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Jason Fried gives an interesting talk about why work doesn't happen at work. The basic premise of the talk is that work is a place full of distractions. Since it is difficult to get long stretches of uninterrupted time at work, it is difficult to get any quality work done there. At least two interesting ideas emerge from this observation. Work is like Sleep Fried makes the analogy between work and sleep. Work is like sleep because they are both stage based events. You sleep in stages or "phases" and in order to get to the deep stages of sleep you have to go through the earlier stages. If you are interrupted then you don't pick up where you left off, you have to go back and start from the beginning. If you are trying to sleep and you get interrupted all night, you wont sleep well. If you are trying to work and you get interrupted all day, you wont work well. M&Ms Kill Work M&Ms are the real reason that things don't get done at work. Managers and meetings are both things that are designed to interrupt you, and often at a time when you are trying to get important work done.

Jason, Good question. I'm not sure who the experienced managers are that you have been speaking to, but my feeling is that the big firms would give people more than one chance. I have a number of reasons: Experience: you may not have the qualifications or work experience that you need to make you an attractive candidate. This is relatively easy to change. Branding: Big firms are just like everyone else, they are attracted to strong branding. You may be able to increase your chances of success by, for example, publishing a book or learning a second languange. Anything that will make you interesting. Luck: You may have bombed the case interview, you had a bad day, it happens to the best of us. There is no good reason that the big firms should rule out a candidate just because they didn't manage to get through the case interview process first time around. I will ask around to see if I can get some facts one way or the other. Tom

David Logan gives us an interesting insight into tribes. What is a tribe? A tribe is a social group of anywhere from 20 to about 150 people. In other words, a large yet manageable group of individuals. Why are tribes important? People are naturally tribal in nature. People form tribes, that's just what they do. And it is within these tribes (or communities) that people share common values, support each other and get important work done. Tribes are the basis upon which society is built. 5 Stages of Tribe Logan identifies that a tribe may exist at one of five cultural stages. Stage 1: "Life Sucks" Examples of a Stage 1 Tribe include gangs and prisons. The members of a Stage 1 Tribe believe that life sucks and they act accordingly. Logan indicates that members of a Stage 1 Tribe are antisocial and act to deliberately sever relationships with other functional tribes. Stage 2: “My Life Sucks” Examples of a Stage 2 Tribe include many government departments and call centres. The people who work at these places are doing the grind and share the outlook that "my life sucks!". Very little, if any, world changing work can get done in a Stage 2 Tribe. Stage 3: “I’m great ... and you’re not” Examples of a Stage 3 Tribe include most law firms. Each lawyer in the firm may be talented but believes in their own self-importance. So instead of cooperating with each other to get great work done, they look for ways to compete against each other so that they can establish their "greatness". Stage 4: “We are great” Examples of a Stage 4 Tribe include many religions (e.g. Catholicism and Islam) and Apple Computers. Logan indicates that when individuals come together and are united by a shared bond then it is possible for a group of normally self-interested individuals to morph into something bigger and more meaningful, a tribe with an identity and existence of its own. Stage 5: “Life is Great” Examples of a Stage 5 Tribe are hard to find. I think Buddhism (in the form espoused by the Dalai Lama) is one example of a Stage 5 Tribe currently in existence. What kind of tribes are you a member of? How will your tribes change the world?

Hi Mike, Port Jackson Partners is a very good little strategy consulting firm. You can take a look at the website here. I am not sure whether they offer internships, but you can give them a call on +61 2 9221 2222. Also take a look at www.dowlingconsulting.biz I'm interested to hear thoughts from others. Cheers, Tom

Alain de Botton shares a number of insights on success, and helps us begin to answer 2 important questions: 1. What is success? 2. Who is responsible for your success? What is success? When we think of success, we might think of lots of money, an impressive house, fast cars or a high powered job. While these things may indicate financial successful, Alain takes a more nuanced view of what it means to be successful. Alain states that "you can't be successful at everything ... any vision of success has to admit what it's losing out on." Or to quote my first year microeconomics lecturer, "people face trade-offs." This is a powerful insight because it means that the idea of work-life balance is nonsense. A successful business career may require less than successful personal relationships or a non-existent family life. The implication is that we need to decide for ourselves the areas in which we would like to be successful. Who is responsible for your success? In modern society, we tend to believe that you are responsible for your own successes and also responsible for your failures. Western society fondly believes in the idea of meritocracy. Meritocracy being the idea that if one has talent, energy and skill they will rise to the top. That is, those who deserve to get to the top will get to the top. The flip side being that those who deserve to get to the bottom will get to the bottom. Alain contrasts our modern way of thinking about success with the view which prevailed during the middle ages. Alain indicates that in the middle ages a very poor person would be referred to as an unfortunate, that is, "someone who had not been blessed by fortune". The implication is that we need to remain aware that although success may result from talent and hard work, we should not discount the role that fortune plays in our own successes and failures and that of others. We do not have control over our fortune, and all we can do is play the hand we are dealt as best we can.

