Succeeding for Your Clients: Excellence in Leadership and Consulting

These Six Observations Immediately Come to Mind

1. Embrace (nay, drive! enflame!) the changing nature of consulting:
Consulting is changing and changing fast. Just six years ago Facebook wasn't open to the public, the iPhone hadn't been released, and an 'app' was something served at a pub. Big data? Cloud? The accelerating pace of business change, increased uncertainty and growing complexity, means that enterprises need more informed voices about increasingly more complex subjects. Consultants have to fill that gap, and to fill it, we have to be more knowledgeable, more in touch with the marketplace, and intertwined with innovation wherever it comes from.

2. "I" is the new "T" in building real industry expertise:
A few years ago everybody was talking about "T" shaped people; those who had very broad understanding of business and one place where they were deep with some expertise. While I agree that these types are still valuable, I would also contend that today's consulting clients need people with very, very deep and specific industry expertise.

Let's call these "I" shaped people: practitioners so laser-tuned and imbued in industry knowledge that they could trade jobs with their industry clients and there would be no drop-off in industry expertise. This is no casual affair. Going this deep requires more than reading a few articles. We have to "be" the client, be where they are, and do what they do.

3. Stay ahead of—not behind—the modern modes of communication and collaboration:
Being a leader in this business usually means that you've worked in the industry for a couple of decades or even more. This means you remember when everybody had a secretary, "word processing" was a department, and "slides" were called "acetates" (why do we still call them "slides"? Nobody uses a carousel projector anymore.)

Today, everybody has access to the Internet in their pocket, is multi-modal in their communication, and is more likely to be interrupted by their dog in a home teleconference than somebody from the office. Personally, there's nothing more frustrating than an executive who refuses to embrace the new modes of interaction and collaboration. What's worse is that doing so distances you from your team, creates separation from the youth in our industry, and generally slows business down. Get in the mix: use the newest technologies to make working smarter and communication faster.

4. Do something that might radically change your perspective:
Working day-in and day-out on short-term deadlines, keeping up with the latest crisis, and getting the deal done is essential, but it can also limit someone's ability to see things in a new way. I recently took a few months to take a special mission to Africa and spend some time outside of the typical consulting client environment.

I met with African business and political leaders in many different African countries to hear what their challenges were, what they thought of the future, and how new capabilities and technologies could make their societies smarter. It was an incredible experience. And when I returned to helping clients and managing my team, I had an entire new perspective and energy towards what I do. Sometimes you need to get away to get better.

5. Mentoring helps everybody, especially the mentor:
No one ever doubts that good mentors help more junior staff and improve performance for the company and clients. But being a great, willing, and passionate mentor helps the mentor more than anybody. You build a team around you that supports your mission and goals. They become avatars and an extension of the mentor.

They enable the mentor to be an agent beyond his or her body, be in multiple places at the same time, and use a collective, directed intelligence towards achieving big things. This said, being a mentor isn't about duplicating yourself but instead about giving your mentees all of the good stuff that you know and letting them mix it in with their own strengths and values to create something new. And mentors learn from those they teach. It's win-win.

6. Dream big. Act big. Achieve big:
Consultants today, especially at somewhere with the depth and breadth of IBM, have enormous power to achieve really big things. We can change markets. We can flip paradigms on their heads. We can change society. That's why I'm emboldened to tackle something like "Smarter Cities."

Do we really think we have the power, the authority, and the resources to fundamentally change something as big and complex as a city? Yes. Absolutely. No questions asked. Let's put brilliant ideas together with legions of bright people; unleash resources and capital; spark the R&D machine; and put it on plan to get it done. Dream big. Act big. Achieve big. It's exhilarating. And it's making the world a better place.

These are the types of observations I see in excellence in consulting. Ask me again in a year and I'll have something new. The world will be different and I'll have another 12 months of learning from my clients, peers and team members. And that change makes me excited and proud to be in this business.

Michael Valocchi is a Partner and a consultant with IBM Global Business Services helping some of the world's largest energy companies solve their complex business challenges. He is the Global Energy and Utilities Leader, IBM Global Business Services. In 2012, he was recognized as a Top 25 Consultant by Consulting magazine.