|
| Teamwork |
 |
Sometimes things don't go exactly the way you'd like.
Maybe a colleague misses a deadline, or a client team member forgets to mention an important detail in a crucial meeting. How do you react?
Many consultants recognize bumps in the road as an inevitable part of any project. And they make adjustments, even though it can mean extra work for them.
It's just as easy to find consultants--and clients too--who take a more selfish point of view and focus mainly on the impact the unexpected event has on them.
One certainty in our line of work is that surprises always pop up. I think that how we handle these moments of stress defines our ability to function in a team environment and to call ourselves professional consultants. Our responses also say a lot about who we are as people.
A colleague, who knows far more than I do, once summed up his perspective on being a team player by saying:
In a consultant's professional life, you have projects, clients, and colleagues. Treat them all the same way, with a spirit of collegiality and a predisposition to trust, and make every transaction a positive one.
I agree.
Enjoy this month's issue.
And send me an email if you have comments.
Mike
McLaughlin
Editor
Management Consulting News is a publication of MindShare
Consulting.
Editor's Note: In May 2006, we began publishing a column by Alan Weiss on strategies for the solo practitioner. After contributing for more than two years, Alan decided, and I agreed, that it was time to move on to other opportunities. We thank Alan for his insightful contributions to our readers, and wish him well.
Mark Your Calendar
Registration is open for IMC Confab 2008, the conference by consultants for consultants on October 25-28, 2008, in Reno, Nevada. Register to secure your spot at the 31st annual Confab.
|
| MCNews 12 Index of Professional Services |
 |
US Economic News |
|
McNews 12 Index |
|
Do you want the bad news or the worse news?
The US government's attempt to "rescue" financial institutions that are holding toxic mortgage securities took on a surreal quality. Government officials, pundits, and presidential candidates all offered up hyperboles about the meltdown of the world as we once knew it.
Congress eventually passed a revised bailout bill, but investors went to the brink, and the major stock indices were pounded. Investor confidence was shaken further as the US Department of Labor announced that the US economy lost 159,000 jobs in September, more than double the number of cuts made in August. September was the ninth straight month of job losses.
As we head into the fourth quarter, economists are not optimistic. Inflation is edging up, business credit is tight--or non-existent--and unemployment is surging.
The MCNews 12 Index companies weren't immune to the market plunge, giving up more than 17 percent last month. The Index is now facing a year-to-date return of -6.7 percent.
With the exception of BearingPoint, which has lost more than 80 percent of its value this year, Satyam, Infosys, and Wipro were the hardest hit. IBM hung in there and returned 1 percent.
In spite of the doom and gloom, Accenture reported earnings above analysts' expectations, which included a record level of new contracts in the previous quarter. The firm's executives are bullish on the future, in spite of the challenging market.
|
MCNews 12 Index |
YTD
Change |
S+P 500 YTD Change |
| Sept 2008 |
833 |
-6.7% |
-16.6% |
| August 2008 |
1,014 |
13.5% |
-4.62% |
| July 2008 |
1,017 |
13.9% |
-5.32% |
The MCNews 12 Index reflects general investor sentiment about the state of the global professional services industry.
The twelve publicly-traded companies included in the MCNews 12 Index account for roughly $80 billion in combined annual revenue, and serve clients around the world.
Learn more about the MCNews 12 Index 
|
| Interview:
Michael Port |
 |
 "The more you think about partnering with others, the more you realize that you can do big things with other people better than you can alone."
Michael Port is the author of Book Yourself Solid and Beyond Booked Solid. He's the founder of Michael Port & Associates LLC, which runs online distance learning and coaching programs for professional services providers and small business owners.
We talked to Port about Beyond Booked Solid to find out how consultants can take their businesses to the next level.
Read
our interview with Michael Port
|
| Legal Brief, by Patrick A. Fraioli, Jr. |
 |
 Patrick Fraioli is a partner in the law firm of Moldo Davidson Fraioli Seror & Sestanovich LLP. We asked him for some tips on how consultants might avoid getting into legal hot water with clients.
Avoiding the Client Nightmare...Is it Possible?
Well...not always. But there are certainly things that you can do to minimize the risk that a particular client engagement will turn into a nightmare. The most important of these is that you and your client have as much clarity and agreement as possible on how you will handle the essential areas of your work.
Read the article
|
| Tools for Thinking, by Tim van Gelder |
 |
 These days it is hard to imagine how a management consultant could function without spreadsheets, presentation software, email, and so forth...These tools obviously help speed up various activities, thereby helping us get more done.
We are now, however, starting to see new thinking tools which dovetail well with consulting work, and which may be adopted earlier in the consulting domain than in most others.
Read the article
|
|
The Top Firms for College Grads |
|
As college grads hit the job market, guess where they're headed?
BusinessWeek's annual survey of the 100 best places to launch a career shows that lots of them are headed to the professional services firms. Ernst & Young, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Goldman Sachs, and KPMG round out the top five best places to start a career. Google, IBM, and Boston Consulting Group are also up there on the list.
The survey reveals that average starting salaries for the top five firms range from $50,000 to $65,000 a year. Almost half of the employers in the top 25 are hiring students with degrees in business. The other half of the top 25 companies mostly hire students with degrees in either engineering or computer science.
It remains to be seen how the current financial crisis will impact hiring through the end of 2008. But last year, the 100 companies in the ranking hired more than 139,000 entry-level people.
The ranking is based on three separate surveys: a BusinessWeek poll of career-services directors at US colleges; a survey of 40,000 US undergraduate students conducted by Universum USA; and a BusinessWeek poll of the employers themselves.
|
| Duct Tape Marketing Software |
|
If you're looking for software support for your market planning, check out the newest entry in the field--a collaboration between John Jantsch, creator of the Duct Tape Marketing® system, and Palo Alto Software.
Jantsch, one of the foremost consultants to small businesses, has watched his concept of Duct Tape Marketing go from blog to bestselling book, and now to software. What's even better is that Jantsch has integrated his ideas into a successful and well-established product, Marketing Plan Pro, by Palo Alto Software.
The new software is intended to let you build your marketing plan quickly. Jantsch recognizes that marketing is not an event, but a process, and the software is designed to grow along with your business. Palo Alto Software is in for the long-run, so no need to worry about product support or ongoing software updates.
If you're starting, or refreshing, your marketing plan, have a look at the software's features.
You might also be interested in an article Tim Berry, founder of Palo Alto Software, wrote for us about business and market planning.
Read the article.
|
| Coming
Attractions |
|
 "We don't show an insight-inspiring picture because it saves a thousand words; we show it because it elicits the thousand words that make the greatest difference."
Next month, we'll talk with Dan Roam, author of The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures. We'll ask him to show us how simple visual images can sharpen the focus on ideas and free the mind for problem solving.
Look for the next issue of Management Consulting News on November 4, 2008.
|
