Consulting: Which pursuit came first?

Williams : I've always worked in an area where there was strong overlap with finance and accounting on one hand and management on the other. Even when I was wearing my law hat as a practicing lawyer I was doing a lot of business counseling, and it just lead into my academic interests in business and law and the field of archaeology. As consultants, we also do a lot of what archaeologists do. I've been working on a book called The Archaeology of Management, it's really a reflection on management leadership and the things that we do in business from the perspective of an archaeologist. Looking at what archaeologists do and borrowing from it in the business context. In business, particularly consulting, we're archaeologists. We rarely get the luxury of seeing any client from soup to nuts. What we do instead is get this kind of slice of our client, and we have to build an appropriate context to understand our clients needs, desires, strengths and weaknesses by focusing on clues, tales and cues which we can use to build a profile using those particular tools and context in which we can help our clients successfully manage their business.

Consulting: How do you divide your time?

Williams: It's difficult at times because I'm full time at university. I love my students, and it takes a lot of my time to do it right. I love the people I work with at Mesirow and my clients there as well. I work a lot and don't sleep a lot. I sleep enough, but I've always believed sleep is highly overrated. I enjoy very much the challenges of both teaching and consulting, there's no compromise on either side. There are great synergies between teaching and doing, and I want to go full speed with both of them until I can't go anymore.

Out of Office: Mesirow Financial Consulting's Jack Williams

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