Category — out of the box

Thanks to everyone who used the opportunity to ask me questions via the formspring.me page so far!

To make life easier for me and you, I have created a Q&A page here on the KC, where I will be collecting the questions and answers that come in. Have a look – so far questions range from “what business car do you drive” to “what business schools in Europe to consulting firms recruit from preferably?”. And, of course – keep ‘em coming!

What you always wanted to know about Consulting but never dared to ask?

Here’s your chance!

I just signed up with this fun service called formspring.me – they provide the form below. You can post your questions anonymously, if you chose to. Answers will be posted on formspring.me/theKC . Of course, I might not be able to answer all questions you have – but hey, try me!

Wishing you all a great holiday season,

Florian

[UPDATE: The posted form did not seem to work, sorry to all who submitted a question here, it did not reach me! Please post it directly at formspring.me/theKC. ]

I’ve been reading “Up in the Air”, the novel an upcoming movie starring George Clooney is based on. As the title demands, I get most of it done on my flights to and from work, and the last good hour I managed to get close to finishing it. Towards the end, the book gets more and more dense – confusing at times, but rightfully so, as it is told in first person by the protagonist, who grows more confused as the story progresses as well. The story moves me, touches a lot of spots of my brain – but again, rightfully so, as it portraits a consultant who is flying around, getting asked by his friends and family where he calls from and counts his frequent flyer miles much more vigilantly than he watches what he eats.
I am not that person – not in total, not to the extreme level the author provides for the novel – but there are parts od my life scattered all over the script.
It ain’t a self-help book, so there is no 10 point checklist for me to tick off that offers me short-term bliss or long-term contemplacy. The story just lays there, fictional as it is, and almost seems to look at me with a smirk: Gotcha!
So what do I make off of this? Deep reflection on life, values and life goals? I doubt it. What I make out of it, for now, is a simple action. I start to write again. I just did. I re-open that pocket of “just writing”, without so-what’s, without bullet points, without action title and footnotes. I allow for the pleasure of ranting, if you want to call it that, the pleasure of being moved by something and converting it into something else.
The cab has arrived – I have. Home. Getting ready to leave it after a quick shower and head off into the night. The night, remember that, is always a friend.

Most of you will have noticed this little phenomenon called “twitter”… and apart from my personal account, the KC has now joined as well. You can follow it under twitter.com/the_KC

I’ll be posting updates about new articles, the occasional consulting-related link and maybe a question to the audience once in a while. It will be a fairly low-frequency thing, so don’t be afraid that you’ll be spammed.

BTW, how dou you like that “KC” logo thing?

I’m speaking consultanese all the time - it’s just the virus that goes with the job. There is nothing you can do about it, really – even if in the first weeks you think “boy, my colleagues are nice people, but what are they TALKING about?!”… give it a months, two max, and you’ll make the same impact on innocent bystanders, too.
Just to remind you – and to give those bystanders an opportunity to understand what their consultant says,

here’s 10 random consulting sentences, translated to human (with the occasional tongue in cheek):

1. “We’ll need to challenge the action title on this slide and sharpen the two-by-two.”
   We’ll need to critically look over the one-sentence title of this PowerPoint slide which should sum up the main message of the slide. Also, the two-by-two matrix still contains too much text / isn’t well defined enough, that needs to be taken care of, too.
2. “That’s a great idea, let’s put it on the parking lot!”
   Your idea might actually be great, but it doesn’t fit the scope (topic, time or both) of this meeting. Let’s write it down so that it doesn’t get lost but does not cause us to get off-target, either.

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