Consulting may be an old profession (the second oldest?) but no one can argue that it hasn't undergone tremendous change over the past 20 years. It makes sense, after all. Consulting reflects the business technology challenges and opportunities that clients are experiencing. And there's been incredible business technology change in the recent decades. Which begs the question, what is it like being a young consultant of Millennial or Gen Z upbringing? For insight I turned to my smart friends and a smart, young consultant, Ian Liang, with whom I've worked in the past. Ian has been a consultant for a Big 4 firm, worked in market strategy at Uber and is currently in Strategy and Analytics at a media firm in Los Angeles. He may also be scarred for life having worked on my teams in the past. In this episode: What prompts a young person, fresh from college, to enter the consulting field? Do young people generally know what they're getting into with consulting? Is consulting experience as valued by the young as it once was? What do the fresh entrants into this field NOT know that may surprise them? What are the different expectations of the youth entering consulting today? Why do young people LEAVE consulting? Is the 10-15 year path to Partner career still relevant to the youth of today? Is there a consultant DNA? Do experiences vary by gender? And importantly for our guest Ian, would he do it again knowing what he knows now? Add your thoughts to the conversation on LinkedIn or YouTube. You can also like and subscribe on the YouTube Channel (and you should!)

I used to think that if I could just clone myself a few times I might have the most perfect team and we'd produce the most perfect slides...   Aside from that likely being a disaster, I used to think that's how mentorship worked. I mentor or coach someone to do things in the method of whatever firm we were working for so that I had more arms and legs to do work for clients.    Luckily I learned better.    It isn't about the firm or the client or even the work. It's about individual growth of both the mentor and the mentee.    I wanted to explore the concept of mentorship with some of my smart friends. So I sat down with Phil Yanov, Whynde Kuehn and Oliver Cronk.    In this Episode:  What do we mean by mentorship?  What are the different models of mentorship?  How do we compare apprenticeship, coaching, mentorship?  Why is it important to people at all stages of the career? What is the difference between mentorship and therapy?  What is good mentorship and what isn't? What works? Add your thoughts to the conversation on LinkedIn or YouTube. You can also like and subscribe on the YouTube Channel (and you should!)

Well it looks like things are getting back to normal. Everyone should just go back to doing things like they did prior to Covid. All will be as it was… Or not. As the case may be. Have you heard the predictions for an imminent return to normalcy? Are you excited by the prospect of everyone working the 9-5, Monday thru Friday grind in the old cubicle just like before? Isn’t every consultant thrilled about the notion of going back to that 4am Monday flight to Peoria or Altoona or Wichita to sit in a conference room, face lit by the soft glow of PowerPoint slides and Excel formulas until that late Thursday flight home? What does the looming return to work portend for business, for clients, for consultants? I decided to ask my friends for their input on the matter. Joining me is Phil Yanov, Whynde Kuehn and Oliver Cronk. In this Episode: Where do things stand a year into Covid now that vaccinations are in play? What about our business models and work routines has changed? Which changes will stick? What will go back to the way it was before? What should we be thinking with regard to our work patterns? Add your thoughts to the conversation on LinkedIn or YouTube. You can also like and subscribe on the YouTube Channel (and you should!)

Welp. Glad this year's over. Perfect time to pour a drink, to be honest.    It's also a perfect time for the third annual Christmas episode of the Consultants Saying Things podcast! It's great filler for that hole in spacetime between Christmas and New Year's.   Join the full crew of Consultants Saying Things as we look forward to 2021 and what it holds in store for the consulting industry.    We answer questions from LinkedIn and do it with a bit of liquid holiday cheer! And also we have some very special guests!   Joining us:  Brent Stokes from episode 35 (Recruiting) joins us at 00:01:25  Oliver Cronk from episode 30 (Endpoint Security) at 00:18:30  Hussain Bandukwala from episode 18 (PMO) at 00:27:00  Jim Sevier from episode 06 (CRM) at 00:34:24  Doug Cone from episode 04 (Open Source) at 00:51:56  Nathan Allchin from episode 34 (Philosophy) at 01:02:25  Mike Walker from episode 28 (Enterprise Architecture) at 01:10:20  Larry Gioia from episode 09 (Empathy) at 01:31:05   That wraps season 3 of the podcast. 36 episodes in the 30-90 minute range over the past 3 years. If you have a second, please subscribe.   We'll see you in 2021. Enjoy!   Add your thoughts to the conversation on LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube. You can also like and subscribe on the YouTube Channel (and you should!)

It's been a rough year. Companies have downsized and a maybe you've lost your job. You've sent out dozens or hundreds of resumes, worked your network. What now? Consultants are maybe more used to searching for the next gig, but even for them, times are tough. And for the companies that panicked earlier in 2020 and let go of all of that talent, intellectual capital and institutional knowledge, how on earth do you find the skills needed to power your 2021 plans? It somehow seems that in a market chock full of talent that can't find gigs, companies can't find anyone to fill their needs. Enter professional executive recruiters. These are people who's entire life is spent understanding companies and the skills they need, developing relationships over time with talent in the market and playing matchmaker between the two. To talk about this, I brought in my friend Brent Stokes from Bluesignal. In our conversation: What is professional recruiting? Isn’t it just staffing? Why do so many recruiting services get it so wrong when it comes to finding candidates? How do job-hunters, consultants, find the right recruiter to work with? Why do companies need recruiting services? They have HR already… What are some tips for consultants looking for work right now? What are some tips for companies searching for talent right now? Add your thoughts to the conversation on LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube. You can also like and subscribe on the YouTube Channel (and you should!)

