Stephen Shu, PhD – Page 22 – Professor of Practice of Behavioral Economics

June 26, 2009

My Experience With Teaching Ethics Session As Part Of Core Marketing Course

This past week I had a chance to teach an ethics session as part of a larger, core marketing course that I am teaching at Irvine University. I write this post to share my experiences on what worked and what didn't.

Now as context, about four years ago in 2005 I wrote a post on covering ethics as part of business school curricula, and to make a long story short, back then I didn't have a very comfortable opinion on how effective that type of training would be and whether students would want to pay for such training. I have since that timeframe (and based on comments from folks) augmented my opinion a little bit in that while I feel that ethics is something that should not be exclusive to business schools, it is something that leaders need to work with, and as such, is a fundamental topic for business schools to address.

That said, I am not quite comfortable with how I addressed ethics in this past week's session. Setting my effectiveness and student perceptions aside for the moment, here's the basic path that I took:

Though I'm no business historian, I characterized the history of the revitalization of ethics in the business schools as falling into two mini-eras in recent history– One of these mini-eras started on the order of five to ten years ago and was driven by a lot of the corporate scandals, executive fiascoes (e.g., Enron), and need for better financial reporting (e.g., Sarbanes-Oxley). In this first mini-era, business schools introduced ethics into their curricula with some of them incorporating ethics into leadership courses with others taking ethics and spreading a little bit of those ideas into all courses. Waving my hands a lot, I cited Michael Lewis' piece, "The End" (Of Wall Street), the role of credit default swaps, and failure of ethics (among other things) being at the heart of the cause of the economic downturn. So I concluded that business schools can still do more. Mini-era two is taking place with MBA graduates taking part in the student-led MBA Oath, which has been going viral.
I indicated that leaders need to be concerned with ethics – basically what I said above in that it is not the sole responsibility of business school students, but that we can further the practice of ethics.
I promoted two key frameworks for analyzing ethical concerns– Both of these frameworks are from Chapter 4 of the McGraw-Hill Irwin textbook, "Marketing", 9th Edition, by Kerin et. al. One framework was the standard, 2×2 consulting-like matrix that broke ideas into 4 quadrants with (Ethical-Not Ethical on one axis and Legal-Not Legal on the other). We spent time discussing certain scenarios and whether they fell into one quadrant or the other. I argued that the legal axis was, in principle, more straightforward than the ethics axis, where the degree of overlap and misfit between individual, company, general business, and international ethical principles are more fuzzy and can require reconciliation whether by management, ethics officer or other. I cited Transparency International as a data point and source for international practices and norms for ethical conduct. The second ethical framework that we covered conceptually balanced profit maximization and shareholder value against items like environmental, societal, and other factors. Here I feel that the best management practices for balancing things are not so well-developed, but I struggle a bit with how this area should be advanced.
I talked about ethical codes of conducts (as documents that need to be affirmed by employees in many companies) and associated online training programs – although I did not have example references or documents to point to off-the-cuff.

With respect to the big picture, I was able to cite a number of cases where companies (e.g., Body Shop, POM, BP) have made ethical and social concerns an essential part of their business and/or marketing strategy, but I think my ability to cite, crisp quantitative information could have been better. What are the costs of being ethical? What are the costs of not being ethical? Where does being ethical add to the bottom-line in terms of revenues, sales commissions, shareholder value, reduced churn, etc.? The answers I provided to these questions were either a bit long-winded or not available at the tip of my tongue.

In any case, if folks have thoughts on ethics, teaching ethics, receiving ethics training, etc., please feel free to share your stories. I am interested in what works and doesn't work for folks.

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June 15, 2009

Perspectives On Providing Feedback On Client Staff To Client Management As A Consultant

Dustin Thostenson raises an interesting (and dicey) question in his Twitter log as to "how honest should your feedback be of full-timers to their mgr when it is requested?"