http://www.glumbert.com/media/supermariobrothersrap

Hi Charlie, Good questions. I understand that you are doing an MBA part time and want to get experience in the industry so that you can ultimately get a position in a consulting firm. The entry level in the big strategy firms is Business Analyst. This is normally the level that people enter after an undergraduate degree. My understanding is that after an MBA people normally look to enter at the associate level (one level up from Business Analyst). If you are already working full time and studying part-time it may be difficult to fit much work experience into your busy schedule. If you are keen to get experience, I would suggest trying to get unpaid work experience. Just pick up the phone and start calling, the opportunities are there you just have to find them. A big part of getting a role in a big strategy consulting firm is the case interview (you are probably getting some good practice on these during your MBA). It is also really important to have a strong personal story to tell. What is your story? What's interesting about you are your experiences? Examples might include speaking foreign languages, extensive travel, sporting achievement, volunteer activities. If you don't think your story is a really interesting one, turn over the page and start writing a new chapter. Hope that helps. Tom

Hi Nitesh, I understand that you are interested in breaking into the consulting industry, you've come to the right place! There are 2 key steps to getting a job in consulting: 1. Getting the interview; and 2. Getting the job 1. Getting the interview As a starting point, please see the following pages: (a) You need to decide which firms you would like to target: List of Consulting Firms in India. The four top players internationally are McKinsey, Bain, BCG or Booz. ( Your application will most likely require a cover letter: Cover Letters Win Interviews. © Your application will require a strong résumé: Creating a winning résumé. 2. Getting the job To get the job you will need to do well in the interview. As a starting point, please see the following pages: (a) Top 5 Tips to Nailing the Management Consulting Interview (The consulting case interview: 10 tips for a successful performance © CaseInterview.com (d) Practice Questions Hope that helps! Best Regards, Tom

On 1 August 2009, Nissa launched the world's first fully electric car, the Nissan Leaf EV! Following the launch, I wrote a short blog post entitled Nissan leads the charge. I was very excited by Nissan's long term commitment to electric vehicles, and the potential for this technology to be a game changer in the automotive industry. The success of this new technology will require large scale investment in supporting infrastructure, such as electric charging stations, and at the time I posed the question "Will cities around the world commit to building the necessary infrastructure to support these new electric vehicles?" It seems we are now starting to get an answer to that question. American federal, state and local governments appear to be throwing their collective weight behind the technology in an effort to ween America off its dependency on foreign oil. Read The New York Times article here.

Good luck, Jason!

Jason, I checked the website and it still appears to be up. The link should take you to a page with a blue heading which says "Outstanding Presentations Workshop". Let me know if it doesn't work second time around. Toastmaters is supposed to be a really good way to learn and hone your public speaking skills. I would definitely consider joining.

Bonafide, Thanks for joining the Consulting Forum! I understand that you are interested to get people's view on whether you need relevant experience in order to be successful as a consultant. You are probably interested in your success short term and long term. Here are my preliminary thoughts: Short term: If you join an established strategy consulting firm at an entry level then lack of relevant industry experience will not stop you from being successful. You can learn a lot on the job, and you are being paid for your ability to learn quickly and analyse business problems. Long term: If you want to start your own consultancy, join a firm as an experienced consultant, or ultimately become a partner in an established firm then relevant experience would be very important for your success. Hope that helps.

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post entitled "Your Presentation: setting it up" about how to set up an effective presentation (to read the post click here). This afternoon I watched a nice webinar on "How to engage and move people by designing an audience-friendly presentation". The webinar is informative and insightful and I believe it will only be up on the web for free for a short time. If you would like to check it out please click here. Let me know what you think.

Good luck!

