Challenge 2012

Hello Readers,


I am pretty good in regularly updating my travel blog. Unfortunately, this is not so true for my professional one. But thinking about it, I am lacking a concept of what to do with the Naked Consultant blog. Initially, I wanted to use it to write down all my projects I worked on in the past, which I did, more or less well, and when that was over, I thought I could talk about my current projects and assignments. I was quickly faced with a dilemma - confidentiality versus regular communication. So I left it, confidentiality won, and I put the blog to rest for the unforeseen future. 


Things have changed now. My 2 year assignment with my client in Derbyshire is coming rapidly to an end and the question of what to do with my blog is emerging again. 


The last 2 years were good ones - not only because the projects I managed were successful (one day soon I will elaborate further of what we did there), but also because I learned a lot about my strengths and weaknesses and where I should focus on in my career as freelancing management consultant. 


And that's already the crux - do I see myself as "management consultant"? I guess yes, as consulting is what I do and have always done, but the term alone is so widespread and general that in the end it does not help when building a career outside one of the bigger or smaller consulting companies on this planet. 


Based on what I am good at and what I have enjoyed the most over the years I want to see myself as "Corporate Coach". But more on that and the concept in my next blog entry... 

Berlin

After that disaster in the US I was a bit fed up with consulting and tried to orientate myself. I moved to Berlin for a few months. I had first thoughts of working as freelancer. And the field I was most comfortable with was management training and coaching.

After I assessed my skills-set I realised that I lacked essential operational experience. I felt I focused too much on training; training had become my comfort zone. I knew I had to tackle the other side, too, the more technical and operational one.

It was in those days that I got a phone call from a headhunter who found my CV somewhere on the internet. My biggest asset, so he said, was my extensive training knowledge which would have been most beneficial for this consultancy he is looking to hire consultants for.

This company was based in Paris but I could live wherever I wanted. To cut the story short, I started with that company, moved back to London, and worked as consultant with training experience. The company does not exist anymore. Its name was IMR.

What you see is what you get

Talking about operations management consultancies there are generally 3 main products a client can get, at least as specified with my first company I worked for - performance enhancement, management training and skills training. The first 2 are interlinked and compulsory, the latter optional.

Performance enhancement or operations improvement:
This part of the project will get the benefits cashed in. Consultants are allocated to specific areas and ought to develop them and implement what has been promised/sold to the client. I already talked about activity lists and manloading. That's one part of it.

Management training:
In order to make sure that those performance improvements "stick" with the clients' management (supervisors, managers and above) training needs to be given. The training programme needs to be tailor-made (or at least sold as such) to what the clients' specific needs are. The first few parts of the training are always the same modules though. But that's okay, those modules are vital.

Skills training:
Staff and workers get skills training. Projects like these might be "sales enhancement" programmes or "throughput optimisation" initiatives.

More detail to be found in further blog entries...