Kendall Consulting Group - Skills and Competencies Innovation Article
Skills and Competencies of Successful Consultants
Over the years many clients have observed that their organizations would benefit from having the same skills as the outside consultants they hire. This article addresses the skill set of the consultant and what organizations must do to develop this capability in house.
What makes a good consultant? A depth of experience acquired from many client situations. Yes!
But it is much more than that.
Good consultants also have a particular style, skills and temperament, most of which can be learned. If you want to give education or training to someone to improve their "consulting skills," what then are the best areas to focus on? Further, you might ask yourself, "Would I make a good consultant?" "Can I train some of my most promising people as consultants?" These questions (and many similar ones) have been posed to us during our careers in the consulting field. Further, as leaders of consulting organizations with many other people in them, we also had an obligation to help our staffs upgrade their skills and to set standards to evaluate their performance.
At first, our main method was direct mentoring. But, this limited growth to just the few people we could routinely see. Later, we started teaching consulting skills to groups, both to our colleagues and to some of our clients who wanted to establish consulting capabilities within their businesses. (Some of those clients wanted to create an internal consulting organization or train key staff; others wanted to add consulting services to their existing product and service portfolio.)
In the early 1980s, the consulting firm we were working with created a ‘skills ladder’. It was rudimentary, but did help explain to a wide cross-section of staff in the firm what senior management’s expectations were regarding skill development. We refined this ladder over time and a more recent version of this simple model is shown in Figure 1. At that time, details of the skills were not defined in any greater detail.
Figure 1 - Early Consulting Skills Model (Now replaced by model below)
In the early 1990s, the authors began working with competency models. We learned how to build these models and built many of them for key management positions in our client’s organizations. When it was remarked that we were the cobbler’s shoeless children, we finally built a model for ourselves. The model evolved to incorporate eleven major skill or knowledge areas.
1. Specific and general consulting knowledge
2. Complex problem solving and reasoning ability
3. Client and results orientation
4. Effective Interpersonal Communications
5. Packaging, Presentation, and Facilitation
6. Planning and Project Management
7. Teaming
8. Office and Personal Administration
9. Management of Commitments
10. Firm and Business Development
11. Client Development
Our experience is that consultants may have several different roles in any particular client engagement and the mix of skills may vary in degree for various situations. Nevertheless, this list of competencies has proven the test of time almost regardless of role.
The remainder of this paper summarizes each of these areas, and points to where in someone’s consulting career the competency should become well developed.
1. Specific and general consulting knowledge
Consultants should be both specialists and generalists. General consulting knowledge has often been characterized within the consulting field as "MBA skills," meaning the type of general business knowledge a freshly minted MBA would possess. This knowledge touches on virtually all aspects of running a business and understanding how the interdependent departments in a business must operate and integrate.
The range of this general knowledge touches on human resources, finance, marketing and sales, customer service, distribution and logistics, production and operations, purchasing, R&D, licensing, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, and many other areas. While good consultants possess this general knowledge in sufficient depth, they should also have some specialist skills. These can be in depth knowledge in one or more of the business functions just mentioned, or far more detailed knowledge of how these functions work and integrate in a particular industry (e.g., medical care, financial services, or manufacturing).
Detailed industry knowledge would also be demonstrated by knowledge of how the entire industry segment is functioning in the economy and what the global performance drivers are. In our experience, the more senior consultants rapidly acquire the general knowledge base early in their careers and they built specialties in several functions and industries (plural!) as they continued to practice.
2. Complex problem solving and reasoning ability
Clients don’t hire consultants to solve simple problems. The situations they invite us to participate in are multi-faceted problems, usually with a large human relations component. Consultants must be able to comfortably face and effectively deal with the complex situation of their clients. They must be conversant enough in the fundamentals of the business so they can speak the executive’s ‘language’, and demonstrate clear understanding of the problem.
To do this they need a well-spring of experience, methodologies, and frameworks to draw upon. Further, they must deal flexibly with these as the client engagement develops and changes over time. Shortcuts to developing experience are hard to find. However, there are a limited number of analysis methods and frameworks that have proven particularly useful in the consulting profession. Taught contextually, the developing consultant gains significant depth in a shorter time. By the time a consultant is mid-career, he or she should have learned most of these, and like senior level consultants should be able to create their own methodologies, approaches and frameworks to fit a client situation and solve their complex problems.
3. Client and results orientation
The words "value added" are particularly vital for an effective consultant. Simply stated, consultants must demonstrate their bottom line contribution or value in all that they do. Without this focus or way of thinking, a consultant will generate sub-optimum solutions for a client, or mistake activity for results. Consultants with this orientation are self-starters, who create their own urgency for delivering value to their clients. They will go beyond the usual to try to produce miracles for their clients. With this mindset, they will pay attention to the little details that can help move an engagement from a committed start through to a successful completion.
