Consulting Lessons From Emory Students
12/12/2007
Many of the folks who pop into Diva Marketing are consultants. Some people are traditional consultants who serve many different clients. Other are internal consultants whose job it is to provide support within their own organizations.
Consulting is a profession where head and heart are both critical. In fact, often the person with the best technical skills may not succeed to the extent as the person with the best people skills. The ability to form and sustain collaborative relationships is key.
One of my favorite undertakings has been co-teaching a management consulting class at
Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. This is my 4th year as part of this innovative course where undergraduate (juniors and seniors) students are matched with non profit "clients" and assume 95% of managing client relations. This unique program was profiled in Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell's ebook Creating Customer
Evangelists - click on Bloomberg Marketing and highlighted in the Atlanta Business
Chronicle.
It's always a time of fun learning for me. This year I had the pleasure of working with a great class and with one of the most talented consultants in O&M (organization and management)- Prof. Peter Topping. 2007 clients were: AHMENhousing, PeopleTV, Camp Horizon, Cobb Medical Society, Literacy Action, Theatre In The Square, It's A Journey, Atlanta Police Foundation
At our pizza party last class the students told us some of their lessons learned about consulting.
- There is no set path you have to be ready to change as you go along.
- I will never forget how important it is to define the scope.
- You need to know if the client has the ability to implement your recommendations.
- It would be nice to know if the client will actually do anything with your strategy.
- Never know how much red tape there will be and what will be simple or easy to get (note in terms of data from the client) or more difficult.
- I learned I don't want to be a consultant.
- Understanding the organizational structure and who to go to for information.
- Everything takes longer than you think.
- Opinions (about what to do and how to do it) can vary within an organization.
- Every time we met with the client there was a new piece of information that could have helped us if we had known it sooner.
- The client's list of stuff he wanted from the project seemed to grow every time we met.
- Every project is different and you have to adjust to the company (culture).
- Keep your eyes on the primary goals.
Agree? Disagree? What are your lessons learned from consulting or from working with a consultant?
