The Strategy Skills Podcast: Management Consulting | Strategy, Operations & Implementation | Critical Thinking

Welcome to the 48th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and we remain in week 4. The previous podcasts discussed each of the elements which together comprise the visioning workshop. In this podcast we discuss the workshop structure, how we ran it and the overall outcome.  Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study. TCO IV is underway and turning out to be unusual. 4 participants and all are roughly the same in terms of performance so all have a clear chance. This is unlike TCO I where Felix was clearly stronger all the way from the screening interviews, and TCO II where Alicedominated from start to finish and even TCO III where Jen was the stronger participant from the start.  If you missed our recent announcement, note that The First 90 Days in Consulting training program is now live. Thank you for all the great feedback we are receiving and your requests for continuing with this series are noted. Step 5 Week 3 of the Corporate Strategy

Welcome to the 47th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and we remain in week 4. And as I mentioned in previous posts, the reason we spend so much time on visioning workshop is because if you ever take a senior role in strategy in any company, or if you ever serve as a corporate strategy consultant, running a visioning workshop or corporate strategy workshop in general is the skill you must have. And scenario planning is something used extensively in visioning workshops. So in this podcast, and related article, we discuss what is scenario planning and how to run a scenario planning session during a visioning workshop as part of a consulting engagement. There is a also a very elegant way to combine corporate finance and corporate strategy to help companies develop effective strategies under extreme uncertainty. If this interests you, post a comment and we will build out an explanation for this approach. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry 

In this podcast, and related article, we address how to answer difficult questions raised by the client during a executive workshop or another type of client's executives group meeting. We start with discussing the right mindset any consultant requires to be able to effectively handle difficult questions from a client. We thereafter review the particular steps in addressing a client's difficult questions raised during a workshop or a presentation. Lastly, we dive into which skills are required to be able to handle difficult questions, especially the kind of questions for which you don't have an immediate answer. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn WANT TO LEARN FROM FORMER STRATEGY PARTNERS? REFER TO THE FIRMSCONSULTING ORIGINAL TRAINING PROGRAMS.

Welcome to the 45th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and we remain in week 4. At least once in your life you would have received feedback to be a more big picture thinker. The problem is that everyone will have a different definition of big picture thinking and many of the definitions are vague, counter-intuitive or wrong. Based on advising some of the consultants on the study, this podcast provides a very simple, intuitive, practical and correct definition of the big picture concept. It also explains why it is so important and how to use it. Keep in mind that this study is being updated on our website where you can view the training videos and power point slides - the next update is scheduled for this month. This is a huge study and will offer the most realistic training for both consultants and industry professionals. Pure corporate strategy studies are rare. This is a unique training opportunity. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry 

Welcome to the 44th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study. In this phase of the podcast series we are focusing on week 4 when we are bringing the entire leadership team together to help them make one decision. The only decision they have to make is: "Should Empire International focus on the non-regulated non-core activities as they are now doing or refocus their efforts to support Empire Energy on their core regulated business: generating energy, transmitting energy and distributing energy?" In today’s podcast, while we are heavily focused on week 4 and the build up to that major visioning workshop, we step back to understand a little bit of the broader contextual issues facing this client. If you have been following this podcast series you will realize that there are 2 criteria that must be met for any strategy study to be a corporate level strategy study. The first one is the objective function for the client, the key question for the client, must be unclear. If the objective function

Welcome to the 43rd podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study. In today’s podcast we will talk about about general professional values or etiquette that consultants should apply on an engagement. We specifically discuss things that consultants sometimes do on studies that may alienate the client. And rather than talking about every single thing you need to avoid, we will talk about some principles. And these principles apply across every issue. We also discuss how to address a situation where a consultant’s behaviour is incompatible with the firm’s professional values. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn WANT TO LEARN FROM FORMER STRATEGY PARTNERS? REFER TO THE FIRMSCONSULTING ORIGINAL TRAINING PROGRAMS.

Welcome to the 42nd podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study. What I noticed on this, and other studies, is that the associates and business analysts are very competitive, in a way that is damaging to clients, to the firm and to their own careers. I am fine with consultants being competitive but I think they go about it the wrong way. You can be competitive and work long hours but you should not seem to be competitive when you are working long hours. I am not saying don't work long hours. Yet, don't make it sound like you are competitive and that is why you are working long hours. Cause and effect matters. If you work hard to be competitive, people see you as someone who is working hard only because you want to get promoted and only because you want to stand out from everyone else. These consultants tend to be so obsessed with telling people how committed they are that they are moving away from the objective of getting the right work done. No one likes someone who is competitive for the sa

Welcome to the 41th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and we remain in week 4. Promoting women into leadership roles is a hot topic and, sadly, a debate. Why is it a debate? What are the elements that require further analysis? To paraphrase Marvin Bower, one does not ask a client if a woman should take over the relationship, one simply tells a client a woman is taking over. It is not the client’s job to decide what is right. In this podcast we explain why we have more female than male partners at FC and how we constantly develop them to serve in more and more senior roles. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study.   SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn WANT TO LEARN FROM FORMER STRATEGY PARTNERS? REFER TO THE FIRMSCONSULTING ORIGINAL TRAINING PROGRAMS.

Welcome to the 40th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and we remain in week 4.  In this podcast we explain how leadership is defined at great firms like McKinsey and BCG, and how we also manage leadership transition at FC. It will surprise you to see how different the mindset can be and that we think about these issues all the time.  The most important role of a partner is to leave the firm in a better place than when she/he joined, and to hand over a client relationship to a newer partner. The ability to maintain this cycle is critical.  If the mechanism is not there, even proud and great firms suffer during leadership changes. You want to avoid that. The cycle must be continuous.  SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn For more details on how to conduct strategy, operations or implementation consulting studies refer to the Firmsconsulting Original Training Programs.

