ALL CHAPTERS
Chapter Two
What It Takes to Succeed in Consulting
“A high level of intelligence”
- Michael LaPorta
Consulting is a demanding business, one that requires a unique blend of intelligence and people skills. It also requires a variety of personal attributes that may seem contradictory at times – analytical abilities, confidence, competitive spirit, creative thinking, objectivity, attention to detail, big-picture thinking, and personalities that thrive on change, or at least are highly adaptable. Did we mention that it’s a demanding business?
The most successful consultants are likely to have integrated many of these traits and skills into the mix of what they have to offer their clients, enough so to keep them coming back over the years for more. It’s not a sales trick. The best consultants convey to their clients a strong sense of their own authenticity: they’re nothing less than their own men and women. We suspect also this is what most clients want, if they don’t necessarily always know it – outside expertise that is confident, grounded, and willing to assert itself in its capacity to understand complex organizations, people, and problems.
In this chapter, our contributors describe what it takes to meet these challenges, and how doing it well can translate into a successful career as a management consultant.
Intellectual Firepower
“The consultant is a problem solver”
Number one, the consultant is a problem solver. You have to have that sense of curiosity. You’ve got to be intellectually honest. Over the years I’ve really had very few problems in this area, as far as the people we hire. I believe the selection process has been a good reason for that. The curiosity issue is what keeps them up to date intellectually.
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