Consulting Staffing Model: How to Avoid the Short End of the Stick as the "Little Guy"
A lunch conversation today led to this question: what is the best management model setup for a consulting firm?
The standard consulting answer would naturally apply: it depends. But for a large firm with thousands of employees, is there a setup that is most ideal for both leadership and staff?
We examined the structure of one firm, let's call it Firm A as compared with another (Firm B) from the staff's perspective:
Firm A: your life is determined/managed by your director/partner, which automatically places you into an industry, and then a service line.
Firm B: your life is determined by your service line, which is overseen by a number of partners, and then industry.
The conclusion we reached was that the Firm A setup could potentially be ideal, IF your director was awesome and loved you. I reasoned that the probability of this happening is actually higher than in the other model, due to the fact that the revenue you generate would directly benefit your director. Therefore, the director would have much greater incentive to keep his "little guys" happy and give them more things to do (as long as the "little guy" has no plans to switch out of the director's predetermined industry and service line....). The personal relationship has potential to play a larger factor here, but switching to something else is basically a non-option, leading some young employees to feel "trapped".
Conversely, the Firm B model could potentially be ideal, IF there were good projects in your predetermined service line and industry, and the managers of those projects were awesome and loved you. The probability of this occurring may or may not be high, depending on the project. The managers obviously have close to zero incentive to let staff leave their project, as it causes issues for them (explanations to the client, knowledge transfer, just dealing with it in general). In addition, the revenue you generate is spread across several partners, so they may not necessarily care where you are at. I also think that this model may make staff more dispensible, as it is easy to hire more people to cycle them into this model. Personal relationships with partners are not always high, as staff must struggle to get to know several partners (who knows who is going to have the best project next??). However, there is greater potential for variety in your career if you play it right, and you may have an increased degree of control over your fate.
Which leads me back to my original thought: the career progression of a consultant is about 30% effort and 70% sheer luck, and I am not exactly the luckiest.
Labels: BearingPoint, consulting, Deloitte, management model
"Good Communication" - Defined?
I attended an event about a month ago about strategic communication, put on by a former Carnegie Mellon professor (whose blog and info I will post in here later once I find it). The workshop was fascinating. I've always kind of thought that communication was one of the most difficult subjects to teach, especially since the definitions of "accepted" and "good" communication change from year to year and person to person. Aside from teaching the acceptable (current) formats for essays, articles, and email writing, I always found myself at a loss for what I was actually learning in my English and Business Comm classes. (Except for in Prof Acetta's class... even though I think he really taught us maturity and poise more than anything, which directly correlates with one's communication style...). But I digress.
However, this particular workshop was very good. Obviously this guy knew a thing or two about "good" or at least "effective" communications, because he held the audience's attention during the entire 1.5 hour event (to me this is quite the feat). I especially liked his opener to the workshop:
"Many people ask me why I don't come prepared to these things with a PowerPoint presentation. And I respond that PowerPoint essentially serves to distract your entire audience from what you are saying (or NOT saying) and puts everyone to sleep. I always tell my students that PowerPoint is crap! Most has no power, and no point."He then launched into the topic of the event: good communication, which he defined as a "
command of choices at every level". It makes sense. When I say that Dr. Acetta taught us maturity and poise, I think that's exactly what he was getting at. A person with poise will maintain a position of knowledge and command over the situation, and the maturity factor helps to ensure that the possible choices are well thought out before a commitment is made.
Going into a situation, a good communicator will know his/her:
1. Purpose -
"Get it done and get out!"2. Situation
3. Audience
4. And, to a lesser degree, your
"Stuff/Shit". Your audience (#3) already assumes that you know what you are talking about when communication is initiated. The first 3 points overshadow your knowledge of the subject of the communication.
So true! If there's anything that b-school taught me, it's that it doesn't matter at all if you know what you're talking about, as long as you can speak to the audience in a clear manner and
act as though you know what you're saying. Once you know the items above, you proceed on to:
Sell the solution, and be:
1. Economical -
"never use 2 words when 1 will do"2. Purposeful -
"bring 'value', but not at the expense of being cheap"3. and Receiver-Oriented
Simple, yet effective. Brief, yet valuable. Much like this workshop I attended! Thanks Mr. I-will-find-your-name-later!
Social Networking & Blog Inspiration
I began this blog as a result of a very interesting presentation made by Professor Melander of American University.
In a nutshell, her presentation focused around the need to market yourself via social media outlets as a result of the changing marketplace. "Have you ever Googled yourself?" she asked, "And do you know that there is a very high probability that your next employer is going to Google you before they even read your resume?"
I'm really not doing her speech much justice - I started writing this post a long time ago and now can't find my notes from her lecture. However I do follow her blog and it's on my blogroll.
Labels: blogs, social networking
