Consulting Skills
In today’s article in our blog series on Consulting Skills, we will introduce you to the second step; the Consulting Mindset. This will help you to build a good foundation in order to prove yourself in your business environment.
2. Consulting Mindset
Being a consultant requires a particular mindset to drive business relationships forward.
What do we mean by a Consulting Mindset?
The Consulting Mindset is based on the following five virtues. These are among the most important soft skills in consulting and should therefore be deepened.
The five virtues
Know yourself: Being able to judge yourself and others in a situation is often decisive for the result. Therefore, ask your employees to do a strength test to find out their strengths.
Listen actively: An effective way of working is to listen actively in order to be part of the conversation. Train your consultants to listen actively. Follow 4 simple steps:
- Paraphrase: The sender’s message is summarized in your own words
- Verbalize: Emotions of the sender are verbalised and neutralised
- Enquire: Check all information collected and clarify any ambiguities
- Summarise: Things summarised in max. 3 aspects
Partner: The ability to work in a team is an essential skill you should possess, because you are in constant exchange with your customers and team colleagues to achieve your goal together. Learn to give and take, to be in sync, to move skillfully and to be in step and in harmony with others.
Risk: As a consultant you should be able to assess risks but also be able to take them. Only those who think outside the box will recognize new possibilities and try to use them. Train the ability to tolerate ambiguity and exposure.
Improvise: Adaptability is essential when things do not go as planned. You should be able to accept changes and to deal with them spontaneously. Therefore, train the ability to react quickly: Subordinate your ego for the sake of cooperation and give up looking good.
How can you promote and develop the consultant virtues?
Understand:
- Redefine the “Consulting Mindset” for yourself
- Create your own “Consulting-Mindset” training
- Appoint one leader (ideally at the C or B level) to train the consultative mindset
Train:
A: Individual reflection
- Ask yourself / your colleagues to journal for 5-6 weeks about their consulting mindset
- Exchange weekly about the consulting mindset experiences
B: Play the Consulting Mindset Reflection Game
- Install a frequent (e.g. once per month) consulting reflection mindset, where you play cards to reflect about clients & situations together
If you want to get to know more about us or about what we do and what we offer or if you have any questions on this topic or on our insights, please don’t hesitate to contact us at any time.
Furthermore, you can watch the video from our Community Call here: Video of the call. Moreover we have provided the slides of the call for you here.
Next week we will continue with the third part of the Consulting Skills: Business Acumen
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