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Welcome to Consulting for Humans, a podcast all about life in consulting.

You're with Mike and Ian, and in each episode, Ian and I will be shining a light on a new topic that it gets to the heart of what makes consultants happy and successful.

So if you're a consultant trying to be more of a human, then welcome back.

If you're a human trying to be more of a consultant, then you're doubly welcome.

Because this week we're going to listen to a conversation that Mike and I had fresh from a series of workshops that we've been running for some human clients in a big corporation trying to hone their consulting skills.

We hope you don't mind the slightly different quality of the audio.

This was me and Mike on one of those rare occasions we could sit down together and.

And talk about consulting for humans.

So what have we been up to today, Mike?

We're on the front lines of our regular day jobs together in the same room, in the same place, in the same continent.

What have we been up to?

Well, besides not getting much sleep, we've been working with a lot of functional experts, technical experts, in what we sometimes might call support areas of bigger firms that are actually humans.

They're all of them humans, and they want to be more consultant, like.

Absolutely.

So we get a chance to sit and reflect on this.

This has always been part of our mission, right.

To take some of the skills of consultants and help regular humans to apply them and use them and benefit from them.

We're going to talk a little bit about what their motivation might be.

We're going to talk a little bit about what kind of things they've been learning.

As we begin going along through the week, I'm going to ask us both to pick out our word or phrase of the week since we've been in rooms together with our folks.

Wow.

And then think about what we've learned as consultants ourselves from the experience of exploring the skills with non consultants.

So, Mike, what's in it for them?

Why do they want to learn this?

What's on your mind there?

You know, it's fascinating because I think these are a lot of people who, for the most part, would say, no, I'm not a consultant.

Now, I've been told that there's this program that we perhaps can add a little bit more value or make our jobs or our teams or our company better.

But, you know, I'm not a consultant.

I know consultants.

They wear fancy suits.

Some of the jobs we poke out a little bit.

But interestingly to me, when you say, well, what are you?

A lot of times the answer is problem solving.

And what's in it for them is, wait, there are these people, consultants, who solve problems all the time and do it differently from me.

And when the light goes on, I say, ah, that might be a better way than the way I've been using here.

Right.

And we've come across a few people who.

We talked about this a couple of weeks ago.

I think people are consultants really by instinct, you might even say by identity.

And for them, it's been about, as you say, switching the light back on and maybe helping them to get their skills recognized.

They would like to have bigger impact, they would like to elevate the level at which they're doing their work.

And it's been fascinating to see them getting to the point where they know that their consulting skills are going to have a bigger impact on all their colleagues here in the firm where they work.

Absolutely.

You know, and it's been fascinating too, because some of these folks are in very technical areas and by technical, again, implementing some functional expertise and are highly template driven, highly process driven.

And even for those folks and this, you know, I'm not part of, if part of this is what's in it for them.

Part of it was watching the light go in their eyes of saying, wow, even for me, in something that seemed pretty procedural, I see a lot of opportunities to do more and to do better.

Yeah.

Both to improve the procedural parts of our jobs.

And I think also we've helped them pick up skills for how do they handle themselves when they're weighed into a problem ad hoc because they're in regular line jobs in a regular big corporation.

That's kind of how their life is.

Right.

That's increasingly so every day.

Yeah.

And for me, it's been fun as well, seeing their motivation to get better as teams.

When we work with people who are in the consulting profession, they see themselves as organized in practices in these kind of loose affiliations.

But we've been working with intact teams who've had their leaders in the room with them.

And I think that's part of their motivation as well, to improve the profile that their teams have internally.

And I think, like you say, Ian, another kind of a big aha.

This isn't one, you know, stop with all the commentary.

Another big fascinating thing, both for me and I think for some of the people in there, was the idea that not only is this about me, like you said, it's my profile, it's our team's profile.

And this inner relationship of other stakeholders who are helping, the same stakeholders that they're helping, and how we can help each other all to get better and create more for everybody involved there.

And that's been fascinating.

And the camaraderie that on a life of its own, not anything to do with us.

It's great, isn't it?

The life in a regular job, as you like, as you might say, outside of consulting, puts you in the heart of what is much more like a big family, much more like a big community than I think most consultants give themselves a chance to access.

So we've talked a little bit about what they've been here to do and what's been motivating them.

What are the biggest things that you think we've been talking about this week?

What are the biggest things that we have learned alongside these folks here?

Looking at what people have been picking up on and learning?

What have been the biggest things that have really hit home for our learners this week?

Mike, we know, and it's always, it seems to me, we come in with a lot of big things, and I'm fascinated eternally, and I shouldn't be.

We see this so often that it's little things that come out, too, that are.

Make huge differences, like just asking more questions of more people.

Unbelievable.

Yeah.

