Consulting vs Banking - Some Thoughts

So I have alluded to many times that I will blog about the difference between bankers and consultants. We all know that there is an age old rivalry between bankers and consultants, as typified in the hilarious and oft-cited video below.

Now, my AV skills were tapped out creating a 21^st video for my bro so I won’t be dazzling you with my own musical today (legions of music appreciating fans heave a sigh of relief). Additionally, I find the process of writing b-school essays has sucked every last bit of my will to write extensively, so I am not going to offer you the comprehensive comparison you might be expecting. Instead, I thought I would focus on one question – What can consultants and bankers learn from each other?

So, in my limited experience, I think I have an answer to this question from both perspectives. From the consultants side, I think what we can learn is the concept of materiality. Bankers are concerned with money on the table, and they realise that small differences typically have little effect on the big picture. Consultants on the other hand care about literally every little thing. Bankers use the term materiality to denote a concept whereby they will focus only on the stuff that actually will really shift value. If you are reading closely this is of course an extension of the 80:20 rule – which is always on the tip of consultant’s tongues, but somehow goes out the window when your engagement manager is asking you to align boxes at 2am. If we focused only on appropriate levels of detail, our lives would much easier, without any reduction in client service.

From the banker’s side, I think they could stand to learn how to tell a story much better. For consultants, telling a story is at the heart of what we do. We gather facts, do analysis and make recommendations, but at the heart of what we do is taking the client on a journey such that by the end of the case, they are fully bought in to the result. See Steve Shu’s post on the topic for more detail. Bankers have the recommendation part down cold as you would expect, but from my experience they don’t do enough to get the client bought in – I think it would greatly improve the quality of some of their work.

Anyway there are my two cents. Anybody have thoughts on the topic?

Considering Consulting

Hey all,

Have a look at this new blog - its by a guy who is in the midst of the application process for a number of the bigger strat houses. I get a couple of emails from readers every now and then asking for advice on this process - I suggest you use this site as a resource as well.

http://consideringconsulting.blogspot.com/

Jumping on the bandwagon

I have succumbed, and am now on Twitter. I suspect my initial tweets will be random complaints about my job, but bear with me and I am sure they will get better. I have found two of the 'Insider Community' but anyone else, please jump on board.

I'm back, and musings on managing consultants

So after excessive time away, I am finally back to writing this blog. I wish I could tell you that in the last 2 months, I have finished all my essays and am ready to go with b-school apps - but that would be a lie. Its mainly been a combination of busy projects, and believe it or not an actual social life.

So today I thought I would pose the question - what makes a perfect engagement / job / project / case manager?

There are, in my view a couple of archetypes. Note the definition of archetype – these are extreme examples. Any evident bitterness is my own, and not referable to any one particular manager J

1) The Micro-Manager (MM)

This person loves the detail, and doesn’t trust their team. They want to know what is happening every hour of every day, and if you have a meeting, they want to be in it too. Only really good thing about the micro manager is that the poor worker can disengage their brain – they won’t be needing to be the excel / ppt monkey this manager desires

2) The Insecure Competitor (IC)

This person is really worried that his or her team is actually better at the consulting gig than they are. Typical motivations for this include a recent promotion, a recent failed attempt at promotion, or general lack of faith in their own abilities. The Insecure Competitor (IC) exhibits many traits of the Micro-Manager, but adds a veneer of competitiveness – the team shouldn’t bother to have ideas because the IC will always trump them, even when the replacement idea is worse. In meetings, the team can try get a word in edgeways, but the IC will inevitably be there first. The worst part is, the IC will always take credit for your work

3) Content Free, Hands Off (CHFO)

The CFHO is a great believer in laissez-faire economics, without really understanding the implications of said theory. He or she will let the poor consultant “manage their own work”. No help is offered, and in my opinion no value is delivered. No one really knows what the CFHO does with their time.

I think though that a really good consulting manager has to combine characteristics of all three archetypes – the content knowledge of the MM, the thought leadership of the IC, and the independence for the team of the CFHO.

To be fair, it’s a tough gig – there is a reason why the case manager level is widely known as the worst level in terms of rewards v work across many consulting firms.

Any thoughts on this? Does anyone have a different type in mind?

Finally, we get a movie ...

So I heard about this movie - Up in the Air. It stars George Clooney as a management consultant, "trying to get 1 million frequent flyer miles". Should be interesting.

Anyone from Toronto? - apparently it is premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival from September 10-19. If someone here goes to see it, perhaps they could a write a review as a guest post? Or at least let us all know in the comments what its like.

I have been jokingly thinking about a consulting movie, given I am working in the film industry at the moment. As per usual, someone else has stolen my idea :)

One more thing ...

A codicil to the last post. Turns out my "team", the junior consultant, has been pulled to a billable project. I am so screwed. Looks like I will be pushing back some business school apps to round 2. Fun times.

Managing Teams

So for the past couple of weeks (actually a month now that I think about it), I have been working on what I had thought would be a nice easy pro bono project in the world of film. Unfortunately, it seems nothing is ever nice and easy in the world of consulting.

The seniors on the project decided in their infinite wisdom that given the low risk nature of the assignment, they would assign a lowly senior consultant (me), to run the damn thing. This has meant that, for no more incentives, I have been stressing for the last four weeks like never before.

I never quite appreciated the jolt to the heart a manager gets when the junior consultant cant answer questions about the numbers, or presents numbers that change day to day with no good reason. Maybe I am too invested in it, or have too high expectations, but sometimes I feel like I just need to grab control of all the detailed work myself, so I know its right.

This is balanced by my desire to not emulate the worst job managers I have worked with. I have no desire to be the work until 2am guy (even though we did that a couple of days ago), and I find the idea of making people work on the weekend abhorrent. I worry sometimes though that in my desire to be an nice guy, I am not sufficiently preparing my junior consultant for the rigours of real world consulting.

All in all, I think its been a formative experience, although one that is not over yet. Due to the size of our organisation, this will probably be a rare event until a promotion or two away, but I think I will take away some valuable lessons on managing people. I haven’t got enough distance yet to work out what those are, but I will post when I do. Any thoughts would be welcome.

Next post – a discussion on an interesting quirk on the film distribution industry.