What makes a good consultant?
Consulting | Sandeep Chatterjee | July 14, 2009 at 10:05 am
Last week when I was in Dallas, I happened to meet an ex-colleague of mine. After the usual pleasantries, he asked me, “What are you up to these days?” I told him that I am into Consulting. He started laughing and said, “Do not get me wrong. A consultant is someone who will look at your watch and tell you the time.” I did not know how to react.
On my way back to India in the British Airways flight, I started pondering over his comment. Why is there mistrust in the minds of people when they see a consultant? May be some consultant has misused his position to make some fast buck. I am not saying that all consultants are like that but this must have surely happened somewhere.
As I delve into what makes a good consultant, let me define a consultant. In a layman’s language, a consultant is someone who is an expert in his field, has the ability to have a deeper understanding of your problem and who is able to recommend a solution. To take an example, I go to a travel agent and ask him to book an air ticket from Delhi to London. In this case he is a Service provider and not a consultant. The same travel agent will act as a consultant if I go to him and say that I want to plan a holiday. He looks at the possible destinations in the given time span, researches on hotels, looks at possible itineraries and finally comes with some options with a recommended approach.
I have seen many of the IT folks claiming themselves as consultants. Well, some of them are but majority of them are service providers and good executioners as they do what the client asks them to do. In the true sense, instead of doing what they are asked to do, good consultants actually have a proactive approach in suggesting to the client how they can improve their processes to reduce the total cost of ownership.
With consultancy comes responsibility. A good consultant should be responsible and accountable for his actions and should never try to suggest something to make a quick buck. You can make some quick money but you lose respect and trust which are very important for a consultant.
One more trait of a good consultant is timeliness. A good consultant is expected to deliver results in the time allocated to him. If that means putting in extra effort for preparedness, he needs to do it. And finally he needs to come up with options with pros and cons. A good consultant will recommend an approach but should not try to dictate an approach as this has the potential to cause a suspicion in the client’s mind.
What I have talked about is an indicative list and not an exhaustive one. Please let me know your comments. I may be reached at sandeep_chatterjee@infosys.com.
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Tags: Consulting, Surviving the Consulting Life
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excellent article, really enjoyed reading it.
"A consultant is someone who will look at your watch and tell you the time" ; Well that is completely true if the digital watch shows digits in a language you do not ready (say Telugu /Hindi / Arabic numbers) and the consultant can read. The client owns the watch that generates the data but the client does not have the point of view / expertise to analyze it with an unbiased and detached perspective. The data might as well be in Greek and Latin.
Well at least we current (as aspiring) consultants have a comeback to the old tongue-in-cheek comment.
That is what is expected of a consultant but people have misused their position to do an inferior kind of consulting. So it is looked upon more as a satire rather than an honest comment
Consulting is an inherent trait and cannot be acquired. Its extremely important for folks aspiring to be in the space to do a thorough analysis of their personalities and then only jump into consulting as a career option.
The key traits required are : Ability to listen, 'multiple thinking' approach and above all detail orientation.These are the core skill sets of a consultant for effective client management.
Doctor jokes are abound yet their value for the society is intact. The same goes with consultants. There are patients who are not happy or feel cheated with the treatment they receive(d) from their doctors. Like wise there could be businesses feeling this way.
As you put it, a good consultant must be a responsible person and deliver on time. You must say 'no' when you can't add any value, and when you can, you must deliver on time.
Correct ! The differene between people claiming to be consultants and 'Consultants' is evident from their approach. Consulting may not always be delaing with rocket science but may be as simple as letting one know the time from his own watch…very rightly pointed out by fellow reader (about watch readings in another language) and sometthing like a person helping you restore your mobile phone language setting when changed to unknown language! Thus, consulting involves simplifying complex issues/ problems for some by providing either acquired skills & experience or by doing altogether new research about the problem domain in a wholistic third eye view and resolving the problem. Consulting is an art that almost everyone of us do/ must have done in some part of life, however those who develop the art by skills & experience with an attitude to help others, when asked, and are able to communicate properly on time in an professional manner for economic activity are called Consultants.
Is life of a Consultant peace or its too much loaded ?
approching the consultancies to get a job is better r not?