So, you want to get into Management Consultancy?

Great! I guess most of you might answer the question with a "Yes!" Especially if you are studying for your MBA anywhere in the world.

I am sharing here two extremely powerful concepts that almost every consultant uses. You would be expected to demonstrate a good understanding of these to stake claim for a Consulting career. While these are not exhaustive, kick starting your journey to learn these would do you well. So here goes:

Structured thinking
I came from the industry and had a self belief that my thinking process is extremely good and organised. Well, I guess the trick is actually "to know what you don't know". And I wish I was advised about the "Issue trees" much earlier in life.
Simply put, the usage of Issue Trees, also known as Hypothesis trees (and I am sure they come with different names) help you bring structure to random thoughts, ideas, etc.

Pyramid Principle
Perhaps every successful consultant would swear by this concept of Barbara Minto. It is a very practical, yet extremely difficult discipline / skill to acquire. In fact, it is considered as a process to organize your ideas to write business documents / reports that are compelling. It also often uses a framework called SCQ - Situation, Complication, Question.

Before getting into Consulting profession, I had heard about the often quoted view towards consultants - "they are the ones who borrow your watch, tell you the time and then keep the watch!" Well, figuratively it is the truth!

But before you jump and conclude anything, read on. I am adding a different perspective to this quote by dissecting it into pieces.
"they borrow your watch" - means they step in to understand the problem the organisation is grappling with!
"they tell you the time" - means they have tried to diagnose the issues and then attempt to give you the solution!
"they keep the watch" - means they take forward the lessons from the assignment and add it to their intellectual capital!

Good luck!