Seven Consulting Firm Leadership Pains... And How To Reduce Or Eliminate Them

Since 1923, The 24 Hours Of Le Mans has been one of the most prestigious endurance car races in the word. Jointly with the Monaco Grand Prix and Indy 500, they are also called the "Triple Crown of Motorsport".

Originally, the race was invented to test cars' endurance and reliability under extreme circumstances. And it's an extreme race in terms of both the fierceness of competition and the torture the cars have to go through. By the end of the race, drivers cover as many as 5,000 kilometres.

At one point, The Le Mans races started seeing a new type of start. Cars would line up on one side of the road and the drivers on the other side. At the wave of the start flag, drivers would run to their cars, jump in, start their engines and off they go.
However, this type of somewhat oddball start was soon terminated because, in order to get to the front of the pack, many drivers didn't bother to fasten their safety harnesses.

So, they started the race, crashed every now and then, and, in turn, kicked the bucket every now and then. And that was a rather miserable way of ending an otherwise rather nice day.

And the reason why I mention this interesting point is that, in the shuffling madness, so many consulting firms rush headlong to the market to generate revenue, but they fail to think through how they manage their operations.

And as the saying goes, if you catch the tiger by the tail, then you'd better figure out your next move pretty quickly. And the same goes for managing consulting firms.

And since they've never figured out how to manage their firms, the proverbial tiger comes back and bites them in the arse.

And then this tiger goes home and tells all his friends and relations about the fresh juicy tushies available for biting. And the process repeats for the poor miserable firm.

Or maybe not...

While growing any business can be a major challenge, and while many aspects of growth in industrial companies can be delegated to watertight systems and almost minimum-wage workers, growth in a consulting firm is a totally different ballgame. And while I truly believe in systems and processes, to truly grow a consulting firm requires kick-arse talent as well. Not merely workers, but actual talents.

But just how to handle the delicate balance of what to systemise and what to humanise?

Using Pareto's 80-20 rule, systemise some 80% your firm's mundane and recurring tasks. This gives your people the creative freedom to humanise the other 20%.

As Roy Williams, The Wizard Of Ads writes in one of his Monday Morning Memo...

"A company without freedoms is a sweatshop. A company without policies, procedures, methods and systems is a country club for unproductive employees."

Just look at client acquisition.

It can be broken down to three phases...

And this is what we discuss this month's staggeringly mouth-watering episode of Commando Consulting, entitled, "Seven Consulting Firm Leadership Pains In The Arse... And How To Reduce Or Eliminate Them".

Enjoy the reading and then hop back here if you have something interesting to comment.