If you live in the real world, if you practice your profession in the real world, then you'll know the real world loves throwing crap at you whenever it can.    The challenges come at us from every angle: family, work, friends, clients, colleagues, children, culture, technology, politics, pandemics... just to name a few.    How on Earth is your average consultant expected to navigate this, continue to be productive, and stay sane?   One way is by adopting and applying certain philosophies as frameworks for interacting with our world and our work.   I have some friends that are interested (and knowledgeable) in this area and I sat them down for a chat. Added to this group is my friend Nathan Allchin who spent quite a bit of time in AI research and has been a management consultant for, well, for ever.   In our conversation:  Why would anyone need a framework like this to begin with?  Why would a consultant need a philosophy?   What types of problems would we expect to solve by applying philosophy to consulting?  What philosophies or frameworks might one apply?  Are philosophies really just like architecture frameworks in that they’re highly context dependent? Or is there a one-philosophy-fits-all kind of thing out there?  Where could a consultant/practitioner go to learn more? Add your thoughts to the conversation on LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube. You can also like and subscribe on the YouTube Channel (and you should!)

Consulting can be a tough game. All of these Type-A personalities aggressively posturing and circling each other for the kill. Egos are large and there's no shortage of locker-room braggadocio. It's an industry that employs far too many sports metaphors and comes with a distinct odor of machismo. Couple this with the fact that consultants dealing in Business/Technology Architecture roles often have technical or engineering backgrounds and this sets the scene for one of the great critiques of the field: Consulting is a Boys Club. I wanted to talk to my friends about what it's like for women in the consulting field. I turned to the smartest business architect consultant I know, Whynde Keuhn, to join the cast for a lively discussion on the topic. In our conversation: Why is there a gender imbalance in consulting? Why does it matter? What other tropes about women in consulting can be debunked? What could men learn from their female consultant colleagues that could perhaps improve our effectiveness? What could women learn from their male consultant colleagues that could perhaps improve THEIR effectiveness? For people just starting out in consulting, what are the key take-aways? Should the world just be run by women? Add your thoughts to the conversation on LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube. You can also like and subscribe on the YouTube Channel (and you should!)

I'm tired of Covid. How bout you? Unfortunately, it probably doesn't matter if we're tired of it or not. We've all been talking quite a lot about Covid impacts. We've all been living the Covid new-normal lifestyle. We've been quarantined and socially distanced and working from home and hunkered down. We've been living this Covid reality. My question is simple: Have we learned anything or will things just go back to the way they were before? I was basically ranting about this with my friends and we turned it into another episode of the podcast. In our conversation: Chris is sick of Covid and now he's gonna say what he really thinks What's the deal with schools and virtual learning? What is the societal impact of this education system we've developed? What do leaders do to learn from the Covid experience and move forward? Was this a black swan event or not? Have we learned ANYTHING? What do practitioners do to start accepting and moving forward?    Add your thoughts to the conversation on LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube. You can also like and subscribe on the YouTube Channel (and you should!)

You may be thinking that now is the time to hunker down and just hope your business can survive. But what if you're missing out on a killer opportunity? With the economy under pressure, an ongoing global pandemic and a healthy dose of socio-political uncertainty, it sure seems like the moment is right for the enterprise to keep its head down. Of course, if your company is out there hunting for value, the time may just be perfect. I was curious about the impact of technology and uncertainty on value creation in unstable times. What opportunities might exist for the bold and unafraid? As usual, I turned to my smart friends to help me think it out. In our conversation: Who are the value hunters in these times? What impact can technology make on value creation with so much instability? Are we in the midst of a Private Equity gold rush to snap up stressed companies? What can a consultant do to take advantage of the current situation? Add your thoughts to the conversation on LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube. You can also like and subscribe on the YouTube Channel (and you should!)

Check your endpoint. It's probably not as safe from cyberthreats as you think. And Covid made it worse... The cybersecurity landscape has been dicey for years. In just the past week there have been massive outages in the networks of Tesla, Microsoft, Apple and AT&T. Think about that. Those companies basically impact every aspect of life. And while they've done a lot to protect their services over the years, the pandemic has thrown a spanner in the works. If huge global companies with billions of dollars and super smart people are vulnerable, how safe are those corporate assets on the company laptop you're using for Zoom calls from home (Pajamas, noisy dogs, screaming e-learning kids and bad lighting not withstanding)? I wanted to know more about this. So I asked my good friend Oliver Cronk to come on the podcast and talk about it. Oliver isn't just smart. He's also British. So he SOUNDS smarter as well. Beyond that, he's the Chief Architect at Tanium. Perhaps you've heard of them? They protect endpoint assets of small mom & pop shops like the US Air Force. So, yeah. These folks know something about endpoint security. In our conversation: How has our new way of working impacted traditional security? Is the 'enterprise fortress' still relevant to security? How should CISO's, Risk Officers and other stakeholders adapt? How are Consultants able to take advantage of these trends? How can we better serve our clients in this environment? Is Phil really just an aged future version of Chris? Add your thoughts to the conversation on LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube. You can also like and subscribe on the YouTube Channel (and you should!)