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Immutable Laws of Consultancy


Top 10 Signs You Work in Consulting

Top 10 Ways To Know You Have the Consulting Bug

Top 10 Things A Consultant Shouldn't Tell A Client

Top 10 Things You'll Never Hear From A Consultant

Warnings for Consultants: …..You know it is time to get out of consulting when...




Top 10 Signs You Work in Consulting

  1. Think a half-day means leaving at 5 o'clock
  2. You think Einstein would have been more effective had he put his ideas into a matrix.
  3. Ask your friends to "think out of the box" when making Friday night plans.
  4. Know the people at the airport and hotel better than your next door neighbors.
  5. Wear gray to work instead of navy blue to make a bold fashion statement.
  6. Normally eat out of vending machines and at the most expensive restaurant in town within the same week.
  7. Find you really need PowerPoint to explain what you do for a living.
  8. Refer to the tomatoes grown in your garden as deliverables.
  9. You get all excited it's Saturday so you can wear casual clothes to work.
  10. You lecture the neighborhood kids selling lemonade on ways to improve their process.


Top Ten Ways to Know You've Got the Consulting Bug

  1. Firmly believe that an objective viewpoint means more than any real work experience.
  2. A two-page story in Business Week is all it takes to make you an expert.
  3. Tired of having a social life beyond work.
  4. Can fit the thematic undercurrents of War and Peace into a two-by-two matrix.
  5. Keep seeing bullet points everywhere.
  6. Always-hyphenating-words-that-don't-need-to-be-hyphenated.
  7. Constant urge to give advice on subjects you know nothing about.
  8. Use so much jargon in conversation, friends think you're speaking a foreign language.
  9. Worried that he who dies with the most frequent-flyer miles wins.
  10. Can't stop using words that don't exist.


Top Ten Things a Consultant Shouldn't Tell a Client

  1. What are you, stupid?
  2. I could just tell you the answer, but we're committed to a three month project.
  3. Of course it's right; the spreadsheet says so.
  4. So what do you need me to tell you?
  5. Sure it'll work; I learned it in business school.
  6. My rental car looks nicer than that you're driving.
  7. I like this office space. I'll have them put me in here when you're gone.
  8. Hey, I just realized that I was in junior high when you started working here.
  9. You should see the hotel I'm staying at.
  10. That was my first guess as well, but then I really thought about it.


Top Ten Things You'll Never Hear from a Consultant

  1. Everything looks okay to me.
  2. The problem is, you have too much work for too few people.
  3. I can't take the credit. It was Ed in your marketing department.
  4. Implementation? I only care about writing long reports.
  5. I don't know enough to speak intelligently about that.
  6. Actually, the only difference is that we charge more than they do.
  7. This whole strategy is based on a Harvard business case I read.
  8. How about paying us based on the success of the project?
  9. Bet you I can go a week without saying "synergy" or "value-added".
  10. You're right; we're billing way too much for this.


Warnings for Consultants: ……You know it is time to get out of consulting when...

  1. You ask the waiter what the restaurant's core competencies are.
  2. You decide to re-org your family into a 'team-based organization.'
  3. You refer to dating as test marketing.
  4. You can spell 'paradigm.'
  5. You actually know what a paradigm is.
  6. You understand your airline's fare structure.
  7. You write executive summaries on your love letters.
  8. You think that it's actually efficient to write a ten page paper with six other people you don't know.
  9. You believe every company is 'a traditional functional organization, with promotion based on tenure, but one that needs to change as it is facing ever increasing competition...'
  10. You believe that a company's problems are never caused by an 'ineffective handling of an administrative situation.'
  11. You believe you never have any problems in your life, just 'issues' and 'improvement opportunities.
  12. You know every single piece of clip art in PowerPoint.
  13. You calculate your own personal cost of capital.
  14. You explain to your bank manager that you prefer to think of yourself as 'highly leveraged' as opposed to 'in debt.'
  15. You ask your bank manager if she has heard of 'Modigliani-Miller,' and then you ask her if she has a pizza so you can show her.
  16. You can explain to somebody the difference between 're-engineering,' 'down-sizing,' 'right-sizing,' and 'firing peoples' arses.'
  17. You actually believe your explanation in number 15.
  18. You start doing your kid's math equations in reverse Polish notation.
  19. You enjoy using an HP-12C.
  20. You refer to your previous life as 'my sunk cost.'
  21. Your three meals a day are a morning consumption function, a noontime consumption function, and an evening consumption function.
  22. You refer to your significant other as 'my co-CEO.'
  23. Your favorite stories begin "Bob Jones, VP of marketing, sat at his desk and stared out his window..."
  24. You like both types of sandwiches: ham and turkey.
  25. You believe CAPM is just as important as the Theory of Relativity
  26. You believe CAPM.
  27. You start to feel sorry for Dilbert's boss.
  28. You believe the best tables and graphs take an hour to comprehend
  29. You refer to divorce as 'divestiture.'
  30. Your favorite artist is the one who does the dot drawings for the Wall Street Journal.
  31. None of your favorite publications have cartoons
  32. You account for your tuition as a capital expenditure instead of an expense.
  33. You insist that you do some more market research before you and your spouse produce another child.
  34. At your last family reunion, you wanted to have an emergency meeting about their brand equity.
  35. You always call your mechanic before you start your car to see if it will blow up given the day's weather conditions...
    ...and expect him to use a decision tree to work it out.
  36. You've decided the only way to afford a house is to call your fellow alumni and offer to name a room after them, if they'll help with the down payment.
  37. Your 'deliverable' for Sunday evening is clean laundry and paid bills
  38. You use the term 'value-added' without falling down laughing
  39. You ask the car salesman if the car comes with a whiteboard and Internet connection.
  40. You give constructive feedback to your dog.




© 2000 - mr. P.J. Westerhof