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On Becoming a Management
Consultant
Why you should want to be a management consultant
• Because you are not content to join as an officer cadet. To work
your way through the ranks, ok - advancing by talent but also held
back by lack of experience and seniority. You want to be parachuted
onto the front line. It will be dangerous and you will confront an
enemy battle hardened and stealthy. But you want to do it anyway,
you want to make a difference and quickly.
• Because, unless your daddy is a big-shot, it is the only way to
get into a big company near the top and tackle a one-off problem
without the burden of every-day line management stuff.
• Because you can rise above your technical qualification and think
about management and (hopefully) strategic issues. If you aspire to
the top, it is the perfect training ground for ignoring disciplines
and thinking laterally.
• Because you will be working with colleagues of a similar bent.
Energetic go-getters like yourself but from a different background.
You will spark off each other. You will learn important tricks
really fast. Tricks like planting an idea for them to adopt as their
own, like seeing the wood for the trees.
• Because it is the short-cut route to the top. You were placed at
the top and you intend to stay there. You deal with the top managers
and if you do a good objective job, you will get approached. It
beats mind-numbing interviews into a cocked (top) hat.
Why you would not want to be a management consultant
• Because of the stigma. “Management consultants borrow your watch
to tell you the time”. Definition of an expert “ X – unknown
quantity, Spert – a drip under pressure” Very funny.
• Because you might not get the chance to consult at all. Management
consultancy is a big generic label. You might be placed to fact-find
only, to implement only, to satisfy a political brief where the
answer is pre-determined.
• Because consultants are advisers. It may not suit your character.
Advice can be very subtle with no kudos to the giver. You may want
direct control, consultants work through others.
• Because a proper management consultancy assignment is very hard
work. Situations have to be assessed real fast, people have to be
weighed up real fast and emotions put to one side, objectivity is
all. Time pressure is extreme. Not everyone is cut out for this.
• Because domestic/social life can go up in smoke, the lifestyle may
be unacceptable.
How A
Management Consultant Gets Paid....>>
Read About My
Life And Experiences As A Management Consultant |