Lei, The McKinsey recruiter I contacted provided the following response:

Hi Lei, 1. Do consulting firms have a centralised application review process? Good question. Firms like McKinsey have an online application form which asks you to list your office preferences. My understanding is that McKinsey encourages one application which lists each of your office preferences, rather than a separate application for each office. I have emailed McKinsey recruitment in Sydney to ask them a few questions about the initial application review process and will let you know what I find out when I hear back from them. 2. I understand that you want to know whether your background will give you a good chance of getting an interview at a top consulting firm; good question. My understanding is that consulting firms like to hire people from a range of backgrounds and language skills are also highly valued. It helps if you can tell an interesting story about yourself, and it sounds like your background will help you do that. Studying at the Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne must have been very interesting. One of my friends was an apprentice at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin.

I have thought about doing an MBA, and I think the article makes a number of good points. 1. There are 2 good things you get from an MBA. Firstly, you get the right to tell people that you have an MBA (the signalling effect). MBAs cost money, effort and time to acquire. This is a costly signal, and allows employers to more easily determine who they should hire. That is, MBA from Harvard = strong signalling effect to employers. Secondly, you learn to think in a different way and acquire some of the concepts and ideas that you need in management. 2. The big thing that an MBA does not give you is experience. You can't become Richard Branson, Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or any other noteworthy person by reading a well-written text book. 3. MBAs are the new Arts degree. One of the first rules of strategy is that differentiation creates value and allows you to charge a higher price for your goods/services. If everyone has an MBA (which is increasingly the case) then the qualification becomes commoditised, and you will need to distinguish yourself in the marketplace in some other way. 4. Engineering degrees are very valuable, and probably more valuable than an MBA. You learn how to solve problems, think analytically, and create real things that have value. I would be interested to hear other people's thoughts.

It is possible to exclude liability in Australia by using a disclaimer or “exclusion clause” (I would be interested to hear from people based in the UK, USA or India). Whether your "exclusion clause" is effective to exclude liability is a matter of construction. That is, it is a matter for the court to determine whether your "exclusion clause" applies in the circumstances of a particular case. In order to exclude liability for negligence, you need to expressly state that liability for negligence is excluded. Using words such as "whatever its cause" or "howsoever caused" may also be enough to exclude liability for negligence. There are a number of situations where an "exclusion clause" will not be effective, including: Fraud - You are not able to exclude liability for fraud because this is against public policy Public policy grounds - It may not be possible to exclude liability in situations where you have undue influence (that is, you have lots of bargaining power and the other party has very little) or where you have engaged in unconscionable conduct (that is, your conduct is unfair or unreasonable) Statutory prohibition - For example, you are not able to exclude liability for misleading or deceptive conduct (s52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth)) Disclaimer: [general information] All of the information provided above (the Comment) was prepared by Tom Spencer in his personal capacity and made available for general use and information purposes only. The Comment is of a general nature and has been prepared without taking your particular circumstances or objectives into account. [representations] Tom Spencer makes no representations about the accuracy, adequacy, currency, completeness, relevance or suitability of any information provided in the Comment. [warranties] Despite having made reasonable efforts to ensure that the Comment is accurate as at the date of publication, Tom Spencer gives no warranty, express or implied, and accepts no responsibility for any information provided in the Comment. Tom Spencer recommends that you exercise due care and skill with respect to any use of the information. You use the information at your own risk. [seek professional advice] The Comment is not a substitute for professional legal advice. Before using any information provided in the Comment you should obtain independent legal advice relevant to your particular circumstances. [exclusion of liability] To the extent permitted by law, Tom Spencer excludes all liability (including for negligence) to you or a third party in respect of any damage (including direct, special, indirect or consequential damage), costs or expenses incurred by you or claims made against you resulting from or in connection with any use of the information provided in the Comment for any reason whatsoever (including negligence). [governing law] Any legal issues arising from or in connection with any use of the information provided in the Comment is governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia. By using the information provided in the Comment you submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of that state. Tom Spencer © 2010

Wil, Your approach is inpired, you have made me completely rethink my reasons stated above! Many thanks.

Here are the 4 reasons why consulting is an obvious choice: Solving business problems: Working with high profile clients to solve challenging business problems Learning from the best: Working with and learning from super intelligent and energetic people Building relationships: Working on a consulting engagement would be a great opportunity to build relationships with colleagues and business leaders Travel: Consulting is a great way to combine travel with work What are/were your reasons for wanting to get into the industry?