What Takes It to Be a Good Consultant?

What takes it to be a good consultant?

“None of us begins our career as a trusted advisor, but that is the status to which most of us aspire.” (David, et al, 2000:7). There are many reasons why people are motivated to choose consulting as a career. In today’s world there is a great demand for niche expertise in every business area. Organizations are willing to shell out astronomical amounts of money to hire the so called super specialized and highly experienced consultants, even for the four to six weeks long engagements. It is interesting to understand what skills these consultants possess compared to any other professional and make them more salable.

One of the key requirements on a consulting engagement is to reach out to the root of the problem, understanding the organizational complexities. In general, as every consultant has to drive the engagement independently, it is crucial to have strong leadership and managerial skills. Building sustainable relationships that can generate potential business is critical to consulting business.

Apart from their experience and their business skills good consultants possess good marketing skills and excellent interpersonal skills. They carry some tools/methodologies that are used to analyze a problem or issue in a scientific way to be able to provide robust solutions complex problems. Again, having necessary skills and required tools alone don’t make anyone a good consultant. As the saying goes, “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. Thus good consultants are prudent to realize that every business problem is unique depending on the nature of the client. They understand that there are no “one size fit all” solutions.

Sometimes consultants believe in their gut instincts to understand the problem and arrive at conclusion. Here, it is very important to be careful about blindly trusting the gut instinct, even if the consultant has lot of experience in the given field. (Ethan, 2007:19)....