My general rule of thumb on this topic is to:

tread very carefully
try to avoid commenting on staff, but
if you must comment, be *clinical* and precise on the context and the limitations of your observation or interaction with staff (make sure you think through both positives and negatives of client staff performance)

Here's are some reasons for my thinking:

a consultant is usually an outsider and does not have to live with the implications of giving positive or negative feedback
observation periods are often short (since limited to a subset of the engagement period, which may be days or weeks)
consultants are often hired to address a particular problem statement for the client, and unless the charter was to evaluate employees (which in most cases it is not except for niche practices or statements of work) then your perspectives may not be grounded enough
consulting engagements often require working up and down the chain of organizational structure, and your reputation and effectiveness as a consultant could be damaged if people think that you are talking about them or evaluating them "behind their backs"
you must be extra careful that you have not been unduly biased (e.g., prior to the evaluation request) by either the client sponsor or other significant players in the client organization.

That said, a fear may be that the client sponsor will not look to you as a trusted adviser if you do not provide your perspectives. Many consultants would argue that the client is paying you good money and that you need to provide your perspectives. The ground can be tough here. Be clinical, think through pros and cons, and couch your caveats. Above all, act responsibly and ethically.

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June 3, 2009

Candid Interview With Will Weider On Consulting (From A Customer Point Of View)

This past week, I had the opportunity to speak with Will Weider, CIO of Ministry Health Care and Affinity Health System, about using consultants. His perspectives are interesting because they are from a customer’s vantage point – not from a consultant’s viewpoint. Will Weider is author of the one of the earliest CIO blogs on the Internet, the famed “Candid CIO” blog.

Steve: Will, thanks for talking with me. As a management consultant myself, I’ve approached you for a “candid” view on using consultants. I am interested in constantly improving the practice of consulting and management. Hopefully this interview will shed light for both consultants to improve their practices and peer organizations of yours to improve their selection and use of consultants. To that end, when do you look to consultants, and what do you look for in consultants?

Will: There has to be a specific reason for using a consultant, and my philosophy is to use consultants as little as possible. A couple of thoughts immediately come to mind. The first is that consultant costs can give me heartburn (e.g., when comparing loaded hourly rates of internal staff against the consultant). Now as context, it is infrequent that my organization does not have the skillset to either get a project done or solve a particular problem. A second perspective is that I have had some disappointing consulting engagements where the results have fallen short of my expectations. Part of the blame may fall on the consulting firm which may oversell themselves in order to get a deal done. Some of the missed expectations may be in part that the buyer has elevated expectations when using a consultant.

Steve: Do you have any thoughts on aligning an organization and its expectations when using consultants?

Will: I’ve found that the worst time to use consultants is when my organization is saturated. A client organization needs capacity to bring the consultant on board, ramp them up, manage them, provide feedback, etc. As an example, if I have estimated a project at requiring 100 hours to do internally, then I may need to allocate 125 hours when accounting for budget and overhead of managing the consultant. As far as aligning expectations, I have mostly seen consultants provide incremental value as opposed to exponential value and miraculous benefits as marketed. Consultants can get oversold on their value proposition too easily. I also wanted to note that some consultant agreements have unacceptable terms, rivaling those of my software vendors. These include such terms as up-front payment, termination clauses and advance notice requirements, etc. Where these terms go in the new environment we are in is still to be determined, but they have to be more client-favorable.

Steve: What kind of advice can you provide on using consultants?

Will: For me, the best time to use a consultant is when you need a 3^rd party advisor. For example, suppose there is a big, multimillion dollar project going off course. A consultant with the right background can provide an independent project audit. Our needs are aligned when using the consultant in this manner. We need a specific skillset (perhaps not a scarce resource), we don’t have time (e.g., because we have 60-70 projects going on), we need a fresh look, and we need an independent view. This is the perfect type of situation for a consultant because the scope is well-defined, the scope is narrow and the timetable is short.