In today’s podcast we step away from Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and discuss something that affects every single consultant in the world. And that is the issue of confidence, or even arrogance, and the role it plays in getting results on a consulting engagement. We discuss the role confidence plays in your career. We look at what actually creates competitive advantage in your career. We further look at an example that showcases the limited value of confidence on a consulting engagement.  SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn For more details on how to conduct strategy, operations or implementation consulting studies refer to the Firmsconsulting Original Training Programs.

Welcome to the 38th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and we remain in week 4. As we teach in all the Executive Program studies, every study must begin with a top-down analyses. In fact, a rule of thumb is that a study without a top-down analysis phase is likely doing too much, lacks focus and possibly wasting time. This always turns out to be true. In this podcast we explain how benchmarking analysis, or what is also called best practice analysis, should be used for the top-down analysis and why they are so difficult to manage on a real study. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn  

Welcome to the 37th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and we remain in week 4. Let’s be honest. Most consultants simply go into Google and search for any reports / analyses to compile market trends/an industry analysis fact pack. In other words, they do not put much thought into it beyond ensuring they are not caught for plagiarism. This is because many consultants think of the market trends or industry analysis as an output to deliver, which will never be used, and it does not matter what comprises the analysis. This podcast discusses how/why we built a bespoke market trends pack for the client addressing the issues important to them and them only. We used this market trends analysis to guide the executives on the issues we considered important to their strategy. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

Welcome to the 36th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and we continue discussing the critical 4th week visioning workshop. We now into discussing each of the components that went into the visioning workshop. In today's podcast we are going to focus on value chain analysis, from the customer perspective. A proper value chain analysis highlights profit pools in a sector. This analysis cannot be bought from any 3rd party firm and is incredibly difficult to conduct. It requires deliberate and focused detective work. In this podcast we discuss how we conducted the value chain analysis and why it was so critical to the study. This was one of the most important parts of the study. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

Welcome to the 35th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and we remain focused on the big 4th week visioning workshop. A large part of the visioning workshop is presenting case studies highlighting the successes and failures of similar companies. In this podcast we discuss a special type of case study called a period case study which is significantly harder to do, but incredibly useful. Most consultants prefer case studying the latest and greatest fad, which is extremely misleading, as explained in this podcast. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn  

Welcome to the 34th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and a major focus on Week 4 over the next few podcasts. This is a big week since it is the first visioning workshop with a client. This week is important. If you ever want to run strategy planning for a Fortune 500 company, you must understand this process very, very well. If you do not understand this process, you will struggle to run strategy planning exercises for the CEO, board or management committee. We discuss the overall visioning process in this workshop and in the subsequent podcasts discuss each component of the workshop in more detail. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study.   SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn  

Welcome to the 33rd podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study. In this podcast we discuss the tough work being done by the Organizational Design team. We discuss the three tensions which drive all Organizational Design recommendations and the trade-offs required. We also discuss the most important requirement to implement a new culture and structure at any company, and it is quite simple to do. As you will see, the Organizational Design stream is struggling on the study. Click here to see the full Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and here to see the merger study and market entry study. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

In this podcast we discuss the 3 career path options that consultants face once they become partners. We discuss each career path and what it means for a consultant's career. These are differences that are crucial to know and understand because partner career paths that appear to be more attractive often lead to disappointing results. For example, did you know it is a really bad idea to emulate the career path of all the McKinsey and BCG partners who appear in the McKinsey Quarterly, BCG perspectives and HBR? This counter-intuitive podcast will explain why. Many consultants don't spend enough time analyzing and considering the implications of following each career path. They take a superficial look at who are the partners most known and respected within the firm, and try to emulate those partners. Yet, down the road, they often end up at a dead end. We further address which partner career path you should follow if your goal is to become a CEO one day. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY

Welcome to the 32nd podcast on the power sector study. As you know, we are building up towards the update for week 4, when the corporate strategy planning workshop will take place. Today's podcast is not about the study. Instead, we are going to talk about one of the issues that we deal with at Firmsconsulting and which many ex employees of major consulting firms (e.g. ex McKinsey and ex BCG consultants) encounter as they embark on building their own boutique consulting firms or even when they join other consulting firm as employees. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn  

How do you become an outstanding management consultant? Should you excel at analysis? Should you master problem solving? Should you become the world's most gifted communicator? You could master all of the aforementioned items and still be an average management consultant at best. Great management consultants have all these skills but they have one more quality that makes them great, they are not just competent business people but they are also artists. In this podcast we explain the mindset we encourage teams to use on the study. This is the mindset I used in my career and it is very different from what you would expect. If you enjoyed this conversation we will be so grateful if you jump over to iTunes and share a quick review. It helps more people find us. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING www.firmsconsulting.com COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

This is the next podcast discussing the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study.  In this podcast we use economics to explain what is the role of government, when governments should intervene, how they should intervene and when they should hand over certain activities to the private sector. If you want to further your understanding of strategy at the highest possible level you should listen to this. If you enjoyed this conversation we will be so grateful if you jump over to iTunes and share a quick review. It helps more people find us.  Also a huge thank you for making “Strategy Skills” one of the most popular podcasts in the world for careers.  SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING www.firmsconsulting.com COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn