The core skills that all consultants must master
The core skills that all consultants must master
And how getting up the learning curve faster unlocks huge profit potential
On a call with a client recently, I asked what he needed.
“I just need my team to be a bit less sh*t!”
This is a common frustration. When a consulting team have gaps in their skills or capabilities, Partners can be pulled into delivery and away from being able to focus on growth. The project leaks profit (Partner time doesn’t come cheap!), and the client relationship can take a hit as they, also, start to lack trust in the team.
In a way, all consulting team skill development is ultimately about freeing up Partner time so they can focus on growth.
Ensuring all of your team have core consulting skills firmly in place can be a game changer. The team are confident, competent, and motivated. The Partners can focus their energy on things that will drive the firm forward.
To address what core consulting skills are, I want to take a moment to consider a (much debated) question: What is a consultant?
I have come to define it this way.
Consultants help solve difficult problems and build trust,
so people can take action with confidence.
If you are working on a problem with your client, they haven't been able to solve it without your help. So it's a difficult problem. They are going to need to take decisions that lead to action. They will only take those decisions if they trust your recommendations.
And the word ‘people’ is key - this is a people business, where building relationships is a critical skill.
So, what are core consulting skills?
Core consulting skills, therefore, are the skills required to solve difficult client problems, build trust, and help people feel confident to take action.
On our Skills Competency Framework, these core skills would fall into the Deliver zone. For those new to consulting, the primary aim of development in this area is to get teams up the learning curve quickly, maximise return-on-effort, and ensure they are more effective for clients, faster.
For more experienced consultants this is about developing mastery - finding innovative or creative solutions for clients, doing all the little 1% actions that make your clients feel special, being able to command a room and tell a compelling story that wins hearts as well as minds.
The consulting case process
When delivering a consulting project, we typically see four phases to the work. That could be across a whole project or it could be iterative cycles - every decision a client needs to make can be improved by running through these steps.
Those phases are;
Framing the issue,
Structuring an approach,
Doing the work,
Creating a compelling recommendation.
Across all four phases are activities that go into building trust with your clients - and other stakeholders. Failing to do that can cause you major problems!
I was doing a project for a well-known retail chain once, specifically focused on their strategic choices for their business in Ireland. We aligned on the question to address, I developed a hypothesis and cracked on with the work. My recommendation at the end included an upgrade to their mobile user experience, and I had a specific solution for them to implement.
I got the business case all signed off, right up to the CFO. But, I made an error: I hadn’t engaged the team that would actually do the work to put the solution into practice. The result of my failure to build trust with them? Project blocked, major delays, and ultimately a big hit to the impact I delivered.
One thing to note. A lot of these skills are broadly applicable across most consulting projects. The one that stands out is ‘Doing the work’. This means very different things to each of our clients. The way consultancy firms ‘do the work’ is their differentiation. Their secret sauce.
You need to master that, and also wrap the other core consulting skills around it. The process helps everybody.
If your team all have the necessary core consulting skills, they will be competent across the four phases of a consulting process. They will solve the difficult problem, build trust, and give clients confidence to act.
If they are doing this, they are delivering. And the Partners won’t feel a need to get sucked in.
Effective teams = less leadership time on delivery = profit growth.
Developing core capability through training
‘Developing capability’ is a positive spin on ‘being less sh*t’. Our clients often have an understanding of where things are breaking down for them in the consulting case process. They tell me things like,
‘I have to spend a lot of time red-penning the slides my team produce.’
‘Our thinking isn’t well structured - we lose focus on what really matters for our clients.’
‘We struggle to get to the “so what” of our analysis and bring it to life.’
‘I need my junior team to be more confident when they’re dealing with clients.’
Understanding the specific skill gaps enables focused training interventions in the areas that people need it most. That supports their development, gets them up the learning curve quickly, and helps retain them - that sense of getting better at something is a great motivator.
You can think of this as applying oil on just the right cog to stop the machine grinding and enable it to spring into action.
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