Steve: Great insights, thank you. Changing gears bit, I think readers may be interested in your views on the federal stimulus package and its impacts on consultants.

Will: The package has clear intent, but everyone is still waiting for the clinical IT requirements to be defined on both the medical group and hospital/ambulatory side. Less than 2% of hospitals have real Computer Physician Order Entry (CPOE), so once the requirements are defined, there may be a flood of work for implementation consultants with CPOE and specific Hospital Information Systems (HIS) expertise. I’ve estimated tens of millions of dollars of eligibility for our provider organizations (medical groups and hospitals). We are working with a number of vendors and suppliers to plan for various scenarios so we qualify for these funds and deliver on the President’s vision for a more efficient and effective health care system. It’s all a new process – I’m not sure that anyone has an “inside track” as to how to get these funds.

Steve: Terrific info. Let’s change gears again and cover social media. How have things changed since 2005 when we first met via the blogging world?

Will: These days I use both Twitter and blogging, although there has been some shift towards using Twitter. I will say that consultants that I use have connected with me via social media. Some of these consultants demonstrate their expertise to me for free before I use them. These consultants may be those that are helping me with technology, preparing for swine flu impacts on my organization, or other dynamic areas. Consultants that are confident in their abilities to provide value are not afraid to pursue either risk-free or non-traditional models for engaging me.

Steve: Will, this has been a great dialogue, and I appreciate your candor for the benefit of the business community. Thanks for your time.

Will: Steve, thanks for the opportunity to be interviewed.

Will Weider is CIO of Ministry Health Care and Affinity Health System, and his blog is at the Candid CIO at http://candidcio.com.

Steve Shu is a management consultant focusing on organizations that use technology, and his blog is at http://steveshu.typepad.com.

May 1, 2009

Blog Interview On Consulting For Chicago Booth Corporate Strategy and Management Group

I did a blog interview for the Chicago Booth Corporate Strategy and Management Group (student-run organization for part-time and evening program). The interview (link here) covers areas such as typical week in the life of an independent consultant, common problems currently facing clients, and the most helpful MBA training I received at Chicago.

Aside from the fund raising item I mentioned in the interview section on current client issues, I also shared the following (which characterizes one current client philosophy on approaching prospective consulting projects):

… The other theme I have been seeing more of is in the operational process improvement area. The themes here, however, have not been so much around improving profits as they have been about weathering the economic storm and making improvements that increase either customer satisfaction or quality of services and products. Clients, on the balance, are more conservative right now. Whereas the smart executives and managers may have been going for broke before and taking bigger chances, they now see making continuous improvements as a must-do (not necessarily demonstrating immediate margin or revenue improvement until after the storm lifts). As additional light, some executives are missing their revenue numbers in the current (bad) market climate, but they are making their net profit numbers. These companies are using the stable net profits as their bulletproof vest with their Boards while using consultants in very targeted ways or in controlled “entrepreneurial experiments” to help build for the future.

As an independent consultant, I increasingly need to use my network to read the market (as opposed to having information flow to me from "The Firm". Don't know whether others are seeing similar things or not. Please feel free to share your thoughts.

April 9, 2009May 30, 2015

Crash Course Consulting Reading List

Readers of this post may be interested in The Consulting Apprenticeship (update May 30, 2015).

Situation: You are stuck on a desert island with no lifeline access. What are the essential books and tools you need for management consulting?

Well, I can’t say that I have a complete list compiled, but here is a crash course consulting reading list (PDF doc) that I have provided in the past to new consultants (including experienced professionals new to consultative methods) as bread-and-butter references and knowledge areas. May provide ~80% coverage of a core foundation for general management consulting. Perhaps it is of use to new consultants and/or those looking to develop their consulting practices. I know that this list could probably use expansion and updating – I tried to create a list that was based on pre-packaged, ready-to-go stuff, and there are some limitations with that method.

