The Strategy Skills Podcast: Management Consulting | Strategy, Operations & Implementation | Critical Thinking

Welcome to the 38th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and we remain in week 4. As we teach in all the Executive Program studies, every study must begin with a top-down analyses. In fact, a rule of thumb is that a study without a top-down analysis phase is likely doing too much, lacks focus and possibly wasting time. This always turns out to be true. In this podcast we explain how benchmarking analysis, or what is also called best practice analysis, should be used for the top-down analysis and why they are so difficult to manage on a real study. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn  

Welcome to the 37th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and we remain in week 4. Let’s be honest. Most consultants simply go into Google and search for any reports / analyses to compile market trends/an industry analysis fact pack. In other words, they do not put much thought into it beyond ensuring they are not caught for plagiarism. This is because many consultants think of the market trends or industry analysis as an output to deliver, which will never be used, and it does not matter what comprises the analysis. This podcast discusses how/why we built a bespoke market trends pack for the client addressing the issues important to them and them only. We used this market trends analysis to guide the executives on the issues we considered important to their strategy. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

Welcome to the 36th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and we continue discussing the critical 4th week visioning workshop. We now into discussing each of the components that went into the visioning workshop. In today's podcast we are going to focus on value chain analysis, from the customer perspective. A proper value chain analysis highlights profit pools in a sector. This analysis cannot be bought from any 3rd party firm and is incredibly difficult to conduct. It requires deliberate and focused detective work. In this podcast we discuss how we conducted the value chain analysis and why it was so critical to the study. This was one of the most important parts of the study. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

Welcome to the 35th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and we remain focused on the big 4th week visioning workshop. A large part of the visioning workshop is presenting case studies highlighting the successes and failures of similar companies. In this podcast we discuss a special type of case study called a period case study which is significantly harder to do, but incredibly useful. Most consultants prefer case studying the latest and greatest fad, which is extremely misleading, as explained in this podcast. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn  

Welcome to the 34th podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and a major focus on Week 4 over the next few podcasts. This is a big week since it is the first visioning workshop with a client. This week is important. If you ever want to run strategy planning for a Fortune 500 company, you must understand this process very, very well. If you do not understand this process, you will struggle to run strategy planning exercises for the CEO, board or management committee. We discuss the overall visioning process in this workshop and in the subsequent podcasts discuss each component of the workshop in more detail. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study.   SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn  

Welcome to the 33rd podcast on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study. In this podcast we discuss the tough work being done by the Organizational Design team. We discuss the three tensions which drive all Organizational Design recommendations and the trade-offs required. We also discuss the most important requirement to implement a new culture and structure at any company, and it is quite simple to do. As you will see, the Organizational Design stream is struggling on the study. Click here to see the full Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and here to see the merger study and market entry study. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

In this podcast we discuss the 3 career path options that consultants face once they become partners. We discuss each career path and what it means for a consultant's career. These are differences that are crucial to know and understand because partner career paths that appear to be more attractive often lead to disappointing results. For example, did you know it is a really bad idea to emulate the career path of all the McKinsey and BCG partners who appear in the McKinsey Quarterly, BCG perspectives and HBR? This counter-intuitive podcast will explain why. Many consultants don't spend enough time analyzing and considering the implications of following each career path. They take a superficial look at who are the partners most known and respected within the firm, and try to emulate those partners. Yet, down the road, they often end up at a dead end. We further address which partner career path you should follow if your goal is to become a CEO one day. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY

Welcome to the 32nd podcast on the power sector study. As you know, we are building up towards the update for week 4, when the corporate strategy planning workshop will take place. Today's podcast is not about the study. Instead, we are going to talk about one of the issues that we deal with at Firmsconsulting and which many ex employees of major consulting firms (e.g. ex McKinsey and ex BCG consultants) encounter as they embark on building their own boutique consulting firms or even when they join other consulting firm as employees. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn  

