How to Get Promoted in Consulting

There are three key secrets to getting promoted in a
consulting firm.

Here is one of them:

"Do what is needed, not just what is asked."

In your first few weeks and months in consulting, you will
typically be assigned TASKS.

This is just temporary to make sure those who interviewed
you did not make a mistake!

How your career progresses from this point forward will vary
quite a bit depending on the client you serve, your manager,
your firm, your office and numerous other factors.

Your responsibility will fall along a spectrum with tasks on
one end and outcomes on the other.

It is the difference between a manager saying, "Please
analyze sales records for the last three years and test
these hypotheses." vs. "You have been assigned the XYZ
division, figure out how to grow it by 50% over the next
three years."

So the question is: how do you transition from a
task-orientation role to an outcome-oriented one?

Sometimes you'll get a manager or partner who will just
throw you into the deep end and you'll have a ton of
responsibility right away. Other times, you will need to
prove yourself before you transition over.

Here's the key to making that transition. When you are
assigned tasks, focus not just on what was asked of you, but
also on what is needed to help the client achieve the GOAL.

The "goal" is NOT get these 3 tasks done. The goal is the
OUTCOME the client is trying to achieve.

What typically happens in the middle of an analysis is you
discover something unexpected. Perhaps the data indicates
your team's (or client's) initial hypothesis is totally
wrong.

Just like in a case interview where when you discover
something unusual and you have an "Oh, that's interesting"
type moment, you are usually within striking range of
uncovering a major insight.

Now you have two options when you reach this point.

The first is to just finish up your task assignment.

The other is to finish up your task assignment (what you
were asked to do) and then refine the hypothesis based on
the new information, and test it analytically (BEFORE
being assigned the task by a partner or manager).

(This is doing what is needed...e.g, anticipating and doing
the natural next step, before it is "assigned" to you.)

When you present to a partner or manager, out of every
three or four presentations you deliver, there will often
be one slide within a presentation that will contradict the
hypothesis the partner and manager had in mind.

This slide will get everyone's attention.

And once they digest this conclusion, the partner will
usually start thinking, "Hmm... if that's the case, then I
wonder if X is true."

Now if you are just doing what is assigned, most likely the
manager will look to you and say, "Why don't you look into
this deeper level analysis tomorrow."

If you are doing what is needed (not just what is asked of
you), you would then say, "You know, I was thinking the
EXACT SAME THING... and if you turn to the next slide, you
see it shows that X actually IS true."

It is this magic moment that your reputation in a firm jumps
up a notch.

I had many, many such presentations at McKinsey where a
partner would see a slide, reach a natural conclusion, and
automatically wonder if a revised hypothesis was true... only
to find that I answered that question on the next slide.

I rarely did this in my first year (as I didn't realize this
was possible), but routinely did it in my second year.

Once you do this often enough, your managers and partners
come to realize that you can solve problems INDEPENDENTLY.
(This is THE phrase you want to be associated with you)

The role of those review meetings suddenly changes.

Before the meeting's focus was on the manager or partner
reviewing your results and THEM driving the next step in
the analysis.

But, once you switch over to being an independent problem
solver, the meeting's role becomes one where you are simply
keeping the manager and partner informed -- so they can
answer basic questions from the client about your part of
the project intelligently.

Once again, it is very important than you transition from a
task-oriented problem solver to an outcome-oriented,
independent problem solver.  And the key to that is to "do
what is needed, not just what is asked."

As I mentioned earlier, this idea of doing what is needed,
not just what is asked is one of three key strategies to
get promoted in consulting.