Monthly Archives: September 2016

TNF #053: Getting close to perfect

Welcome Professionals…

…we all aim to create perfect results for our clients. But as we know, there is actually nothing perfect in business life. We can only get close to perfect, but we will never get there in one step. In fact, to come close to perfect, it needs many iterations.

After doing the best we can and approaching a topic from multiple perspectives, we can only get better by involving some other critical minds. Ideally, we have a team of direct reports who are not too shy to speak up, or we have well-meaning colleagues, and we certainly need a trustful relationship to our boss or other senior advisors. For everything that we produce ourselves, we will have a certain bias then let’s us overlook some faults and shortcomings. This is just human.

We need to be open to share our thoughts and material with our colleagues before we take it to the client. While it hurts sometimes to get criticized, this is the only way to make good material really excellent.

Best consultants are not afraid to fail in front of their peers. They are not embarressed to aks questions. They take risks within the team in order to shine in front of the client.

Hoping you will shine

Malte

Thursday Night Flight is brought to you by Malte Müller Professionals. Sharing best practices for top management consultants on topics like communication, client handling, problem solving, appearance, and fitness. Check out www.mm-professionals.com for more material and free resources!

TNF #052: Anniversary issue

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Welcome Professionals…

…to the anniversary issue of Thursday Night Flight! As you can tell by the number in the title, this is the 52nd edition of the best practice blog for top management consultants. This means we have been once aroung the year with it together – week by week. Thank you so much for joining me and all the feedback I received from you. (Mostly in private, though).

When I come home on a Thursday night, I sit down, finish my writing and publish the next post. Quite often, I have collected only some raw ideas during the week and need to formulate the article right before the deadline. The deadline is a good thing, though. It pushes me to get something done each week.

A friend of mine once said: “Why don’t you skip an issue this week? You don’t have to write every week, you are your own boss, nobody expects you to do this every single week.” I guess he is right. Of course, I would like to believe that my audience expects me to write something each week. That there are readers out there who wait eagerly for each issue of the blog. But Google Analytics tells me that most of you look at the blog only from time to time. That’s okay and I hope you like it from time to time.

I actually do it because I promised it to myself. I said I would do it. So I do. Eventually the blog is called “Thursday Night Flight” and not “every other Thursday or whatever”.

You know what? This discipline and consistency feels great. Making the weekly publishing a habit and sticking to the plan is a reward in itself. Each single week it is a rather small step, but looking back on 52 issues around the year makes me feel a little bit proud.

BTW, today is my 40th birthday, which also fits well with the title of this post. Forgive me for being a bit sentimental here. I feel extremely grateful for the last 40 years. Looking forward to more to come.

Stick with me through the next year of Thursday Night Flight!

Malte

TNF #051: Murphy’s law revisited

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Welcome Professionals…

…I am sure you have heard of Murphy’s law, often cited as “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

Many smart people have reviewed the so called law and tried to explain or refute it. I won’t dive into that. It does not matter to me if it is true or false. But there have been situation when I thought that Murphy’s law applies to me. And that sucks.

Murphy’s law is my personal reminder that some things will go wrong – sooner or later. It is just a matter of statistics. If these errors occur during times when everything counts, when everything is on the edge, they become a great nuisance. Just before the important board meeting presentation the printer runs out of toner. Just before the crucial client meeting I spill tomato sauce on my white dress shirt. This is the time when I might complain about Murphy’s law.

Instead of worrying about the universal injustice, though, it is much better to have alternative plans in place.

As top management consultants, we like to be prepared for these statistical errors in order to stay cold-blooded when everything counts. Good examples of preparation are:

keeping a spare suit, shirt and tie in a closet in the office
installing an alternative printer to switch if one runs out of toner
keeping some money in the briefcase/jacket/office drawer separate from the wallet
always reviewing two alternative routes to the client
keeping a power pack for the phone
and so on…

What are your tricks? Let me know. And don’t worry about Murphy’s law ever again.

Malte

TNF #050: Feeling tired?

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Welcome Professionals…

…do you feel tired in the afternoon sometimes? I do. Here is what helps:

Sleep properly at night, at least 6 hours, no disturbance, no alcohol
Take regular meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner (do not skip breakfast!)
Reduce fast burning carbs like white bread, pasta, processed foods, etc.
Reduce sugar
Drink a lot of still water, less caffeine
Move (a little walk) or do quick exercise
Enjoy sunlight
Do some social activity (meeting, phone calls) instead of conceptual work
Breathe deeply

Wishing you a wide awake afternoon

Malte

TNF #049: Prepared for networking

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Welcome Professionals…

…I am attending a networking event today and I am getting prepared. There are only very few of these events that I actualy attend. I don’t like these awkward settings where everyone is running around exchanging business cards in order to sell something the next day. But some networking events offer a specific content and a curated membership network that are worth it from my point of view.

However, these occasions are rare and expensive, they cost time and money. So, it is better to go prepared. There are a few obvious preparations and some more sophisticated that I only got familiar with over recent years.

The obvious preparation is just common sense:

Making sure to be on time with a proper appearance
Placing some business cards into the jacket (not to be proactively used, but just in case somebody asks for one)
Reviewing the list of participants, marking target persons to connect with
Collecting some background information on target persons (CV on LinkedIn, mentioning in the news, looking for joint projects, interests, etc.)

The less obvious networking preparation is getting ready for conversations. On a networking event like this, we will have an agenda packed with some inspiring speeches and lots of breaks inbetween. I will not want to approach new contacts with some random conversation about the weather. Neither will I want to make it business transactional.

In order to really connect with people, I will want to pick a conversation that is playful enough for the small talk setting and at the same time meaningful enough to be remembered. This challenge needs preparation – and it also needs a lot of practice to be honest.

Here is what I will do. The topic of the conference is “upcycling”. I will think of anecdotes that link to this topic or to sub-topics that I find on the agenda. These anecdotes could be something that I heard on the news, an expert article that I read, a recent project that I did. Further, the anecdote needs to carry a message, this is where the meaning comes into play. By telling the story in my own personal way, I want to make sure to convey my personal opinion, something that I stand for, i.e., my values and believes.

Of course, this may sound a bit constructed. But think twice. A good networking conversation is exchanging stories on a joint topic where the discussion partners get to know each other. This is what it is worth to get prepared for.

Out for now

Malte