Importance of Developing Soft Skills in Consulting

As I start my consulting career, some of the questions that I keep coming back to are:

• How can I stand out amongst all of these high achieving and well educated individuals, especially in the beginning?
• What skills do I need to develop?
• What are the keys to longevity at my firm and the greater consulting world?

These are questions I routinely asked myself as I approached my starting date.

Whether driven purely by anxiety or influenced by other factors, I wanted to make sure that I was doing all that I could to get off on the right foot.

Luckily, the answers that I received from countless individuals at various levels of seniority at the firm were the same: focus on developing your soft skillset.

A few consultants made fairly compelling arguments that their success was predicated more on their interpersonal skills than their technical ones. As a consultant you are constantly interacting with various stakeholders (clients, potential clients, team members, and senior leaders) and in doing so you are required to communicate effectively, which does require more effort than you may initially think.

The rest of this post will focus on four important soft skills:

1. Charisma
2. Expectation Setting
3. Critical Thinking
4. Effective Communication

1. Charisma

As a management consultant, you will interact with a variety of different people on a regular basis, so it is imperative that you are likable, engaging, and easy to work with.

How partners, clients, and other stakeholders perceive you will have a profound impact on the level of success you achieve in your consulting career.

Not only will your charisma make it easier for others to work through tough problems with you, it will also help to cultivate trust. Your client will find it easy give you future business not because of what you do (provide quality consulting services) but because of who you have become: their trusted advisor. An unsung benefit of being sociable is that team members will find you more approachable and therefore will want to collaborate more and want you on their case team down the road.

2. Setting Expectations

Being a consultant involves meeting deadlines. From associate to partner, everyone is operating on a deadline to fulfill their respective role on the case team. In many ways each person’s role is dependent on the others. Because of this, being able to set reasonable expectations for when projects can be finished as well as the level of detail you can provide are key to your success. The phrase that is often used is “under promise and over deliver”. Therefore, when senior members of the case team ask you to complete a task, especially one with a tight deadline, don’t just reply “Of course I can get that done!” before doing the necessary due diligence to determine how long each step will take. If you miss the deadline for some reason, then you may erode the trust that your team has in you and even delay other parts of the project or the start of new projects.

Some tips for setting appropriate expectations:

• Have a clear understanding of what the objectives are. If you are unsure about the problem and how your task helps in solving the issue, request time with your boss to clarify the deliverable.
• Put together a detailed schedule. Either in your head or on paper you should have a fairly clear picture of how long each step will take or when you could have a completed product.
• Make sure to build in a buffer. Once you determine how many days it will take to finish a task consider adding another 10-15% of that total time in order to account for any unforeseen issues that may arise.
• Let your superior know when issues arise. If some problem does arise, let your boss know ASAP.

3. Critical Thinking

I can’t stress this enough: Don’t be afraid to ask questions!

While there is a time and place for everything, be willing to speak up and ask questions especially when you are just with your team. When you first start people are expecting you to have questions, even “stupid” ones, so feel free to put them out there. It’s a learning process and the learning curve is pretty steep so the quicker you can begin to become more comfortable with asking questions the better.

One of the best pieces of advice that I received when I started was to make sure that you don’t get too lost in the minutia to the point where you lose sight of the overall problem that is being solved. When you are able to find ways to link insights from your arm of the case to the larger question at hand be sure to convey them to your project leader/manager because doing so will undoubtedly help you stand out. Remember that your manager is highly intelligent, but even they don’t have all the answers nor do they have all of the information, so it is imperative that you be able to think critically on your own to help drive the case to completion.

4. Effective Communication

Consultants serve as advisors who are paid for the insights they are able to provide their client. In order to do so effectively, consultants must be able to communicate those ideas in a clear and effective manner. In many cases, your communication skills may end up being more valuable than your expertise on the topic. Due to the time pressures faced by your manager, team members, and clients you must make sure that you are being concise when communicating with them.

The key to being concise is to make sure you organize your thoughts before speaking or putting pen to paper.  When emailing, use bullet points or a numbered list to make it easier for others to read.

Ultimately, clients care most about results and your recommendations that will help to produce them. So when replying to questions, lead with the answer first: “I recommend … x, y, or z.” Providing a recommendation up front gives them more reason to listen or read further. Being able to give the ‘why’ is also key to building confidence with your client. Therefore, once you provide your answer give two or three brief reasons as to why this is your recommendation. Sometimes it can be helpful to give more concrete facts and figures, without going overboard, to help convince the client, team leader, or partner.

Conclusion

As you start your consulting career it is important to hone your analytical and technical skills, but make sure it is not at the detriment of your soft skills. Having strong soft skills may be the key that helps you differentiate yourself from your peers, especially early on.

Kevin Anderson is a graduating medical student at Duke University School of Medicine and will be starting at LEK Consulting later this year. He’s most passionate about healthcare redesign, patient engagement, and the life sciences. His free moments are spent traveling  and enjoying sporting events with his wife and daughter.

Image: Pexels

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