It's very easy for all of us, I think, to be not entirely curious the whole time.

Right.

And I think we've talked a lot this week about ways to get curious.

I've noticed as well, people wrestling with the idea of having to hold multiple concepts.

Like, rather than saying, I have one objective and I have one task and one outcome, to think like a consultant.

We've been asking them to think divergently, to think about multiple different versions of the problem, multiple different ways of talking about the task.

And that's challenged them to hold all those ideas together in their heads, to think in that kind of divergent, abstract way that comes naturally to lots of people in consulting.

We have to work hard, I think, to get people to think that way if that's not their normal way of being.

Yeah, I think it gets compounded, too, because we work with people who are really wedded to data and to say, well, let's approach this hypothetically first.

Wow.

And now let's do some things without any data.

And that, like you said, part of this divergence and part of the idea of saying, what do you mean starting to think without data?

Hold on.

I mean, that's the lifeblood of what I do.

But turning around and going wow.

This is actually helping me a lot more with the data and actually sometimes with not so much data.

Yeah.

And I think that's also changed for a few people.

Their idea of the role of their expertise, like having data and having access to content and knowledge, is an important part of the way people do their work.

But we've been talking as well about changing the way you see your expertise.

We've talked about this before on the show.

You don't always need to be a content expert, a subject matter expert.

Maybe instead of being a content expert, you could be a context expert.

And that's something we've been exploring as well.

Yeah.

This idea of getting kind of the balance that's right for a specific situation.

And that I think is another thing that getting past, I don't know, the theme that keeps coming up on the show, getting past the either or concept of so many things that I can be both and.

And that we can all bring our unique skills and strengths and talents.

Talences.

Thank you, my precious.

There's an outtake that we don't have that we can all bring our unique skills and talents, talents and experiences and work together in a way that starts with a recognition of those, that also proceeds, you know, full speed ahead on the processes and the templates and the other things that we have.

And having that time to do that in real time, together on something outside, just the time to breathe, look at each other and interact, I think is huge.

I think it's been great.

It's been great working with the whole team here in person, in an office, part of their community.

One of the things that you notice when you're part of a group that's been together for a few days is there are words and phrases that keep cropping up.

And Mike, you and I have been working in two parallel streams here.

So you tell me what have been some of the words or phrases that you've come back to a lot this week?

Well, I kind of alluded to it earlier.

Asking questions, asking more questions, asking questions of more people.

And one that came up entirely on its own, no prompting, no discussion.

And one that came up entirely on its own, active listening.

And so many people saying not.

I think we might see with a group of consultants, oh, I got this in 101 training.

I think one or two people mentioned it as active listening.

Other people just having the realization of I'm so heads down, producing that I am not listening, or I haven't thought about how to use some of my typical means of communication day to Day now, slack, email, other things to have real conversations, even if it's not face to face.

So we've been learning and talking a little bit about these ideas of communication.

I think in my group, we've been talking a lot about the skill of thinking and we've talked a lot about organizing ideas as distinct from organizing activity.

So this idea of organize your ideas first and then the activities follow, organize your thinking so that your writing will follow, that's come up a lot.

And I think sometimes we've been talking about how that means you slow down your pace in order to get a better result.

So the phrase that's also come up a lot is go slower, to go faster and to go better.

Take a moment to think about your goal, think about your stakeholders, think about what your work is going to produce.

And people have done some really great work by just forcing themselves to slow down a little bit.

And I think that's been part of my mantra this week is go a little slower and make a little bit more progress.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mentioned stakeholders before and people might think, oh, well, that's a typical consultant throwaway term, stakeholders.

I was fascinated watching how people were going, wait.

I am also my own stakeholder and my colleagues are stakeholders.

And some of the people that report into me when I'm taking the calls, talking to my peers in other groups that don't get looped in their stakeholders on the things we do.

And this was a big aha.

Part of it, I think, coming from what we were doing.

Part of it just coming by working in these teams and working across teams and seeing and learning from each other.

Beautifully done.

I loved it.

Yeah, fantastic.

We've talked a lot as well, I think, about being intentional.

That's come up a lot.

Being intentional about what you want to say and write, being intentional about focusing your thinking and your analysis in particular areas.

I think for folks who are doing internal jobs in big matrix organizations, it's very easy to think that your role is to supply and support and cover everybody.

But being able to make a choice.

And I really like your point as well, Mike, about making a choice to look after stakeholder number one is a good lesson as well.

Yeah.

Another fascinating thing that I would not have expected to come up, actually.

We came in thinking we're going to have to work on this was the whole idea of trust and people realized pretty quickly how important this was and how.

I'm also reminded of it because of your use of the term intentional that I didn't hear intentional trust building in our group.

But what I heard was we just need more trust.

You know, how do we get that?

