June 1, 2008
February 29, 2008
Sessions with Sharon
February 25th, Grenoble. This week seems to mark the beginning of the most exciting and important week so far, in my MBA program. The course for the week is ‘Management Consulting Tools and Processes’. I was excited about this course for a number of reasons. Not only because I understand that Management Consulting is the field for me and I need to professionalise my skills, but also it was an opportunity to meet so many more international students who were to join this course. Another reason I was looking forward for this course was Sharon.
Earlier I had received an email from Sharon, which reiterated the intensity of the course and requested for our commitment. And during a wine tasting session, the week before, while I was overwhelmed with the unlimited information about the French wine culture, I got a chance to meet Sharon. It was surprising to see that she knew many people by faces, even without having met them before. She handed me her business card and introduced herself as a ‘Management Consultant and a Networker’. I knew we had something interesting and useful coming up.
Today, the first session with Sharon was indeed a very energetic and motivating one, though quite different from what I expected. I thought it to be a more serious stuff, where we would be taught some powerful tools to solve complex problems. But it was more about soft skills. Some practical things that really helped me. Most of it sounded like common sense things, but I had never thought about them in so much detail. Best aspect was the subjective learning experience, where we actually practised and made all the knowledge a part of our personality during the course.
Everything had an element of detail, from our schedule for the week to the evaluation matrix. Through the pre-course questionnaire, Sharon demonstrated clearly the utilization of a SMART (Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Timely) questionnaire. One irrelevant question that I remember was the colour of the eyes.
We went in detail about the various skills/qualities of a good Management Consultant. I realised that I needed to improve my contact management and networking skills. We were divided into teams of 4 or 5, based on our country and background, and had some interesting team activities. And as we worked in our small teams, the elements of effective team work were highlighted, which I understood and appreciated. Things like how to manage ourselves under pressure and how to contribute to the common team objectives.
Each of us practised the elevator pitch, where we had to introduce ourselves in 46 seconds. It taught me how to make a positive and lasting impression in a short time. The importance of active listening was emphasised time and again. We practised it along with detailed note taking. At the end of the day, I could remember not only the names of all the 20+ classmates and their professional background, but also some unique things like Marian has lived in UK, Germany, Spain and Singapore; and Alena has handled many change management projects in Russia. Off course, for my reference, I have detailed notes about each of the participants.
The team activities brought about a number of issues and learnings. At the end of it I was better at understanding and handling issues like leadership and communicating working culture in the team. And also very importantly respecting and working with people from different cultures. And gradually I kept adding tools to my ‘Consultant’s Toolkit’.
February 26th. GGSB.
Sharon always refered to herself as a brand and not as a person. And how she managed the brand ‘Sharon Crost’ (http://getbusinesswow.wordpress.com/) helped me gain some confidence. We revised the learnings from the previous day to check how much of the details we have handy. We were to treat Sharon as a client and record the billing hours.
I decided to be proactive in exchanging business cards, subscribe to blogs related to consulting, improve my contact management system and start my own blog. So here it is. During the module Sharon shared experiences from her 20 years of professional life to highlight many small aspects of business that go unnoticed. For example, the first impression clients would have about us and how a small thing like the pen we use can make a difference. Again throughout the day was active listening, team work and some tools to analyse problems and present solutions. All the students came up with 5 skills each that make a good consultant and then we as one big team classified them into 5 different categories. It was amazing to see that it was done in just eight minutes.
In the competitive business world, how do we find the business? After the session it appeared to be a lot easier. It is important to sell yourself at all times and the question 'Who knows us?', is most important. A good web presence can go a long way to help us, and blogs, which are free, easy and useful are definitely tools to be used. We did a detailed discussion about other tools and skills for professional networking.
Each of us had to analyse our skills and knowledge, and come up with a consulting plan. I am good in planning and have creative ideas. Service I can offer is Strategy for Market Entry and Business Development in the Indian Market, targeting small companies in Europe that want to expand. For marketing I would focus on Blogs, website and contacting personal and professional contacts.
We discussed in detail about the consulting process and focused on the proposals. Many small elements of a successful proposal were revealed. Some important points were to know some alternatives to increase or decrease the project cost; using powerful and positive words to paraphrase the objectives etc. The theory and application went on at the same time, as we worked on a proposal to assist Amazon in a recruitment project.
Since we were given exact 30 minutes, it was not easy. My key take-away was the importance of PRIORITISING the tasks. And of course all through the course it was a practise to manage time and work under stressful situations.
Day 3 and 4.
We covered the entire cycle of consulting process and the skills to maximise our effectiveness at each step. We talked about the Project Management tools like MS Project. The key elements of the process are the Resources, Time and Scope/Functionality. It is important to analyse each of these before starting the project. The importance of Risk management was highlighted with a number of examples, along with the Change Management. In a nutshell, we make a list of all the risks/exceptions, find out the likelihood and impact of each and have a backup plan for each.
Accuracy in the project comes with alignment with the clients. We learnt how to make best use of the client meetings and ask the SMART questions. While talking about questionnaire we were enlightened by the Sharon’s quote of the day ‘Less is more!’. Too many questions may negatively impact the quality of the answers. After working on a number of cases I was much more confident to use tools like PEST and SWOT analysis; and Porter’s 5 forces to analyse the issues and provide solutions. “Sharon uses SWOT all the time”. I realised that the 80-20 rule works in a number of different situations. I also used 'mind monkey' to practise designing a good questionnaire.
The entire experience with Sharon was filled with so many small learnings, that it will not be apt to mention them all here. Things like if we want to charge less from the client, it has to be done tactfully. We should give Discount with reasoning and setting right expectations. And how visuals can make a great difference in the presentation. And how to mange ourselves well to manage all our work, contacts and time. It was a great enriching real time experience for me!
