Author Archives: malte

TNF #007: Always be ready to laugh about yourself

Welcome Professionals…

…it is fun Thursday again in our Thursday Night Flight series!

A good sense of humour helps a great deal to get along with hard work. We all know that.

I was talking to a friend last week who told me that his boss went on a seminar to a “humour training institute”. That sounded really odd. His boss wanted to learn how to tell jokes the right way. But, whenever he tried, the situation got awkward and people turned away from him. Even after a two-day training session, he did not see any improvement.

So he figured it was due to the fact that he had a different cultural background and people were just not able to understand his special sense of humour. I do not agree. He failed because he made jokes on his direct reports in front of other people.

The best and most elegant way is always to make fun of yourself. Be always ready to laugh about yourself. I think this cuts across all cultural differences and is the most appropriate way for humour in business.

This is why I will tell you my favorite joke about consultants:

A consultant, a priest, and a doctor are trying to enjoying a round of golf. Ahead of them is a group playing so slowly and inexpertly that in frustration the consultant asks the greenkeeper for an explanation. “That’s a group of blind firefighters,” they are told. “They lost their sight saving our clubhouse last year, so we let them play for free.”

The priest says, “I will say a prayer for them tonight.”

The doctor says, “Let me ask my ophthalmologist colleagues if anything can be done for them.”

And the consultant says, “Why can’t they play at night?”

And now another one for all German-speaking consultants: Have a look at this recent content by Harry G. – I think it is hilarious.

Have a fun week

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 #006: How to enjoy the value creation process

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Welcome Professionals…

…as a top management consultant, we all want to create perfect results for our clients. But striving for perfectionism can actually constrain our value creation process.

For a long time in consulting business, I concentrated on achieving perfect results. At my former employer, we were especially great at pointing the attention to areas that were not perfect, yet. Each time when my project leader or partner or eventually the client found some flaws in my work, I used to beat myself up for that. I interpreted every necessary additional iteration loop as a defeat. I was striving for perfectionism.

Years later I was able to discover the drivers behind this behaviour and change my point of view. I recognized that it makes me very unhappy over time to strive for the perfect end product. The end product will never be perfect and if it was, I would already be busy with the next big thing. By having this tendency, it would be impossible for me to stop working and feel satisfied about it.

Today my motivation is different. I commit to delivering the best value I can in a given amount of time. I set time slots for me to work on a specific project and then do the best I can. I embrace opportunities for iteration, because it helps me improve my work. As an additional positive effect, it takes my client on a journey through my value creation process. Communicating intermediate steps and results makes my client value the work much more.

Everyday I try hard to concentrate on the value creation process! I am not attempting to create a perfect end product, but to give my best. Hopefully, that comes close in the end.

TNF #005: Never wear coloured socks!

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Welcome Professionals…

…to another piece of Thursday Night Flight. Today, I want to make a fashion statement. As top management consultants, we are working with our brains. This is our most important asset. That is why we wear helmets while riding our bike. 😉

This is the same reason why we should refrain from wearing coloured socks. I do not want to dig deep into fashion here. Serious business men* should stay away from current fashion trends anyways. The point I want to make is another one.

We want to draw attention to our head and to our face. We definitely do not want to draw attention to our feet.

Some smart-arse will probably recommend to grow a beard instead. Well, whatever!

Happy Thursday!

Malte

*For all business women: Please get professional advise elsewhere in order to find out if it is appropriate to wear coloured tights. 😉

TNF #004: Get the most out of your sleep

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Welcome Professionals…

…deprivation of sleep is a common issue we are facing as consultants. It is not just a common complaint, it is a severe problem.

Your level of energy and even your happiness directly correlate with your sleep!

So, how can we sleep more and how can we sleep better? Let’s tackle these questions one by one.

The quantity of sleep is hard to control for us. As a top management consultant you will sleep less than most other people. I will not dig into the reasons for that, we all know them by experience. It is useless to complain about this issue and it is even self-destructive to boast with how little sleep you can do. Instead, get as much sleep as you possibly can. Trade low output times for sleep. Do not waste your time on low value activities. Low value is sitting in a team room at 2 a.m. between empty pizza boxes, squeezing the final bit out of your brain in order to produce another backup slide. Sleep is a high value acitivity compared to many other things. Use traveling times for sleeping and plan ahead for these occasions. Bring ear plugs and eye shades (and alarm clock) to enhance a good nap.

While quantity of sleep has its limitiations, you can typically have a good level of control over your quality of sleep. You want to make sure that you get the most out of it. There are some good guidelines for the top management consultant:

Make a deliberate choice about your hotel maximizing sleep quality, not loyality points
Do not eat anything 3 hours before you go to bed, so no more club sandwich at midnight
No alcohol, also avoid energy drinks at least 3 hours before bedtime
Screen work (and TV) keeps you awake, try to ramp down by reading a few pages in a book that is actually made out of paper
Put a sheet of paper and pen next to your bed so that you can write down ideas and to-do-lists when they come up and easily forget about them again
Wake up with a good song, giving you positive energy for the day

Good night for now and sleep tight!

Malte

TNF #003: Complexity is your friend, my friend

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Welcome Professionals…

…sometimes we get overwhelmed by the complexity of our tasks. We are problem solvers, we want to cut complex problems into single digestable chunks and align them in a well-structured framework. But wait a minute – do not jump to conclusions here.

