Self-aware consultant: 4 layers to dig deeper
The best consultants have a deep awareness of their inner world
Why am I talking about self-awareness for consultants? Simply put, I think it's critical to cultivate a deep level of self-awareness if you want to become a consulting master.
I'm going to talk about digging deep into who you really are, facing into your shadows, and building a new sense of peace in the world.
But first, let's discuss why this matters for consultants.
Becoming a world-class consultant requires mastery of a complex mix of skills. It's not enough to just be...
A brilliant analyst... if you can't motivate people to take decisions
An empath with clients... if your recommendations suck
A world-class individual contributor... if you can't help others develop
Building out that set of skills takes time. Experience. Exposure to different environments. Lots of reps to hone your capabilities past the foundations into more nuanced and sophisticated applications.
As your career progresses you'll need to be adept in an increasingly complex set of situations. Different sectors, different client problems. New technologies or regulations to understand. Moving from delivery to business development to running the firm, if that's the path you choose.
You'll learn a lot through time at the coal face. Hours spent in that sweet spot for learning where you feel on the edge of your abilities, but fully supported by your colleagues. This life-long learning and development is part of what makes consulting a fun career for a lot of people.
There is no substitute for that time doing live client work. This is an apprenticeship business after all.
I'm going to make the case that you'll learn a lot more, and faster, if you actively seek to foster an unusually deep level of self-awareness.
After all, 90% of people are less self-aware than they think. Are you one of them?
Awareness... of what?
When we think about consulting you can broadly split the skills you need into hard skills and soft skills.
Figuring out your hard skills gaps is relatively simple (but get in touch if you do want some help with that), and closing them is generally a question of training & practice.
In fact, there are some who argue any skill can be learnt to a basic level of proficiency in just 20 hours of practice:
Tangent: This brings to mind the tag line for the board game Othello: "A minute to learn... a lifetime to master"
Soft skills are a bit harder to pin down, but the best consultants are masters at them. These are things like active listening, empathy, ways to influence individuals or groups.
Those gaps are often not captured quite as precisely in your firm's competency framework (your firm does have a competency framework, right? If not we can help), but you're still likely to get feedback from your colleagues - particularly when something goes wrong!
Like that time I, as a nervous Associate Consultant at Bain, kept using the word 'nerdy' to describe my science background - in a meeting room full of scientists. The Partner gave me some pretty clear feedback after that one...
If you're not getting that feedback then seek it out - particularly from your clients where you have built some lasting trust. I like to ask four questions when seeking this type of feedback after a meeting:
Did you feel listened to?
Did I help you make a decision?
How did you experience me?
What might have helped get a better result?
To get that feedback you need a good relationship, based on trust. The good news is that taking the risk of asking for feedback like that is a great way of building emotional intimacy - one of the cornerstones of trustworthiness:
So, you can build some awareness of your strengths and gaps around the hard and soft skills that consultants need. Doing that is useful. Necessary even, if you want to be excellent at consulting.
But, for me, there is a third leg to self-awareness that is more foundational. That is awareness of your internal world.
The emotions you experience have a profound impact on how you see the world, how you behave, and how others experience you. Understanding how, and why, those emotions come up is the foundation of true self-awareness.
Similarly, your ability to hold other peoples' emotions, or not, can make or break your effectiveness as a consultant.
If a client triggers you - maybe through anger, or criticism - it can stop you thinking straight. You may react in ways you don't want to.
This could be slipping into JADE behaviours, where you find yourself Justifying, Arguing, Defending your actions or Explaining away their concerns.
Maybe you end up on the Drama Triangle, getting suckered into rescuing a client from themselves and robbing them of a chance to learn.
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To be fully rounded, mature and masterful as a consultant you need to develop deep awareness of your internal world so you can truly be there for others
After all, the heart of consulting is helping other people.
4 levels to build deep self-awareness
We can look at this on a few levels. Think of it as steps down, getting a little deeper into your unconscious inner world each time.