We ended with an amazing presentation from each team where each presented a strategy to solve a different real case. And now at the end of intensive week, we have the 'Happy Hour'. I am going out to the pub with Sharon, Mike and all the classmates.
Earlier I had received an email from Sharon, which reiterated the intensity of the course and requested for our commitment. And during a wine tasting session, the week before, while I was overwhelmed with the unlimited information about the French wine culture, I got a chance to meet Sharon. It was surprising to see that she knew many people by faces, even without having met them before. She handed me her business card and introduced herself as a ‘Management Consultant and a Networker’. I knew we had something interesting and useful coming up.
Today, the first session with Sharon was indeed a very energetic and motivating one, though quite different from what I expected. I thought it to be a more serious stuff, where we would be taught some powerful tools to solve complex problems. But it was more about soft skills. Some practical things that really helped me. Most of it sounded like common sense things, but I had never thought about them in so much detail. Best aspect was the subjective learning experience, where we actually practised and made all the knowledge a part of our personality during the course.
Everything had an element of detail, from our schedule for the week to the evaluation matrix. Through the pre-course questionnaire, Sharon demonstrated clearly the utilization of a SMART (Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Timely) questionnaire. One irrelevant question that I remember was the colour of the eyes.
We went in detail about the various skills/qualities of a good Management Consultant. I realised that I needed to improve my contact management and networking skills. We were divided into teams of 4 or 5, based on our country and background, and had some interesting team activities. And as we worked in our small teams, the elements of effective team work were highlighted, which I understood and appreciated. Things like how to manage ourselves under pressure and how to contribute to the common team objectives.
Each of us practised the elevator pitch, where we had to introduce ourselves in 46 seconds. It taught me how to make a positive and lasting impression in a short time. The importance of active listening was emphasised time and again. We practised it along with detailed note taking. At the end of the day, I could remember not only the names of all the 20+ classmates and their professional background, but also some unique things like Marian has lived in UK, Germany, Spain and Singapore; and Alena has handled many change management projects in Russia. Off course, for my reference, I have detailed notes about each of the participants.
The team activities brought about a number of issues and learnings. At the end of it I was better at understanding and handling issues like leadership and communicating working culture in the team. And also very importantly respecting and working with people from different cultures. And gradually I kept adding tools to my ‘Consultant’s Toolkit’.
February 26th. GGSB.
Sharon always refered to herself as a brand and not as a person. And how she managed the brand ‘Sharon Crost’ (http://getbusinesswow.wordpress.com/) helped me gain some confidence. We revised the learnings from the previous day to check how much of the details we have handy. We were to treat Sharon as a client and record the billing hours.
I decided to be proactive in exchanging business cards, subscribe to blogs related to consulting, improve my contact management system and start my own blog. So here it is. During the module Sharon shared experiences from her 20 years of professional life to highlight many small aspects of business that go unnoticed. For example, the first impression clients would have about us and how a small thing like the pen we use can make a difference. Again throughout the day was active listening, team work and some tools to analyse problems and present solutions. All the students came up with 5 skills each that make a good consultant and then we as one big team classified them into 5 different categories. It was amazing to see that it was done in just eight minutes.
In the competitive business world, how do we find the business? After the session it appeared to be a lot easier. It is important to sell yourself at all times and the question 'Who knows us?', is most important. A good web presence can go a long way to help us, and blogs, which are free, easy and useful are definitely tools to be used. We did a detailed discussion about other tools and skills for professional networking.
Each of us had to analyse our skills and knowledge, and come up with a consulting plan. I am good in planning and have creative ideas. Service I can offer is Strategy for Market Entry and Business Development in the Indian Market, targeting small companies in Europe that want to expand. For marketing I would focus on Blogs, website and contacting personal and professional contacts.
We discussed in detail about the consulting process and focused on the proposals. Many small elements of a successful proposal were revealed. Some important points were to know some alternatives to increase or decrease the project cost; using powerful and positive words to paraphrase the objectives etc. The theory and application went on at the same time, as we worked on a proposal to assist Amazon in a recruitment project.
Since we were given exact 30 minutes, it was not easy. My key take-away was the importance of PRIORITISING the tasks. And of course all through the course it was a practise to manage time and work under stressful situations.
Day 3 and 4.
We covered the entire cycle of consulting process and the skills to maximise our effectiveness at each step. We talked about the Project Management tools like MS Project. The key elements of the process are the Resources, Time and Scope/Functionality. It is important to analyse each of these before starting the project. The importance of Risk management was highlighted with a number of examples, along with the Change Management. In a nutshell, we make a list of all the risks/exceptions, find out the likelihood and impact of each and have a backup plan for each.
Accuracy in the project comes with alignment with the clients. We learnt how to make best use of the client meetings and ask the SMART questions. While talking about questionnaire we were enlightened by the Sharon’s quote of the day ‘Less is more!’. Too many questions may negatively impact the quality of the answers. After working on a number of cases I was much more confident to use tools like PEST and SWOT analysis; and Porter’s 5 forces to analyse the issues and provide solutions. “Sharon uses SWOT all the time”. I realised that the 80-20 rule works in a number of different situations. I also used 'mind monkey' to practise designing a good questionnaire.
The entire experience with Sharon was filled with so many small learnings, that it will not be apt to mention them all here. Things like if we want to charge less from the client, it has to be done tactfully. We should give Discount with reasoning and setting right expectations. And how visuals can make a great difference in the presentation. And how to mange ourselves well to manage all our work, contacts and time. It was a great enriching real time experience for me!
We ended with an amazing presentation from each team where each presented a strategy to solve a different real case. And now at the end of intensive week, we have the 'Happy Hour'. I am going out to the pub with Sharon, Mike and all the classmates.
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