All hail the talented management consultant

Tomorrow I’m spending the day with a team of management consultants. Imagine the knowledge, ideas, solutions and know-how in that room! Imagine all of the situations they’ve seen and how many times they’ve brought someone or something back from the brink.

And yes, you might be thinking of jokes, one-liners and other comments about management consultants... but I think at the core of what a management consultant does is helping a client find a solution to a problem or issue, or find a way through to a new way of doing things.

Tomorrow I’ll be equipping them with some powerful visual thinking skills so they can use in-the-moment visuals (that’s words, shapes, pictures, images – quickly sketched) to give them visual agility.

I say ‘agility’ because they need to be quick, thinking on their feet or quick to listen and respond…with another question, or a possibility, and help the client 'see' that possibility.

It’s vital in this information-dense world that they are able to

• Capture: what the client’s key points are, and to distil the essence of the problem or situation. Then to ...
• Convey: to pitch and propose, to present and consult on the types of solutions the firm can work with the client on. They will map out the possibilities, show the client what the future can look like and what milestones along the way can get them closer to resolving the issue or creating that situation.

And then throughout the client/firm engagement, there will be the:

• Collaboration: meeting after meeting, the many conversations, workshops, brainstorms and innovation discussions – all of that talking can be ‘caught’ so that together the solution will be proposed, adjusted, implemented and embedded.

The skills will give this team of consultants a shorthand and a shortcut to clarity. Rather than talking back and forth, trying to reach understanding, some key words and concepts will help get to ‘same page’ understanding so both parties know what is to be worked on and how it will happen.

This team is in for a powerful day. They’ll likely go from “I can’t draw” to using visuals every day in so many situations.

I’m so excited for them! And for the value their clients are going to receive as a result of this development.

Yes, now we can hail the (even more) talented management consultant!

Now, let’s get their kits together of markers, journals and other cool visual tools… lucky I love stationery.