after I got a great email today from Martin from Germany, and from  Akarsh from India earlier last week, it is time to put a big thank you note up here. It gives me a lot of joy to see that I what I write for the KillerConsultant really is of value for some people out there, and the occasional email that I get with positive feedback and further questions on the subject are invaluable.

Let me tell you, it is absolutely awesome to reply to a sceptic friend who asks me why the heck I run this website something along the lines of “you know, there’s Pete, a student from the US, and he just told me that the things I put online really helped him in making the decision to go into consulting – I helped someone in real life. So, you know, it’s kinda worth it.”

Thus: Thanks everybody, really. You make this a worthwhile thing to do, and I do appreciate every piece of feedback I get.

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!

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. ]

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.
3. “The client’s CEO decided to have the steering committee on Monday.”
   Cancel your plans for the weekend, you’ll be working in the changes we discuss on Friday.
4. “As soon as I get the deck back from graphics, I’ll send it to you.”
   When our graphic designers finished formatting the PowerPoint presentation, I’ll send it to you.
5. “The VP will make sure that the project is continually aligned with the key stakeholders”
   Our Vice President (or sometimes: Partner) will discuss the project status with the people at the client who a) pay for the project and determine its direction or b) have the power to sink the project and thus have a say, too.
   
6. (on the phone) “Hello? Oh, hi, thanks for calling! I’m a bit busy right now, can I call you later? OK, great. Bye!”
   Hi Darling! I am so glad you called, I missed you all day! Listen, I am still at the office with colleagues and client employees in the room, so I can’t really talk right now. I know, I know, it is already 11pm… I’ll call you back as soon as I get to the hotel, I promise! Yeah, I love you too, sweetheart. Bye!
7. “Greg, I just wanted to check with you if you got my email regarding your input for the key deliverable that is coming up?”
   Hey, I know I can’t force you because I am just a consultant, but I need your input or at least a heads up on the email that I know for sure you got two days ago, because everyone else already replied. I have to put together the presentation for the next big meeting, and we’ll both look stupid if that doesn’t work out – so PLEASE take a minute to at least look at it!
   
8. “Let’s make sure that our arguments on this point are MECE.”
   Let’s make sure that our arguments on this point are Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive – not overlapping and covering the whole range of options.
9. “Good morning! How was your weekend?”
   I woke up at 5am to take the first flight, then took an hour to get here. I have only had two coffees yet, and the first emails have started pouring in at 8am sharp. But that is none of your concern, and I am professional enough to not let you notice any of that. Instead, let’s go to the kitchen together, I’ll have a much-needed third coffee, and you tell me about the hiking trip you took.
10. “We have to leverage synergies ASAP to deliver on the PMI.”
    In the Post Merger Integration of these two companies, we have to find areas in which they currently overlap or complement each other to either save money or generate more revenue as soon as possible to make it a success.

What is your favourite consultanese buzzword-phrase? Tell us in the comments!

I set up a dedicated page for the talk, where you can find the slides as well as notes, useful links etc. on the topics touched, at killerconsultant.com/talk.

Like what you see?
I’m up for requests to share some insight with your organization – just shoot me an email to contact@killerconsultant.com .

To add to the excitement, slideshare.net (where I uploaded the slides) liked my presentation so much that they featured me on their homepage – w00t!

Be enthusiastic to power yourself
Are you thinking self betrayal right now? Well, this is one way to put it. What if you are facing a severe excel-cranking session and all you can do is think “when will it be done?”… and how could anybody ever be enthusiastic about powerpoint slides? That is not the point. The point is that you can influence your reactions. Make it a self-fulfilling prophecy! “This chart is gonna be rock`n`roll when I am done with it!” … “I’m gonna beat some awesome result out of this excel!” … make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. It has to be done anyway – so why not tell yourself that it can be fun? It might work! To prove the point, lets do a little test. For ten seconds now, smile brightly and laugh – regardless of what mood you are in, in almost all cases your body will sense your smile and your laughter and send out an internal happy pill to the brain. By acting as if you were happy, you can induce real happiness…. and that is the mechanics you can use to make your work more fun / less pain, too.

Be enthusiastic to power the team
We are working in a high-stress, high-pace, high-pressure environment, so there is energy inherent in the system. Deliverables need to get ready, the project is moving fast, and so do the tasks. With enthusiasm – or as I put it for myself, outspoken positive energy – you can bring a good spin to all that stress. Does that sound too touchy-feely for ya? I understand. See, it is not about sticking smiley badges on everyones chest. It can be as simple as sharing the image of a desired outcome with a colleague in a positive way – “hey, when we get this analysis done and melt it down to three slides, that will be a killer argument and really opening the clients’ eyes!”. I think that sharing positive images can make a difference in the attitude you and your colleagues have towards the things you work on (which can be tedious tasks sometimes).

Be enthusiastic to power the client
Towards the client, of course, you are the serious and all-business consultant. Still, I have made good experiences with conveying a positive mood. This can easily drift towards promising the client stuff that you are not sure you can deliver on – thin ice, that is. Don’t make promises you are not sure about. They will hold you accountable. Instead, show enthusiasm when delivering results! It is not making your presentation a circus show… but you want to make your results shine. Invest in your presentation skills. Smile. Use your voice. Convey to them the meaning of what you show them, not only the pure content.

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What do we learn from this?

1. When you do fun stuff on your company’s CI, be prepared for it to hit the street eventually. This one is quite old, so no harm done I guess – but your boss might not be amused at all about your version of this that you just thought of. If you have to do it, don’t use a company template.
2. The author did not use the action title correctly at all… but I think we can forgive this
3. When communicating, you have to adapt to the audience. Leave your consulting talk and your ppt slides at work. Your family and your girlfriend will appreciate it (otherwise – see last slide!)

Let’s start the KillerConsultant hive mind with a simple, yet important question.
How do you talk about your job as consultant to friends and family? There are a few aspects to that:

How much to reveal?
We are bound to not disclose details of our engagements by contracts, NDA’s and common sense. So what _can_ you tell? Is it ok to say in which city you are? Do you only state the airport you are flying to? When can you reveal a customer’s name – never, or only when the relationship with your consulting firm is published? When it comes to the type of work you are doing, is it ok to say “I am working in a post merger integration / controlling / marketing strategy project”?

How not to bore them to death?
With all those limitations of what you can tell, how to you make it an interesting story, so that your buddies don’t pity you for the lame job you have? (Given that you do not consider consulting a lame job. If you do, I hope the KC gives you some input on how to change that!) Consulting-lingo is another issue here – do you try to eradicate “deliverable”, “slidedeck”, “key-stakeholder” and all this job-specific vocabulary when explaining what you do to people outside consulting?

How to not make yourself look stupid?
I don’t mean that your friends and family assume you are stupid. But watch their face closely when you have been raving about the latest frequent flyer program for ten minutes, or how you hate this and that airport because you never get good rental car upgrades there… you know what I mean? Consultants’ lifestyle seems to disconnect them a bit from the real world, at least it often seems so from the outside. How do you avoid that?

I am looking forward to your approaches to this!
Of course, you do not need to reveal your real name in the comments if you wish to.