I'm a college hoops fan. So March Madness offers two weeks of basketball bliss. Certainly the Cinderella stories bring some drama, and I'm intrigued by the prospects of a no-name player from Southwestern U. coming off the bench and sinking a buzzer-beater to knock off … well, who cares.
During the hysteria, I connected with several colleagues to discuss the games; some of these friends are client-facing consultants, others serve supporting roles inside their firms. We talked quite a bit about different players' abilities, and how certain players can thrive under one coach's system, but probably would only see the end of the bench in another program.
As I am inclined to do, I started connecting the dots between roles on a basketball team, and how consulting firms view their "players." What immediately struck me was that basketball defines roles very clearly. Consulting, however, seems on first impression, a make-it-up-as you-go business.
Think about it: basketball puts five players from each team on the court. The object is to throw a ball into a cylinder set 10 feet in the air. The opponents can challenge your shot but there are limitations that prohibit excessive force (except if you play in the Big 10).
Consulting, on the other hand, often puts as many players on the court as possible, sometimes by design, often by necessity. The object is to "score" by solving a client's often-intransigent problem—the bar is impossibly high. Sometimes you win, most times you don't really know. Make that shot and you might get the opportunity to score again with that client, but more often you have to take your ball elsewhere to find another game.
It's easy to understand basketball players' roles because certain attributes lend themselves to specific positions: big, wide-body folks tend to play low post, while smaller, nimbler players distribute and shoot from the perimeter. Of course, you'll always find players whose role-bending attributes defy belief—the NBA is full of them! But basketball basically adheres to conventional constraints around who is supposed to do what.
The research KCRA conducts on the consulting industry is not so conventional specifically because roles can be so challenging to constrain. We look at the clients' industries, or geographic regions as common denominators in terms of analyzing different providers. So we can study consulting practices that primarily serve the healthcare industry. Or, we can look at consultants who concentrate their activities in certain countries.
On the other hand, the most legitimate view of consulting—and a vantage point KCRA will be aggressively studying—is competency-oriented. Quick, what's the difference between "competencies," "services" and "skills?" In consulting-speak, those three words are often used interchangeably.
In reality, only one of those words—competencies—resonates with clients. Why? Clients pay for competencies because those capabilities connect directly to value-creation.
Skill without competency is like having a picture-perfect jump shot, but never scoring a point—form without function. Meanwhile, offering a service that is disconnected from a competency is akin to being the world's best point guard, but having no teammates to feed the ball. What's the point? Everybody must play together to accomplish the goal—and there has to be a consistent and definable goal.
The consulting vernacular makes copious use of the word "team." Organizing consulting teams is the simple part of consulting. Heck even focusing teams on goals can be relatively simple. But as many consulting leaders will acknowledge, the real challenge is getting teams to play the same sport!
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