How do you become an outstanding management consultant? Should you excel at analysis? Should you master problem solving? Should you become the world's most gifted communicator? You could master all of the aforementioned items and still be an average management consultant at best. Great management consultants have all these skills but they have one more quality that makes them great, they are not just competent business people but they are also artists. In this podcast we explain the mindset we encourage teams to use on the study. This is the mindset I used in my career and it is very different from what you would expect. If you enjoyed this conversation we will be so grateful if you jump over to iTunes and share a quick review. It helps more people find us. SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING www.firmsconsulting.com COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

This is the next podcast discussing the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study.  In this podcast we use economics to explain what is the role of government, when governments should intervene, how they should intervene and when they should hand over certain activities to the private sector. If you want to further your understanding of strategy at the highest possible level you should listen to this. If you enjoyed this conversation we will be so grateful if you jump over to iTunes and share a quick review. It helps more people find us.  Also a huge thank you for making “Strategy Skills” one of the most popular podcasts in the world for careers.  SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING www.firmsconsulting.com COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

Welcome to the 29th podcast where we are covering the corporate strategy study, a transformation of the major power sector company. In today’s podcast we want to go back to a very core concept that you need to understand as we move forward. In the previous podcasts we spoke about the definition of corporate strategy. We explained what is corporate strategy. And no, working for the CEO or Chairman of the Board does not make it corporate strategy. Its actually very simple to know if a study qualifies as a corporate strategy study. Irrespective of what anyone tells you, if you go into a strategy study where the key question, or what we call an objective function, is known to you, that is not corporate strategy. This is because corporate strategy is not about knowing how to maximize an objective function. It is about choosing the objective function you want to maximize. That is the key difference between corporate strategy and every other kind of strategy. No matter what anyone tells you. In today’s podcast we ar

This podcast explains what is a conceptual thinker and how to demonstrate this skill. If you work at any major consulting firm, and especially if you want to be promoted, you must prove you are a conceptual thinker. The only problem is that it is hard to define the word conceptual. Once you understand this definition, things will be much easier for you. In this podcast I explain a similar problem experienced by a consultant on the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study and how I helped them improve. The definition also explains why conceptual thinker is a functional specialist (in strategy, operations, corporate finance etc.) and almost never specialist in sectors. If you enjoyed this conversation we will be so grateful if you jump over to iTunes and share a quick review. It helps more people find us.  SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING: www.firmsconsulting.com COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

In many cases, especially in a tough study like this turnaround, there is just not enough time and money to find the ideal evidence, or any evidence at all. In such situations you need to be creative because the consultants are being paid to arrive at a credible answer. You need to find data which proves something indirectly. In this podcast I explain just such a method we used for the crucial EVA analysis to prove there was no profit outside the core. This is arguably one of the smartest things we did on the study. I studied thermodynamics at university. This is a method we used extensively and will be common to anyone in the sciences. It has to do with altering the question, without changing the purpose of the analysis. If you enjoyed this conversation we will be so grateful if you jump over to iTunes and share a quick review. It helps more people find us.  SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES & RECEIVE FREE STRATEGY TRAINING: www.firmsconsulting.com COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

  This is the next podcast for the power sector corporate strategy study we will soon release as part of our Executive Program. In just the last week we have had several issues erupt on the study. (1) A rival (?) firm has been appointed at the parent to potentially have oversight of the study. (2) The power outages are escalating while EI wants to double-down on investments which are not core to its likely future. (3) The unions are challenging the management skills analyses. (4) A budding romance has left our strategy team down one person with some liabilities to manage. All of these issues suck up a lot of management and partner time. They take time away from the study itself and can quickly derail the team, or slow down the momentum. In this podcast I discuss the process I use to manage all these issues while also keeping the team fully focused on the task at hand. This is one of those important podcasts where we discuss the critical soft skills to use when things never go according to plan. Pay careful at

This is the 25th podcast for the power sector corporate strategy study we will soon release as part of our Executive Program. A stream of our consultants is assessing the management skills of senior EI managers and executives to manage the transformation process. This process has not gone well. A senior manager of EI felt the management skills assessment was designed to present him in a poor light. He, therefore, complained to the unions and is considering legal action against EI. This is not good, but fairly common on such studies. So there is no need to overreact, though it must be managed and done very quickly and efficiently. The spillover of this is that the unions are refusing to allow the management skills analyses to take place and many employees are also refusing to participate. In this podcast I discuss the process we will use to manage this misunderstanding. It is a real concern with the potential to spiral out of control. We have a plan and, to be fair, we could have managed this a little better f