First, we want to make sure to possess the right mindset for a top management consultant. Complexity is our friend! If the problem was not complex enough, the client wouldn’t have hired us in the first place, right? It is important to make this statement to yourself and to your team everytime you get overwhelmed with complexity.

Second, take pride in the complexity. Do not jump into solution approaches and simplifying frameworks too quickly. Take your time to lay out the full complexity in a discussion with your client first. Why? For two reasons. Because on the one hand the client might feel misunderstood, when you simplify his complex project that has driven him to hire an expensive consultant. On the other hand because you want to widen the gap first before you offer ways to close it. Complexity is the fog, making it hard to go from starting point to the target. You want to position yourself as a guide to lead through that foggy complexity.

In conclusion, complexity is the essence of our business in helping clients succeed. No matter where complexity stems from, it is the one main reason to get external support. Look for complexity and you will find new business opportunities. Complexity is your friend!

TNF #002: Win the audience by talking like a news publisher

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Welcome Professionals…

…applying good structure to verbal and written communication is a huge topic for consultants. As a top management consultant you want to be understood, you want to persuade the audience and you finally want to move your client.

Have you ever tried to apply the scientific essay style to a client meeting? Or throwing all your researched facts and figures to someone in a monologue? Here is what we can learn from the news publishing world.

Everybody has a cut-off line. And it may be different for each individual person. Imagine how you are reading a newspaper. For some articles you only read headlines, for other the subtitle intrests you, sometimes the picture with the respective subtitle is enough. And for some breaking news you would read the full article, then go to background information on page 3 and read the two comments from correspondents on page 5.

Apply the same style to your verbal dialogue and even to your slide structure:

Summarize whole story in one main message – the headline.
Frame the headline by giving a subtitle with a bit more information.
Summarize everything in an abstract – could be your executive summary.
Go into further detail, explaining the full story again, but be sure to make the full loop to support your headline!
If the audiene still wants more, go the further supporting material – this may be you backup section.

Get the idea? Whereever your audience stops reading or stops listening (and it will at some point, that is for sure), you want to make sure that your one key message sticks! In verbal communication, pause after each step and look for a positive confirmation to go on.

Take it easy

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All beginnings are difficult.

I remember when I started at BCG in 2001, I was so overwhelmed of the exciting work, the rich input I received, and finally the devastating long working hours. My girlfriend took me for a hike in the Swiss Mountains on a weekend and I fell asleep in the chair lift!

But what also made it a bit hard in the beginning was the lack of understanding of my family, friends, and fellow students from university. For an engineer it was not so common to start with a consulting firm. I had to cope with lot’s of prejudice and criticism. Okay, some of the stereotypes and jokes about consultants are probably right.

“Son, what are you doing with your life?” was a common comment. I collected all the sceptical views on the consulting lifestyle and puzzled them together as new lyrics for a famous German song, originally performed by “Die Ärzte”. Together with 3 colleagues we performed that on the Christmas party of BCG in 2007. See the picture of our hippie-style stage performance. I’m the guy on the left with the guitar.

Check out the song here. It might be worth a good laugh. Take it easy!

Know where you come from in order to improve

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I am striving for continuous improvement. Just like almost everybody I know. But I find it hard sometimes, even with so much good advice out there, always available at my fingertips. Recently I was reminded to a very simple fact: I have to know myself first, before I can add improvements. Very, very simple, but easily forgotten.

Let me share this personal example with you.

When I do business development in order to reach out to new potential clients or to develop client relationships, there are just so many things that I can do. My target market is full of opportunities. On the one hand this is really great news, on the other hand it can be overwhelming sometimes. I added so many improvement ideas to be more focused, more efficient, make up more time and so on. But it did not feel satisfying enough.

Then it just occurred to me while I was reading the latest book of Gretchen Rubin: “Better than Before”. The book is about successful habit change. She distinguishes personalities (besides other dimensions) into openers and finishers. And guess what: I am a finisher. I love to cross items off my to-do-list. Now I suddenly understood what was frustrating me: in a market with endless opportunities, there is no finish line. You can go on and work forever.

In my case, the fix was pretty easy. For each day, I dedicate a specific amount of my time to business development. At least one hour. Then I fill this time as effectively as I can, but do not judge it on results yet. After time has run up, I cross this item from my list. Feels great and I get so much more done!

Conclusion: I need to know myself first, to judge which improvement advice works for me. It is all a matter of individual analysis and experimentation.

TNF #001: Kicking off Thursday Night Flight

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Welcome Professionals…

…to the first edition of Thursday Night Flight. Many of you follow the habit of spending Monday to Thursday consulting your clients. Thursday night you are taking the flight back for home office day. This is the time when you will receive the next short and crisp update.

I am fully committed to success for consultants. On this weekly blog I will be sharing tips & tricks and tested best practices for top management consultants. What does it take to be the trusted advisor? Check into our LinkedIn Group “Trusted Advisor – Success for Consultants” and discuss this with us. Please share your ideas, concepts and questions with us so that we all can continuously improve.

Thursday Night Flight brings every week a new crispy piece of advice in one of the following dimensions:

Communication
Client handling
Problem solving
Appearance
Fitness

So, let’s get started. I am looking forward to your feedback!

Best regards

Malte