This orientation may seem obvious but it plays out in its subtleties. Consultants must focus on the client both as a company with a complex problem and as individuals that have not only functional roles but also personal lives and needs as well. They need also to understand that the results or solutions that they suggest must fit into both the company and the individual situations within it.
Finally, good consultants avoid "going native" where they accept the constraints and beliefs of the clients, and losing their own objectivity to the client environment. They must develop the ability to see the true realities of the business versus those things which client staff may "believe" to be realities.
4. Effective Interpersonal Communications
Consultants are expected to be able to communicate in a highly effective manner with the client, colleagues, and others in the business environment. They must inform, persuade, convince, educate and train various individuals all within the context of and simultaneous with their work.
Credibility and trust are key components of consultant success. The consultant cannot function without them. Every time a consultant speaks he or she must bear this in mind. It follows then that they must thus be fast thinkers and highly articulate in a way that earns the respect of others. They must deal professionally, comfortably and honestly with all levels and areas of company; and communicate openly and effectively with needs, issues and problems that are part of the engagement.
Consultants must be active and deep listeners, and they must be able to rapidly synthesize and articulate ideas, plans or conclusions. Since much communication is non-verbal, a good consultant must be able to discern nuances in the messages that others send.
Empathy is an important part of this skill. Consultants must be able to see things from each individual’s perspective and be sensitive to the emotional "buttons" that various situations hold for their clients. Effective consultants adapt their own communications methods and style to the situation to achieve desirable results.
Skilled consultants are skilled at conflict resolution and negotiation. They comfortably confront issues and problems with others and search for "win-win" resolution or solutions. They have a mindset that stresses honest, caring, proactive and upbeat communications.
In total, communications is an area where coaching by senior consultants can be exceptionally helpful in developing junior staff. In our firm, we have consistently invited others to critique our approaches and style in this area.
5. Packaging, Presentation, and Facilitation
Another aspect of credibility and trust building is the ability to create lasting impressions with the client in all formal communications. Letters, reports and presentations will remain with the client after the consultant has left and should continue to add value and communicate well the intended messages. Consultants must be exceptionally logical, meticulous and lucid in how they write. They must be able to understand the intended audience for their work and be able to tailor their deliverables to best reach that audience. They must be able to create and edit their own work and that of others, so that powerful and persuasive points have the desirable impact.
The consultant must also have a repertoire of stories that can be used to effectively amplify key messages to their clients — he or she needs to be a great storyteller.
Consultants are also facile presenters, at ease with one person, a small team, or an audience of several hundred. They must be capable effective facilitators for a team of client staff helping them reach conclusions on their own or leading them to a solution.
Since many of these skills are experiential, we see them as key training areas for developing consultants. Often this means that an experienced consultant acts as a coach to a junior consultant providing on-the-job experience in the real context of a client situation.
6. Planning and Project Management
Good consultants see many possible ways to satisfy clients needs. They must be capable of picking the best option for the client and creating a viable plan to add value using that option. The must also be capable of implementing that plan of action while coping with the myriad of issues, conflicts, problems, resource fluctuations, and other unforeseen events to deliver the promised value-add result on time and in budget. Further, all of this activity must seem like the operation of a well-oiled machine to the client.
Such skills are more than simply creating project activities and delegating them out to project participants. The consultant needs to create a collaborative approach to the derived solution. The project management approach must engender contribution and buy-in, and ensure implementation by the client and other colleagues on the team. Good project management calls for high levels of communications between team members. Our consultant must be able to sustain this while driving the project forward.
Finally, effective consultants must manage the expectations of the clients during the project. A lead consultant must able to achieve a balance between the pragmatic "get it done" and yet be open enough to accommodate changes that makes sense. Keeping client expectations realistic and within the realm of what will really be achieved requires thought and planning, and a high level of communications. While neophyte consultants often appreciate the mechanics of planning and project management, we usually see the communications and interpersonal aspects of this competency only developed in more senior consultants who have learned the importance of interaction as part of this key skill area.
7. Teaming
Rare is the consulting job where the request for a sought after result is tossed over a virtual wall to a consultant, who then toils away in isolation to produce a result which then gets delivered back over the wall. Today’s consultants join the client organization in some way, often as team members, who must then guide, lead from the rear, and help deliver the desired results. Top consultants must thus fit in not only with each other but also with those they work with in the client company. They must lead and simultaneously serve. They should foster teamwork amongst others, deal with conflict, and build "win-win" solutions all while moving a project forward.
One beneficial aspect we see is the ability of these team players to make their clients look good as they do whatever is necessary to make their client’s project a success.