This is the 24th podcast for the power sector corporate strategy study we will soon release as part of our Executive Program. In an update meeting with the CFO of EE who sits on the board of EI, he mentioned that McKinsey has been appointed by EE to conduct a “visioning refresher” workshop to help the EE board think through their options. The CFO stressed that the work does not overlap with our own since McKinsey is focused on EE’s broader issues and the investment in EI is just one thing they will briefly discuss. McKinsey is doing a lot of work at EE so this is not really all that surprising. In this podcast, I discuss the likely impact on our study, how a boutique firm should respond and how a boutique firm should not respond. The problem is that most boutique firms panic and overreact. The presence of an ego and a lack of realistic thinking forces most boutiques to behave irrationally, which ends up hurting them. A reaction is needed but certainly not in the way most companies would react.   SIGN UP FOR C

This is the 23rd podcast for the power sector corporate strategy study we will soon release as part of our Executive Program. The first cut of the EVA analyses is done. In this podcast we discuss why EVA was selected as the performance metric and how it will be used. We compare the current EVA performance and the likely EVA performance if the businesses with EI met their planned budgets and targets for the year. We discuss why we are not using the budgets, how we will adjust them and the dangers of taking this step. The adjustments to the budgets are a pivotal step to prove our business case and should be handled very delicately or we will be accused of bias. This podcast demonstrates why a combination of soft-skills, business judgment and rational thinking are needed in combination to convince clients to changes their minds.  Brilliant rational logic alone will alienate the client.   SIGN UP FOR COMPLEMENTARY TRAINING: www.firmsconsulting.com COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

This is the 22nd podcast for the power sector corporate strategy study we will soon release as part of our Executive Program. As power outages escalate across the region, EI remains focused on growing internationally. It is crucial to remember that these podcasts reflect the team's strategy and thinking that we have not yet fully communicated to EI. That will happen over the next few weeks. So while you have heard lots about the need to focus on EE’s core business, EI is yet to come around to that thinking. In fact, EI is firmly focused right now on its original mandate. The challenge we face is in guiding the CEO to hold off on making large and irreversible capital investments until we present our plans. EI has several promising ventures on the table which require a decision. Those ventures move EI away from where we think it needs to focus in the future. We have to, unfortunately, pre-empt our carefully laid plans and discuss our initial thinking with the CEO. In this podcast, we discuss how we ran that mee

This is the 21st podcast for the power sector corporate strategy study we will soon release as part of our Executive Program. Many readers have written in asking how we manage the fatigue of running such an intense study while managing all the numerous Firmsconsulting initiatives. In this podcast I briefly touch on the practical tools I use to manage my time, set priorities and manage my diary to ensure I keep the trains running on time. I also discuss the myth of loving what you do. While that is important, it does not insulate one from the trauma of dealing with abrasive situations. I manage this in a different way. Finally, I discuss the problem with reading magazines and articles on learning how to de-stress. Best practice, as you will learn, is not going to work for you.   COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn   SIGN UP FOR COMPLEMENTARY TRAINING: www.firmsconsulting.com

This is the 20th podcast for the power sector corporate strategy study we will soon release as part of our Executive Program. In the Steering Committee meeting this morning we were directly challenged by a member of the committee. This podcast discusses the nature of the challenge and how we responded. The client raised a concern about our skills and also raised a potential conflict of interest we had not considered. We unpack the challenge and the thought-process we applied in managing this situation. Ultimately, we also explain why and how alumni of McKinsey and BCG who create boutique firms end up limiting their prospects for growth. Finally, we will discuss the differences in which conflict can be managed by engaging crowds and individuals. The trick is to engage only one of these groups and for a very unique reason.   COME HANG OUT WITH US: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn   SIGN UP FOR COMPLEMENTARY TRAINING: www.firmsconsulting.com