The importance of being selfish

As I recover from the rigours of the business school app process (no news yet, but I will update you once I know), I have begun putting together my thoughts on how the process has affected me. Its not finished yet, but in the meantime, find below some thoughts that recently coalesced while “mentoring” a junior colleague.

Talking to a colleague the other day, it struck me that one of they key things you need to learn in a consulting firm is that you need to be at least a little selfish to survive. As an incoming grad, its easy to kowtow to whatever everyone wants, especially when its partner doing the asking. “Need help with that? Sure, I am free”. Those words would escape my mouth all too frequently in my first couple of years. In the fullness of time however, I realized that no one was going to look after my time, or care about how many hours I worked, except me. So I started being a little selfish. If I was already working on something, and was asked to help out on something else, I was guarded in my reply, always checking I could fit it in without totally destroying my work life balance. Same was true on projects – I started out trying to work on everything, and now focus narrowly on my area.

I think the initial “everything to everyone” behaviour is common for consultants, perhaps as an artifact of how we are tossed, fresh from university, into a fast paced, high pressure work environment, and told that the only thing that matters is your work. The insecure overachiever type so common in consulting immediately interprets this as an order to do as much as possible, and hence the somewhat destructive work cycle of consulting begins.

If I have any advice for junior consultants, its this – think strategically about how much work you accept. Sometimes, for the good of your career, you have to accept doing work that takes you through the night and weekends (usually to build goodwill / relationships). Nine times out of ten, a politely worded “I am at capacity right now”, or “I am already doing two things for partner X”, will help you manage your workload. As I said above, no one is really looking out for your sanity except you – so keep an eye on it, and be selfish.

Review Cycles

I figure, a huge proportion of time spent working late nights on consulting jobs is all down to review cycles. I am at a client site right now, and the junior consultant on the project has just waited from 7pm to midnight for the engagement manager to come back with comments so she can progress the work. Don’t get me wrong, the engagement manager isn’t skiving off – she is really busy herself, but just didn’t have time to get to it. As a result, the poor junior has been stuffing around for hours. I tried to help, but couldn’t sufficiently get into my manager’s head. 

When I get to the point of managing projects, I don’t want to leave my juniors hanging – I know how frustrating it is. My hypothesis (well, one I have read about)  for why it occurs is the crest of ignorance. Essentially, juniors don’t know enough, and work can only be progressed by people with knowledge. Given the typical structure  of a project team, with an inevitable green consultant or two, there doesn’t seem to be a way around this.

Has anyone else come across this problem?

How not to impress on your first project

Maybe its because of the recruiting stuff I am working on, but I have been thinking lately of massive rookie fails that I have incurred over my time in consulting. Two that come to mind are from the same project – my first ever client project in my first ever job out of uni.

The client was a snack foods manufacturer, a division of [Popular Soft Drink Brand 1]. I was excited to be on my first case, and on the very first day we got to go out to the distribution centre. This is the warehouse where all the stock is received and then shipped out to the various supermarkets and so on. It was a pretty cool place, especially for a recent law grad who had never seen its like before. They gave us all visibility jackets, fluorescent yellow vests that theoretically helps forklift drivers not run you over. Its pretty standard practice in DCs, along with the bit they didn’t mention – there are lanes marked on the floor, which indicate where its safe for humans not driving a forklift to walk. Not being armed with this information, I nearly got hammered by a forklift coming around the corner, with end result being a few boxes going everywhere, and the partners being embarrassed by the rookie confirming to everyone that he was, in fact, a total newbie.

To compound my embarrassment, when we went to lunch with the clients later that day, I got my customary sandwich and diet [Popular Soft Drink Brand 2]. As you may remember, the client was a division of [Popular Soft Drink Brand 1]. I got several dirty looks during lunch, and a lecture later that afternoon about respecting the client, and never, ever, using a competing product, especially in an area as keenly fought over as soft drinks.

Small stuff ups maybe, but to a new grad it seemed like I had irrevocably shot myself in the foot. Luckily my bosses were much more forgiving than that – and I have managed to keep my share of stuff ups since then low. Of course, there was always the agribusiness client but that’s a story for another time …