MC Consultancy Fundamentals 0913

Consultancy Fundamentals
M…….. M… Young Professionals
September 2013

Participants
Xxxx Xxxxxx, Xxxxx Xxxx, Xxx Xxxxxxxx, Xxxxx Xxxx
Personal Brands

Manage Oneself….
“We live in an age of unprecedented opportunity:
If you’ve got ambition and smarts, you can rise
to the top of your chosen profession, regardless of
where you started out.”
‘Manage Oneself’, Peter Drucker. (1999)

Introduction.
What do you want to learn?
What are you: salesperson, adviser or
consultant?
Consultancy in 1 word!
Skills of the Consultant……

Commitment in a Formula
C = (V x L)¹ + B²
 Communication
 Vocal, what you tell people
 Listening or be able to Listen (first you have to listen, then you can talk)
 Behavior, it’s the main part of all that you communicate

Consulting Skills according to Peter
Block
 Contracting for the work.
 Making your own diagnosis of the problems.
 Giving feedback about personal and organizational
data for facilitating decision making.
 Carrying out the plan.
 Evaluating the main events.

Five Phases in Consultancy
according to Kubr.
Entry
Diagnosis
Action planningImplementation
Termination

March 2010: “The VALUKAS Report”
Findings
• Most crucial: “In 2006, Lehman made a significant change in its business strategy
from a lower risk brokerage model to a higher risk, capital‐intensive banking
model.”
• March 20, 2007 a meeting was planned with the Controlling Committee. Lehman’s
controllers had find out that the risks of the new business model were too high for
the company, they wanted to inform the committee on that. But hours before the
meeting they received this message: “The Committee is not sophisticated around
subprime market – Joe (nb; Joe Gregory, former CEO) doesn’t want too much
detail. He wants to candidly talk about the risks to Lehman but be optimistic and
constructive – talk about the opportunities that this market creates and how we
are uniquely positioned to take advantage of them.” The controllers decided,
afraid of loosing their jobs, not to inform the Committee.
• “Lehman had a series of Board meetings in the fall of 2007. At these meetings,
Lehman’s management continued to report on the firm’s elevated risk profile and
concentration of real estate and leveraged loan risk, but did not present the Board
with additional negative information concerning the firm’s risk and liquidity
profile.”
• The rest is history…..
• Question: what would you do?

Ethics in Consultancy: Five Barriers to an
Ethical Organization
according to Bazerman c.s.

Consultancy = Continuous
Improvement
Plan
Do
Review

How would you Consult the
successor of Steve Ballmer?
Perhaps…

Consulting Yourself according to
Peter Drucker
• What Are My Strengths? (5 Max.)
• How Do I Perform? (scale 1 – 5: very poor –
very well)
• What Are My Values?
• Where Do I Belong? (in a broader sense)
• What Should I Contribute? (to your family,
your company, the world)

Flawless Consulting: 8 Steps in the
Consulting Process
1. CONTACT: starting the relationship,
2. CONTRACTING: formal' working agreement,
3. DATA COLLECTION & ANALYSIS,
4. DIAGNOSIS & FEEDBACK: to the project owner,
5. DECIDE ON THE WAY FORWARD: together with
the client,
6. DESIGN THE INTERVENTION,
7. IMPLEMENTATION,
8. EVALUATE & LEARN!

Consultancy according to
Edgar Schein
• The Purchase of Expertise.
• Doctor-Patient
• Process Consultation

Consultancy according to Schein:
The Purchase of Expertise.
• The purchase-of-expertise model is one in which the
client hires the consultant to bring a separate and
autonomous perspective on the industry or company
setting to the issues that exist.
• The benefits of this type of model are that it is of short
duration and often the least costly of all types of
consultation.
• Because this type does not require that the consultant
have a considerable level of knowledge about the
organization itself or specific understanding of the
functions of the company, the output of resources is
usually less than in other consulting models.

Doctor-Patient
• The doctor-patient model is based on the initial
process by which a consultant focuses on the problems
that exist in an organization and the factors influencing
these problems
• The doctor-patient model allows the consultant to use
their existing experience to diagnose the issues for the
company and introduce potential methods for change.
• One of the greatest benefits of this type of model is
that the relationship between the consultant and the
organization change with changes in organizational
need.

Process Consultation
• In the process consultation model, the consultant acts as a facilitator by
providing the client with methodological tools for assessing or defining the
problem and locating the best potential solutions.
• The consultant works with the organization to find internal methods for
resolving the issues and for implementing change, utilizing existing
resources within the organization.
• Process consultation takes the Chinese proverb past the point of simply
teaching a man to fish; the consultant facilitates a process of discovery
through which the man can build his own fishing pole or choose a
net, while understanding the patterns of fish and using the correct types
of bait.

French and Raven on Power.
• Coercive power (The main idea behind this concept is that someone is forced to do
something that he/she does not desire to do.)
• Reward power (To grant another person things which that person desires or to remove or
decrease things the person does not desire.)
• Legitimate power (People traditionally obey the person with this power solely based on
their role, position or title rather than the person specifically as a leader.)
• Referent power (This type of power is strong enough that the power-holder is often
looked up to as a role model.)
• Expert power (The ability to administer to another information, knowledge or expertise. The
expertise does not have to be genuine - it is the perception of expertise that provides the power base.)
• Informational power (Informational power is based on the potential to utilize
information.)

Being a Professional means you can
be a Leader.
“Leaders are at the top of their game
when they act from their deepest
values and instincts. Usually they
tap into these fundamental qualities
during a crisis, but it’s possible to do
so anytime—in the right frame of
mind.”
Robert Quinn, ‘Moments of Greatness’; HBR ‘05

Being a Professional means you can
be a Leader.
“When leaders do their best work, they
don’t copy anyone. Instead, they draw
on their
own fundamental values and
capabilities—operating in a frame of
mind that is true to them yet,
paradoxically, not their normal
state of being. I call it the fundamental
state of leadership.”
Robert Quinn, ‘Moments of Greatness’; HBR ‘05

To enter the fundamental state of
leadership, follow these steps:
1. Recognize you’ve already been there. You’ve faced great challenges before, and
in surmounting them, you entered the fundamental state.
2. By recalling these moments’ lessons, you release positive emotions and see new
possibilities for your current situation.
3. Analyze your current state. Compare your normal performance with what you’ve
done at your very best. You’ll fuel a desire to elevate what you’re doing now and
instill confidence that you can reenter the fundamental state.
4. Ask the four questions.

Extraordinary Authenticity
“Extraordinary Authenticity means having the ability to
be yourself even in the toughest situations.
This requires living in a paradox: to inspire as a leader,
you need to know your stuff, but you also need to be able to
admit when you don’t know your stuff.”
David Novak (CEO YUM!) in ‘Taking People with You’.

Taking People With You
David Novak YUMM
 “Get inside the heads of your people. You can’t convince them of anything until you see the
world from their perspective.
 Think big. If your sales growth last year was 3.5 percent, don’t aim for 4 percent this year,
aim for 15 percent. Even if you fail, you’ll probably do better than you would have with a
smaller goal.
 Practice “extraordinary authenticity.” Show occasional vulnerability and admit when you
don’t have the answers.
 Look for good ideas in unexpected places. Earlier in Novak’s career when he was head of the
Frito-Lay account at an advertising agency, he and his team came up with the idea for Cool
Ranch Doritos during a field trip to a grocery store’s salad dressing aisle.
 Choose a can-do mind-set. There’s a huge difference between a boss who says “We can try
this” and one who says “We can do this!”
 Cheer for first downs, not just touchdowns. Publicly recognizing and rewarding small wins
keeps everyone motivated for the long haul.
 Get rid of cynics. In many teams one person will reject your values and spread negative
energy. Moving that person out will show everyone else you’re serious.”

The Building Blocks of Cooperative
Systems
‘What would the world be like if some people consistently operated as self-interested rational actors
while others did not?’
 Communication. Nothing is more important in a cooperative system than
communication among participants.
 Framing and authenticity. People react differently depending on how situations are
framed, but they aren’t stupid. It’s important that the frame fit reality.
 Empathy and solidarity. For reasons biological and social, the more empathy and
solidarity we feel with others, the more likely we are to account for their interests.
 Fairness and morality. People care about being treated fairly. According to work
conducted by Ernst Fehr and his collaborators, “fair” does not mean “equal.”
Bron: The Unselfish Gene; HBR 07/11

CONSULTANTS: ARE YOU IN DANGER
OF DISRUPTION?
1. Are you formally tracking the evolution of your clients’ needs and how well you
continue to serve them? Has it recently become harder to win clients and to
satisfy them? Are you losing your small clients or your large ones?
2. Are you being forced downstream in the proposal process with established
clients, responding to rather than shaping requirements? Are clients having their
procurement departments vet your proposals or monitor your progress?
3. Are you competing against new rivals for business, even with established clients?
Are these rivals increasingly specialized?
4. Are your clients asking that you partner with nontraditional advisers or use their
work products? Are these advisers leveraging automation, databases, and other
technical assets?
5. Are you revising your business model in order to manage smaller projects at
acceptable profit? Is this activity looked down on in your firm?
Source: Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption; HBR 10/13

MC Consultancy Fundamentals 0913

Clients: Are You Hiring the Right Firm
for the Job?
1. When did you last conduct a comprehensive market analysis of the providers available to
you and their strengths and weaknesses? If you’ve been hiring firms for the same work over
time, have you examined the opportunity to spread this work across more-specialized
providers?
2. Have you aggregated spending on consultants across your company to identify both the
absolute amount and patterns involving individual firms?
3. Do your providers make transparent the analyses that underpin their recommendations? Do
you have an opportunity to standardize any of these analyses into hard assets that you can
maintain?
4. Do you involve staff members with experience in the professional services industry in
developing proposals and managing subsequent engagements?
5. Do you have a robust, outcomes-based system for assessing the quality of the work
providers perform for you? Do your assessments drive decisions about future hiring?
Source: Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption; HBR 10/13

“Tell me and I forget,
Ask me and I am engaged,
Involve me and I am Committed.”

Consultancy
Fundamentals.
Kind Regards,
Willem E.A.J. Scheepers
http://www.virtualbusinessconsultant.eu
 willem@willemscheepers.eu
+31(0)65 117 60 97

MC Consultancy Fundamentals 0913

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