And then realizing that, wait, trust is something you can be intentional about and developing it.

And that really was nice and just being able to reflect back, how do we have it?

Why do we have it now?

Where do we have it where we don't?

And that was nicely done as well.

I think there's a bit of a contrast between working as a consultant for like a traditional outside consulting firm and working inside your own company.

I think that what we try and cultivate and maybe sometimes take for granted as outsiders is respect.

Like we are playing a little bit on our status and on our expertise.

And it comes more slowly for us, I think, to earn trust.

And I think that when you're working basically for the organization that employs you, you can probably start with quite a high level of trust and you want to build up on that.

And sometimes what can take some time or what is harder to reach for is to get respected.

To get respected for having an independent point of view, to get respected for the kind of the sources and data and analysis that you bring.

I think that's a great point, Ian.

And I hadn't thought about it that way, but I think that was one of the issues that was going on here.

It's almost like I'm a data feed, my group is a data feed.

There's a lot of functional expertise here and that's important and it's useful, but it's not necessarily seen as a value feed and a value creating unit and a catalyst.

I think so many of the things touched on that, including, you know, one big aha was how much the folks in a particular group were on the forefront of that with various other parts of their organization and not necessarily sharing that learning, good at, bad and indifferent with one another, and how much more powerful they could become and be seen differently and respected differently by virtue of doing that.

That kind of feedback loop, I could see starting to work its way through the thinking by the end.

Cool.

So we've talked a bit about what our clients this week have been learning about taking the skills of consulting into their regular corporate lives, as you might say.

We've talked a bit about what they're words and phrases and ideas that we've talked about.

Let's just turn this back to you and me for a second, Mike.

I'd like us to talk about what we've taken away.

Like what are we learning from the experience of teaching consulting skills to non consultants?

Well, one of the reasons I love teaching consultant skills to non consultants or consultants is because I get re reminded all the time of what's so critical and what's most important.

And I get the opportunity to practice that with people who are learning.

And I find that I probably take away and learn and reinforce as much, if not perhaps more than the folks in the session.

So I always love that.

I feel really honored to have that opportunity to come into somebody's business and do that together.

Yeah.

And I think it makes you take a little bit of a step back as well.

There are some things that you can't take for granted about your status in your career.

And we get to talk about that and examine it, I think afresh when we're looking at it from the perspective of people who would otherwise be our clients.

Right.

The other thing for me is it's reminded me a lot about process.

I remember having this drilled into me as a young consultant to be focused on the process rather than distracted by short term activity.

And a lot of what we've been talking about this week has been about a process.

And for me, I've noticed that we've had to be very explicit about a process for thinking.

Lots of us, me especially, have instincts or ideas or shortcuts that we reach for quickly, sometimes without a lot of conscious thought, sometimes without a lot of curiosity.

And we get better answers and we get better sharing of the knowledge.

I think when we slow down, when we are really understand our thought process and how it's flowing when we involve others so that thinking becomes collective.

And consulting folks and corporate folks alike, I think, do well when they're aware of how their brain works.

And they do well when they pick the right thinking tool for the right moment and they draw each other into their thinking a bit as well.

I do, I absolutely agree with you on that, Ian.

Another takeaway for me is I always look back when we have an experience like we've had over the past two months with these different groups of clients here that I'm so appreciative of the folks who are making this available to their people.

And it makes me look back, number one, coming up where I had it, where I didn't have it, and what it meant to me.

Number two, looking over time to see how this has waxed and waned.

And it of course brought to my mind immediately because we had lots of different generations in the room thinking about their experiences and how many people are hungry for this, how many people have not had that opportunity sometimes.

And seeing groups like this, say just two days to actually get better.

Yeah.

Wow.

What an investment.

Yeah, exactly.

What an investment.

And what a gift, an opportunity.

Yeah, Mike.

So it's been a fun few days.

It's been great to reflect, it's been great to chat.

It's great for you and me to be face to face, really is what's coming up next.

Well, next for me is writing a book, a book with one of our colleagues, Maffei, and it's really Maffei's book.

So that is something that we're working on, trying to reflect on exactly the same things we're talking about here.

So these experiences are great because we continue to learn and grow in doing that.

And some time back on the ranch at home, where I got to take my consulting skills and sort a few things out on our new old house.

Fantastic.

How about you, Ian?

What's next for you?

A long flight home because I've got across the Atlantic again, time with the family this weekend.

I think I've got some music to take care of next week.

I'm going to be working with some folks in London, working closer to home, working on business development as well.

So nice.

Lots of a regular consultant's life.

So, listeners, thank you very much for joining us.

As always, we've enjoyed your company.

We hope you've picked up on how much fun Mike and I are having being in the same room as well.

We hope that you're having a great time this week and we're looking forward to having your company next time on the Consulting for Humans podcast.