8. Office and Personal Administration
Consulting firms depend on good back office operations, and consultants must meet these administrative needs as well as the needs of their clients. They must keep their firm’s management apprised of problems or issues. They need to ensure that reporting requirements are met in a timely and complete manner up to date. They should use administrative staff to optimally leverage themselves. This includes time and expense reporting in order to insure that a client is billed in a timely and complete manner as well.
Good consultants act to maximize firm revenues and profitability. They work harmoniously with colleagues and can adjust their style and behavior to fit into the rest of the firm. Further, they give and receive criticism in constructive ways so that the quality of the work in the firm continues to improve.
9. Management of Commitments
Most of the consultants we know are go-getters with a great sense of delivering value. They want to help. They avoid saying "no" to any request of a client, figuring they will find a way. Unfortunately, this can lead to personal over commitment impact the individual’s performance, or personal or family life. Good consultants, then, have learned a sense of balance between their work, family, and personal lives. They have also learned to say "no" when the situation warrants.
Managing commitments also means keeping colleagues informed of issues or problems so that there are "no surprises" when it comes to meeting a commitment. Commitments to friends or colleagues are as important as those made to clients. New consultants often have trouble dealing with the management of commitments, and this is one area where mentoring by more senior staff can help in the personal growth of new consultants.
10. Firm and Business Development
As consultants become more experienced and seasoned they should become more of a leader in the development of the firm, its staff and its business. Continuous self-development or self-renewal is essential for every consultant as is the role of helping to develop others in the company.
Successful consultants understand that firm and business development is a team effort. Thus, they will actively work at building and implementing marketing and sales programs, help develop these skills in themselves and others, and be leaders to use these effectively in client situations.
Consultants take advantage of business development opportunities that are the result of a marketing campaign but they are also opportunistic. They can see "follow-on" work where their firm can add value and professionally suggest these to a client. They are constantly sensitive to client needs.
Of course, consultants must be capable of preparing and delivering well-written and powerful proposals that successfully sell the firm's services. They must become skilled in sales and marketing visits. They must be able to rapidly sense client needs and suggest courses of actions that the firm can support or lead. Our experience in selling professional services is that this is better done by more seasoned consultants. Less senior staff, however, should be well educated in the concepts and given the chance to develop their confidence in this area.
11. Client Development
The last competency area for this paper involves helping to move an entire client company forward over time, not just in the limited areas of a particular project. Skilled consultants build and maintain their own relationships with client team members and executives. They always represent themselves and their firm in a professional and appropriate manner looking for ways to add value. They consistently work with best interests of a client and the client company in mind, often transferring knowledge to clients. They apply the same zeal in developing their individual clients as they do to their own careers and firm. This too is an area where coaching by senior consultants can help develop the right behaviors, skills and mindset in new consultants.
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At Kendall Consulting Group we have used these competencies to successfully develop both internal and client consulting staff. These areas have formed the basis for many deep discussions within the firm that has helped promulgate a consultative mindset. We invite your questions and comments as well as any suggestions for improving the model. If you would like to talk further about the above model and how it might be used within your own organization, we also hope you will contact us.
Kendall Consulting Group
566 South Spoonbill Drive
Sarasota, FL 34236-1820
(941) 366-1774 or (978) 474-9109
Contact us at: info@kendall-consulting.com
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Good consultants also have a particular style, skills and temperament, most of which can be learned.
Our experience is that consultants may have several different roles in any particular client engagement and the mix of skills may vary in degree for various situations.
Consultants must focus on the client both as a company with a complex problem and as individuals that have not only functional roles but also personal lives and needs as well.
Empathy is an important part of effective interpersonal communications
A consultant must also have a repertoire of stories
Links to other articles at KCG's website
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• Skills and Competencies of Successful
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• Consulting Skills Development Experience
• Effective
Uses of I.T. Staff as Internal Consultants
• Strategy Implementation
• Visit
to an Operational Excellent Company
• Organizational Due Diligence (Mergers and
Acquisitions)
• Principle Driven Operations
• Change Management
• Education's Role in Change Management
• Communications and Change Management
• Value Disciplines
• Role of IS Strategy in Making Market Leaders
• Strategic Planning and Change Mobilization
• Project Management
• Grow Your Own Consultants
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• Designing
Executive Information Systems
• Executive Information Systems: An
Overview of Development
• Implications of Transition From an
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• Critical Success Factors Techniques
can Apply to Team Management, Too
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System Meets Business Needs
• Critical Success Factors : Helping
IS Managers Pinpoint Information Needs
• Combining Quality and Reengineering
for Operational Superiority
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Software Selection
Kendall Consulting Group is an international general management consulting firm specializing in strategy execution, change management, and executive education. We invite you to contact us for how we might help you and your company grow and prosper.
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