Level 1: Measure
Level 2: Track
Level 3: Reflect
Level 4: Crack
Most important is to remember that these are just tools that give your some data points. They provide pieces of information that may be useful to you. They must be put into context, made practical, tested in the real world, for you to get the benefit from them.
The entry point - Level 1: Measure - is knowing your personality and how it differs from others. The gold standard for this is the Big Five personality traits, or you can get valuable insights from MBTI, Colours or other systems that are based on Jungian archetypes.
If you're used to MBTI you could try a measure that gets a little deeper - like the Vertical Mindset Indicator which measure your internal capacity through three lenses - Mindset, Opportunities, and Culture.
The next level down - Level 2: Track - pushes past these point-in-time measures into a habit of tracking yourself over time. Journaling is a powerful tool to establish a regular practice of self-reflection. At it's simplest, just write down how you're feeling each day with a few notes.
I like to use the PIES framework for this, and give myself a rating out of 5 in each area - Physical, Intellectual, Emotional or Spiritual. I do this as part of my morning routine.
For many consultants, the Physical and Intellectual levels are easy to tap into. We tend to be in our heads a lot. Push yourself to connect with the Emotional levels - what are you feeling? How does it show up in your body? When and where did you feel that most intensely?
Ideally, try to connect right back to one of the four foundational feelings - Sadness, Anger, Fear, or Joy.
To dig deeper beyond this - into Level 3: Reflect - you'll likely need some help. Looking in the mirror and reflecting by yourself is valuable, don't get me wrong, but everyone has blind spots, shadows and 'unknown unknowns'.
To access those hidden parts you'll need to spend time with an experienced coach or therapist. Preferably one who understands the nature of consulting and client relationships (we have a couple of great coaches in our training team).
I'm a massive believer that everyone will get benefit from spending time with a decent therapist. There is no simpler and more effective tool to shine a light on your internal world. Supplementing this with regular talking circles - groups of people committed to supporting & challenging each other - is also a great shout.
Those three levels will already set you apart as someone with a unusual level of self-awareness. But, it doesn't stop there. Some of you will reach a point where you want to take the final step down - into Level 4: Crack
(By the way, I named this after the beautiful P!NK lyric from All I Know So Far: "Let the walls crack, 'cause it lets the light in")
The best method I know for this is a thing called Shadow work.
Carl Jung formulated the idea of a shadow that we all have. This is the parts of us we hide, repress and deny, to ourselves and others. The parts of us that react with fear or anger when we feel challenged.
Ever get irrationally emotional by something a client has said to you? I know I have. Chances are you were triggered and regressed to some younger place where someone (often a parent) spoke to you in a similar way and made you feel shit.
Our shadows are mostly established in childhood, and everyone has them (yes, it's ok to realise that your perfect childhood left you with scars, it's impossible for even the best parents to avoid).
Shadow work is digging into those places and cracking yourself open to bring those parts you hide, repress and deny into the light of self-awareness.
Shadow work takes individual therapy to a much deeper level. It can be effective 1-2-1 but is best done in groups, on retreats. The group of people, working together with vulnerability and courage, create a safe space for people to take risks and dig deep. This work can be emotionally draining. It is not easy.
If you're interested in learning more about these kind of experiences great starting points are The Mankind Project (where I volunteer as staff), Woman Within, Celebration of Being, or the Unmasked Man.
So, those are the four levels of deep self-awareness: Measure, Track, Reflect, Crack.
Can you be an effective consultant without developing your self-awareness all the way to level 4? Sure. To an extent.
But if you want to calmly navigate the most challenging client situations, learn at pace, build a more sustainable life, and be more creative in how you solve problems - I'd argue that getting to know yourself in a deep way is necessary.
In the Mankind Project we call it doing the Work.
My own journey into self-awareness at this level has been life-changing, both personally and professionally. I love this work.
Deri.
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