Please feel free to post in the comments section any other sources you think others may find useful.

Update (8/3/09): Updated the reading list a little. For example, I included some blogs from traditional management consultants that shed light on the practice and industry.

Update (8/21/09): Updated the list to include some strategy books and other books recommended by consultants.

Update (9/1/09): Updated the list to include the latest versions of two of the best professional services sales books ever (by Ford Harding). If you are a professional services or consulting organization and could use help and/or an introduction to Ford, feel free to let me know, and I can broker a connection.

Update (2/3/2010): Got some great feedback from Florian Hollender at Killer Consultant. Based on his feedback and some other things on my mind, I updated the consulting reading list. Includes more updated blog and book references to Michael McLaughlin‘s material, some links on client facilitation, and books on negotiations and innovation. The reading list also includes some more consulting blogs.

April 9, 2009

How A Consulting-Style CV Differs From A Traditional Resume

Management consultants often create CVs that are included in firm directories or as addendums to proposals to clients. The structure of these CVs often differ significantly from that of traditional, chronological resumes used to apply for jobs – namely "consulting-style CVs" are used to highlight project experience and either functional skills or focus areas. This is in line with a consultant's desire to land projects and fill temporary skill gaps in a client organization as opposed to landing a permanent position within an organization. It is also in line with sales processes for consultants – a big part of the purchase evaluation process by clients is whether a consultant has "done it before" as opposed to getting a comprehensive chronology of employment.

Consulting CVs often cover the following areas:

Brief background (e.g., position or role in firm, industry background)
Functional expertise and skill areas
Sample consulting engagements
Education background and/or prior employer background

A consulting CV can vary depending on many things such as:

whether a named consultant is to be presented (e.g., versus representative consultant)
confidentiality requirements
where one is at in terms of the marketing, sales, or contracting process
the desired project that one is trying to sell into (e.g., CV may try to focus more narrowly as opposed to being broad)
how the consultant is to be positioned relative to other consultants on the project and the engagement workstreams
culture of consulting firm
culture of client
treatment of publications
treatment of consulting practice areas
years of consulting experience (e.g., positioning new consultants versus more experienced ones)

Here's a link to my consulting CV (PDF file), and it is provided as an example only since I have found few public examples or references in consulting books on the consulting-style CV. I do not claim that this CV is best in class, primarily because a CV should be tailored for context and impact. For example, some resume folks would argue that one use more situation-, task-, action-, result-type characterizations in the project descriptions and use more active voice. I totally agree with those characterizations and strategies at a block-and-tackle level. The purpose of this post is to highlight the macro-level difference of a typical, consulting-style CV that I have seen used in different firms. A core difference is on the emphasis on projects rather than chronology or functions.

Edit (4/9/09): I am not an expert on resumes. For those that want information on writing better resumes and getting permanent consulting jobs, a great site to visit is Management Consulted.

March 25, 2009

If I Was A Brand (Marketing Collage)

When one is thinking about developing a brand identity from a marketing perspective, it is best to think broadly so that a cohesive system and set of principles are built to support the underlying cause. Dr. David Aaker (e.g., in his book "Building Strong Brands") puts forth a system that challenges practitioners to decompose the way they think about brand identity (both core and extended) along several dimensions, including "Brand as a Product", "Brand as an Organization", "Brand as a Person", and "Brand as a Symbol".

Although I leave the terms above undefined here (because they are defined more rigorously in Dr. Aaker's book), it is a useful exercise in some marketing and brand management classes to have students build a collage as if "they were a brand" by clipping pictures from magazines. The visual imagery is intended to connote some aspects of your core brand identity (some of your "essence") along multiple dimensions (e.g., quality, personality, attributes, skills).

Here's an example that I pieced together for myself (note: first draft, essentially unreviewed). What do you see? What does it tell you about how I see myself? If you know me, does it fit with what you know about me? What consistencies or inconsistencies do you see?