having fun while doing a great job would be killer, right?

The “hive mind” scheme is something I am borrowing from lifehacker. The idea: Let the readers decide!

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.

Another real two minutes post this time. When it comes to clothing, I am sure you are ironing your shirts, or have them ironed. You take care not to spill spaghetti sauce over your suit because the dry cleaner costs you a little fortune…. but ties and shoes, some people seem to ignore.

Never leave your ties tied, and don’t crumble them.
After work, when you switch into something more comfortable and get rid of the leash tie, undo it. NEVER leave the knot it. Your tie will hate you for that, and go all ugly way too soon. When traveling, fold it or roll it up and store it so that nothing with edges can cause the fine fabric (your ties are out of silk, right?!) damage.

Shine your shoes.
Those expensive Oxfords you bought? They need a lot of care, and they deserve it. Even when your shoes were not expensive - shine your shoes, at least every week. Go get some good stuff - real shoe polish that you apply with a soft cloth, let dry, and then polish off. Don’t go for the "quick and easy" stuff.  By the way, my shoemaker gave me a great tip: Instead of using the bulky wooden shoetrees, simply stuff your shoes with newspaper. It has the same effect (keeps the leather in form), does not overstretch your shoes (which shoetrees with springs do) and you save yourself weight and space in your luggage.

Any more tips to add? What is your trick to keep your clothes as sharp as you are on the road?

Today, let’s talk about avoiding the vicious cycle of working late. I was inspired by this comic strip from Jorge Cham:

(Click the picture to read it in full size)

With friendly permission, copyright "Piled Higher and Deeper" by Jorge Cham, www.phdcomics.com

What is the vicious cycle?
You did not do enough of what you should have done during the day. I know, this is almost taboo to say – but even consultants are not free from it. Even more so, as there is almost a lot that you can do once you have finished your main projects’ deliverables for the day.  As a result, you expand your working hours, and try to squeeze out some more productivity. The next day, you are not running on 100% energy anymore, because you got little sleep. So you get less done. So you make that day even longer… and with some bad luck, before the weekend (hopefully) gives you time to hit the sack and renew, you run into a brick wall. Oversleep. Make bad mistakes. Mess up that Excel sheet on delivery day. Fall asleep on the toilet – what have you.

How to avoid it?
In an ideal world, I’d say you simply only take on as much work as you can handle while still getting 8 hours sleep a day. But the job often demands more. You will not be able to leave the desk while the sun is still shining every day. When it is crunchtime, you need to crunch, and for that you can find advice here: Cranking the deadline. The key is to make best use of the phases where you are not running full speed.  Don’t take on additional work after a hard phase just because there is still some time in the day. If you can get to the hotel at 6pm, do it. (You don’t believe that ever happens? Hey, read the article from the Dutch Consultant on "Consulting a honey pot?") Relax. Go to sleep early. That is not being a slacker, that is being reasonable and preserving your sanity, and your energy.

Does this sound too fluffy for you?
Alright. So you can’t balance your workload during the week, and it is too late for managing your boss so that you don’t get swamped when you are over capacity already. My last resort, and the thing I can recommend wholeheartedly because I do it:
Whenever you can, make your weekend holy. Work-free. When projects go into defcon1 and I have not slept enough one single night in the week, I need the weekend to fully recharge. Sleep in. Do fun stuff. Enjoy life. This gives me time to get back to full batteries and full motivation.
When your workload is ok, and you are not in the vicious circle trap, it might be alright to do some work on the weekend. But after a battle, I. Need. The. Weekend. Off.

So you can’t do that either?
You might want to re-read the post “Manage your energy, not your time”. Let’s see what you are up to: You are working more hours than your body can handle. You do not give yourself time to recharge, not even on weekends. You are just working, working, working. Let me tell you something, and let me make it clear:
That is nothing to be proud of. You are risking your health, your sanity and your career. Why the career? Because you won’t be able to perform. Sooner or later, your lack of energy will show, and you won’t be able to compensate with longer hours any more. This scenario means big trouble on all fronts. You have been warned.

Alright, this was quite a rant. I’d love to hear your opinion - I am sure you have one!

I know, I know. This is not the Tom Peters show. Still… I came across this gem a while ago and just re-read it, thinking that it makes a whole lot of sense, and really has an implication on the way we do (should do!) our job.

Tom Peters has been talking about branding yourself since the 90s, and since a lot has been published on this topic.

Read this article that was published in 2004. Its key message is: Be distinct, or go extinct. What does that mean? If you are not recognizable within your environment, mostly the organization you are working in, then sooner or later you will get off track, or simply lose your job. You have to brand yourself, and differentiate yourself from your peers - hell, from everybody else.

How does this apply to consulting?
On the customer facing side, the answer is simple. Selling is a people business. It is great when your company has a good reputation - but only being recognized for who YOU are really gives you an edge. They’ll call you, because you are known to be the best to solve problem X. This is especially important in our job, where most people don’t stay with a company for decades. If you rely solely on your company’s aura when it comes to how you are perceived by the customer, you lose them when you go someplace else. On the contrary, when you have established a strong brand for yourself, they will call you, and they will trust you to deliver, regardless of what company you are based in.
For the more junior levels, who are mainly working inside the organization rather than pampering clients: This should make you Think. Real. Hard. Tom mentiones the example of the “28 year old relatively junior member on a [...] tax consulting team”, but that applies to our profession just as well. Ask yourself: Where’s my signature in this project? Where can I put something that is specifically ME, not just the work of a generic grunt, into the deliverables? I know, that is a stretch. But it is worth to strive for, I think. When crunching on a Powerpoint presentation, I myself often forget to see the big picture behind all that detailed work. For a young consultant, it is easy to feel detached from the client relationship, and feel replaceable. Tom’s article challenges us to make ourselves visible, to put our heart in it, so that we work ourselves beyond being replaceable. Personally, I think this is a hard thing to do, but boy is it worth to strive for.
As Reinhard Sprenger statet: “Work is either fun, or it makes sick”. Let’s work on making it fun - on becoming a Killer Consultant who as a person has his/her distinctive brand.

What do YOU want to stand for?

Folks, today it is really a 2 Minute post. Tom Peters has been putting up a number of short videos on separate topics over the last weeks, you can find them here at vimeo. What is it good for? Food for thought. Yes, he almost yells at you. Yes, he has a very "distinct" way of speaking and bringing his point across. Still, try it out, get yelled at by Tom Peters (for free!). Maybe there will be something in it for you. My favourite quote:

The hard things are easy, the soft things are hard.