Consultants Saying Things

Company culture is important, but not as important as profitability. Layoffs are necessary. Business is business... But you don't have to treat your people like garbage. They're your most valuable asset after all. There are a number of examples we’ve seen over the past few years of company culture that doesn’t seem to get the balance quite right between the commercial needs of the business and res...

There appear to be economic headwinds as we move into 2023. Tools like LinkedIn can be one of the most powerful weapons in your branding, sales, or employment arsenal. That is, if you know how to use it effectively... In a recent discussion on using Social Media on the podcast, we acknowledged the fact that while all 4 of us have years of expertise in using social tools, none of us are world-renow...

With the year ending, and folks in various stages of vacation and merrymaking, the Consultants Saying Things team wanted to get together for our annual Christmas Special.    This year we issue awards in various categories (e.g. Best LinkedIn Appearance by a Member of the Cast), talk about significant events of 2022 and turn to our expectations in 2023.    In this episode: ...

Social media is a wonderful, terrible thing. It is a cosmos of tools that allow us to be our best or, perhaps more often, our worst. If we're a knucklehead in real life, Facebook can make us a louder knucklehead... For consulting professionals, the use of social media is typically career related or career-adjacent. Given there are so many ways to engage, given the sheer amount of noise, given our...

According to various polls, public speaking ranks as peoples' top fear... ahead of snakes, heights, clowns and, in fact, death itself. Let that sink in. People would rather be DEAD than speak in front of a group of other humans. So, first... why? And second, what can be done about it? Naturally we can't solve EVERYONE'S fear of public speaking, so we decided to tackle this issue from the perspecti...

The knock on consulting is that so much of what goes on is either a bunch of fluff and hand-waving at a stratospheric, impractical level or narrowly focused on mostly useless technical gee-wizardry with little connection to actual business need. How do you connect strategy to reality? Luckily there's a new book that takes dead aim at this issue and serves as a practical guide to developing strateg...

Being mentally resilient in the face of everything the world throws at us can be daunting. Whether it's work, family, friends, international politics... there's a lot of stress on us every day. How is a person supposed to deal? (Psst: I have the answer...).   Okay. I personally don't have the answer. But I'm lucky to know some folks that are certified experts in this area.    You ma...

Work can be hard. It can be stressful. Consulting in particular is full of A-Types who work long, busy hours trying to help in often frustrating client situations. What if you break?   Each person's ability to handle things is different, with some having deeper mental capacity buckets than others. At some point, however, most people have experienced that bucket filling up and overflowing. &nb...

What is an architect? What is architecture? In the business technology context, is architecture a profession? What do architects do? A quick Google search reveals an endless debate on these topics that's been raging for several decades. Let's add more fuel to that fire and stir that pot... This episode is the third in a mashup series on this topic that began with an episode of IASA Global's "The A...

Four years ago a friend told me that since I had so much to say about business and technology topics that I should go make a podcast. In retrospect I think he just wanted me to quit bothering him. Joke's on him. I had him join the cast.   50 Episodes later, we've talked to dozens of people on many different topics... all related to how we as consultants can leverage our experience and knowled...

The work environment can be tough. It is often political and tiresome and exhausting. The work week can be a tough slog. However... the workplace can often be very funny. Or at least, worthy of mockery and parody.   We set about trying to lighten the mood by taking a look at various tropes and memes about work in general and consulting in particular. The jokes are many and can often be NSFW....

In the battle for talent, how do you identify people who are likely to exhibit the qualities you want? How do you do the same with your existing employees? Assessments? Reviews? Rorschach Tests?   Many of us have been part of organizations that sought to understand the strengths and weaknesses of their staff by utilizing personality tests and skill assessments. They've been around for a long...

We all know smart people. They often have smart plans and smart designs. Sometimes fancy shoes. But the smartest plan or design is totally useless if it can't be explained to another human being.   As humans, how do we share information in ways that convey our ideas, thoughts, intents, moods, histories? We tell stories. Sometimes the story is visual and can be anything from cave paintings to...

There is often a tendency for companies to prioritize action and delivery over planning and analysis. More "Deliver the widgets!" and less "What does our company actually do?"   This can be seen in places where decision making is driven by technology and timelines instead of desired business outcomes, where the "How" and "When" is obsessed over while the "Why" is practically forgotten.  ...

Well. 2021 is finally over. Did you learn anything? Will you do anything different with your career in 2022? If not now, then when? For our annual Christmas Special, we wanted to chat about careers in consulting. Not just for folks thinking of maybe entering the field, but also for those who are in consulting and thinking of a lateral change and ALSO those contemplating an exit from consulting. To...

In our connected world of technology, the ways in which we engage with businesses and clients can have a big impact. And as we've seen with the ways in which our public and private data is used by companies like Meta, not all impacts are positive. Some are downright manipulative. How does a company or an employee or a consultant working with a client know how to operate with transparency and integ...

Consultants often help clients think about complex problems with few easy answers. There are almost always trade-offs to be made, regulations to follow, expenses to incur all while trying to run a business and make a profit.   One of the most complex issues involving tough decisions is around how best to utilize business (or national) resources in a manner that ensures the business (or nation...

If I were to only read my LinkedIn feed, I'd think every industry is being disrupted all the time, every day... Certainly a search for "future of consulting" yields plenty of opinion along with thought pieces about new business models and such. Many of these results are a bit frenzied, foreboding and filled with gloom about AI and Gen Z taking over consulting. I'm not sure exactly what the future...

Is it The Great Rebalance? The Great Reshuffle? The Great Resignation? The Great Discontent? To read about it, companies are really struggling to find workers these days. Clearly there aren't enough people that want to work.   We think that's just a load of codswallop.  There was a recent LinkedIn News story about the consulting boom/bust job cycle that caught my eye. The story said that...

The model entrepreneur gets up one morning with a great idea, quits their job and boldly strikes out on their own... single-handedly building a great company from nothing, attracting flocks of clients, finding happiness and peace of mind and easily striking it rich. Modern-day gold rush. Except that's false. Like... totally false. All of it.    So many misconceptions of what entrepreneur...

Consulting may be an old profession (the second oldest?) but no one can argue that it hasn't undergone tremendous change over the past 20 years. It makes sense, after all. Consulting reflects the business technology challenges and opportunities that clients are experiencing. And there's been incredible business technology change in the recent decades. Which begs the question, what is it like being...

I used to think that if I could just clone myself a few times I might have the most perfect team and we'd produce the most perfect slides...   Aside from that likely being a disaster, I used to think that's how mentorship worked. I mentor or coach someone to do things in the method of whatever firm we were working for so that I had more arms and legs to do work for clients.    Lucki...

Well it looks like things are getting back to normal. Everyone should just go back to doing things like they did prior to Covid. All will be as it was… Or not. As the case may be. Have you heard the predictions for an imminent return to normalcy? Are you excited by the prospect of everyone working the 9-5, Monday thru Friday grind in the old cubicle just like before? Isn’t every consultant thrille...

Welp. Glad this year's over. Perfect time to pour a drink, to be honest.    It's also a perfect time for the third annual Christmas episode of the Consultants Saying Things podcast! It's great filler for that hole in spacetime between Christmas and New Year's.   Join the full crew of Consultants Saying Things as we look forward to 2021 and what it holds in store for the consulting i...

It's been a rough year. Companies have downsized and a maybe you've lost your job. You've sent out dozens or hundreds of resumes, worked your network. What now? Consultants are maybe more used to searching for the next gig, but even for them, times are tough. And for the companies that panicked earlier in 2020 and let go of all of that talent, intellectual capital and institutional knowledge, how...