Apr 18 2009
My Name is Becky, and I’m a Business Consultant
It’s a Friday night and I’ve been invited out to a dinner party by a friend; it seems I won’t know many of the people there. I dress myself up nicely, turn up in my Alfa Romeo (cleaned for the occasion from the numerous attacks of the pigeons that delight in making their homes in the branches above my parking space), smile sweetly and make polite conversation.
Inevitably the conversation turns to the subject of work.
“So Becky, tell us what you do?”
“Well… I’m a business consultant.”
Conversation at the table is stilled as the occupants turn to look at me with a gaze that is quite unlike any other. The slightly glazed look in the eye, the polite but uninterested smile.
“Oh. That’s nice. But what do you actually ‘do’”?
And there it is. The question that flummoxes me every time I’m asked it. What is the role of a business consultant? What do we actually do?
So perhaps the situation described above was somewhat exaggerated but it is a common enough occurrence to deserve a little embellishment! That question still gets me every time. Hence the reason for this blog post; to collect my thoughts on the matter, to provide a little definition on the life of a consultant.
From the manic to the mundane
Varied would be a good word to use to describe consultancy. One moment I’ll be working 50-60 hour weeks, rushed off my feet, commuting to client locations around the country. And the next the client has decided that they can’t afford to pay ridiculous amounts of money for the service offered and I’m back on the dreaded ‘bench’; a location where I’m at the beck and call of every ever-so-slightly more senior member of staff.
It’s hard to know the preference between the two states of play. It’s nice to be busy, watching the days fly by. But I’ve never been a person whose work is my life, it’s simply a means to survive; so when it starts to sap the hours out of my week it can be a frustrating experience. Having said that sitting staring at a wall waiting until someone has a piece of writing for you to proof read is hardly the most thrilling way to spend forty hours a week.
From brown paper to PowerPoint
The two most treasured tools of the business consultant. Brown paper is supposed to be an effective tool to prompt ‘group think’, apparently if you put something up on brown paper it appears less finished than something on white paper, giving people the freedom to alter what they see. Occasionally it works…
At the risk of being an advert for Microsoft, PowerPoint is a tool used in the consulting world a lot. Numerous presentations are prepared for clients to describe the ‘very real and wonderful difference’ we’re making to their businesses.
From the fancy to the not-so-fancy we use many tools to attempt to improve the performance of the organisations that we work with.
But Becky… What do you do?!
I’ve managed to waffle for five hundred and eighteen words without answering that question.
Maybe I’m not such a bad consultant after all…
