future events. Yes, of course you are not supposed to go straight, if a right turn is coming up, even though most of the past you have been going straight. But in that case you actually see the turn coming up. If you don't, expect to go straight.
However concerning people: be a humanist; always assume people aspire to their best. Be forgiving and don't go hard on someone, who does wrong with good intention. Even in case you are disappointed by lots of different people lots of times in a row, hope for good for the next time.
In this special case, I must admit I don't really get the point. How are you supposed not to have negative thoughts? (Gladly) There's always going to be things you cannot control. Try to focus on things and events you can influence and alter instead of things you'll simply have to put up with. Most of all: you can't expect people to change, let alone to change people. So don't try/hope to.
But also prepare for realistic scenarios. Analyse the best/average/worst case consequences. Prepare for the one, you consider the most likely to come to pass. Be optimistic, but don't put all your bets on one single horse. Always have a back up plan.
I utterly love to comment on nobrainers. Of course the most crucial issues that concern you will leave a mark on you. In German there's a certain phrase: university of life. Meaning that education in your post education life has the importance similar to the education of scool, highscool or college summed up. It will form all your bias: your perception, your views and probably even your character. In consulting, you should take this seriously: ask yourself every week, what you have learnt. Steady learing is synonymous for continuous imporvement. On my count the best consultants I have met so far were those, that had the most humble oppinion of themselves and were most curious about pretty much everything...sometimes even petty stuff. So the above advice should rather be: Listen, learn and then think!
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