Dual C Business Solutions

Consultant Interview Questions

This last week I was asked what questions a client should use to interview a potential consultant.  We’ve all had consultants come in looked fantastic on paper but had no practical experience.  I recall interviewing a project manager who couldn’t handle a question regarding scope creep and managing client expectations.  One technical architect claimed six years of Microsoft.NET® in 2004, which was odd considering it was released only two years earlier. 

Note: These questions are geared towards Change Management and Organizational Development consultants rather than technical contractors and staff augmentation.

Additionally, the requirement of being able to work closely with the consultant in a mutally respectful manner is implied.

Experience Questions

1.    Have you successfully addressed this issue for other direct clients? Please provide the contact names and numbers.

2.    What type of interventions did you use?

3.    If you have not addressed this specific issue, what similar experience would you be able to leverage to address this issue?

4.    What resistances did you face in implementing the intervention(s)?  How did you overcome them?

5.    What other industries have you worked in besides mine? 

a.    Specific industry experience is not necessary but there are might be optimal practices that exist elsewhere that you can leverage.

6.    What is the value of the largest change you’ve helped a client realize?

7.    Describe a change or intervention that was not successful.

a.    Humility is important.

b.   Applied learning is equally important.

Process Questions

1.    What is your process?

a.    “It depends.” Is not an acceptable answer.  Dig further for examples.

2.     What level of partnership will be required and at what levels?

a.    Look for incongruence between the issue and the expected level of partnership.

b.   The board of directors does not need to be interviewed to address a line manager’s performance.

3.    How do you define success?

4.    How will you make your recommendation?

5.    Are you willing to train our internal staff for the implementation?

a.    An excellent consultant will say “Yes”.

6.    How would you verify the results of the change?

What consultant interview questions do you use? 

But enough about me

I attended a panel discussion about raising venture capital.  Another attendee and I met when we both asked the concierge where the conference was being held.  After some small talk, the usual questions arose about careers and the reasons for attending.  The following exchange was approximately verbatim.  I think that is a oxymoron but just go with it.  I’ve changed his name and services to protect the guilty.

Elevator Arrival: “Ding” – Anthropomorphizing slightly here. 
Him: “So what keeps you busy during the day?”
Me: “I help organizations plan for their future through strategic investments in their people, processes and technology.”
Him: “Wow, that’s cool.  It must be interesting.”
Me: “It sure is, and how -“
Him: (interrupting and accelerating) “Thanks for asking, my name is Mr. Blah and I am super passionate about how I can help companies such as yours with its a, b, c things.”
Elevator Departure: “Ding”
Me: “Who is-“
Him: “Did you know that 55% of all widgets are inverted or whatever and there are so many opportunities?”
Me: “Um, no I didn’t. What is a widget?”
Him: (nodding sympathetically) “Of course you didn’t, no-one does.”
---Fast-Forward or TiVo® through about 5 minutes of information later when the panel was beginning.
Him: “Counter intuitive widget knowledge enhancement through ROI super awesomeness or whatever.”
Him: “Here is my card, a few brochures, a DVD, a self published book and a CD in case you or your network would be interested.”
Me: (sigh of relief) “Wow, the panel is starting already.  Let’s listen in.”

I can’t be completely ungrateful for this fellow.  He really drove home two important lessons in building relationships which are the foundations of consulting engagements.  On a side note, he continues to call me to this day asking for referrals.

The first rule of selling comes down to knowing who is a current customer or potential customer and who isn’t.  If you are in an environment where your customers are not, don’t waste your time selling.  A panel discussion regarding raising capital in which the attendees were primarily broke entrepreneurs who are seeking investment is not a great place to target new business.  Many of these individuals have boot strapped their businesses.  Don’t waste your time on selling items to others who will never be clients.  In this case, I did not need any widget services or products.  The idea of A.B.C. or Always Be Closing is ridiculous.  The importance of qualifying questions cannot be overlooked.  Potential clients are not stupid.  If I wanted to listen to a scripted speech about all the functions, benefits, or value of your product, I would… well I never would.  A client wouldn’t either. 

It sounds like I’m against networking and that is far from the truth.  Networking is a vital part of any business.  Simply be mindful of those you network with to ensure your circle of professionals all have the same highly ethical standards.  Birds of a feather…

The incredible second rule.  If the potential client looks uncomfortable it is for one of the following reasons.  Make sure to find out why before proceeding.
1.    The lack of interest in your product or service has gone from moderate to monumental resulting in physical discomfort.
2.    The client has a question.
3.    The client might be concerned since you haven’t taken a breath in the last 750 words or 3 minutes and is considering the liability if you pass out.
4.    The Super Duper Burrito was a bad call for lunch.

Being able to sense the tenor of the discussion and respond effectively to client concerns is much more effective than ripping through three hundred Microsoft Power Point® slides complete with transitions.  Nothing in a presentation will build a relationship.  It might build trust or establish expertise but it does not build a relationship.

I recall one very effective relationship where our first meeting was only 20 minutes long.
The client asked 2 questions:
1.    How can you make this project/process/implementation more effective?
2.    If Monday was your first day, what are you doing?
To effectively answer these, the rest of the meeting was discussing the current client challenges.
I asked the client after a few years about why there were only 2 questions.  The answer taught me many things.  The Client said: “You explained that you didn’t know exactly how to improve my condition but the knowledge exuded through your questions indicated that you were the right choice.”  This specific relationship was created through questions. 

But enough about me…

Lessons Learned:
1.    The questions you pose provide a better gauge of your knowledge than any presentation ever could.
2.    It is not about you.
3.    I’m serious, it is not about you.
4.    Relationships exceed all other forms of sales tools.
5.    Obsequious sycophants cannot build relationships.

Taking the Cult out of Culture

 

 

All organizations, regardless of size, have an unwritten code of conduct that is often referred to as a “culture”.  Cultures differ from policies at the broadest level as they are not included explicitly in the employment contract. 

 

The bromide, “Drinking the Kool-aid™”, is often used to describe the embracing of a culture.  Does anyone find this sobering that this saying is also often associated with an unfortunately permanent, cult-like behavior?   The oft repeated story about a group of monkeys, a set of stairs, a water hose and a banana regarding social acceptable behavior is a perfect example.  Eventually, the original lesson was lost through attrition but the behavior or culture remained.  As I stated before the culture sets expectations regarding workplace behavior.  These behaviors are the result of learned responses based on copying current staff or leaders within the organization. Since these behaviors have been ingrained in the organization it becomes difficult to adopt any changes or improvements.

 

Unethical behavior breeds unethical behavior. 

Meeting intensive culture breeds meetings. 

Inclusion breed inclusionary activities and exclusionary prejudices. 

Self-sacrifice breeds volunteering. 

Humility breeds humble employees. 

Excellent customer service breeds revenue. 

100 hour weeks breeds more 100 hour weeks.

Work/Life Balance breeds higher morale.

Drinking at work breeds more drinking at work.

Coercion for results breeds further coercion.

 

And so on.

 

Outsiders and newcomers to any group will often see the varying degrees of cultural dysfunction.  Unfortunately these same individuals are hampered by the need to “fit-in”.  The second and third level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs ensure that any proposed changes would be tempered by this peer pressure.  Through constant exposure the employee will soon be quaffing the Kool-aid™.

 

Essentially a culture is the peer pressure to do or not do activities that are considered appropriate behavior.

 

There are 3 rules that can take the Cult out of your organization's Culture.

 

1. Employees should challenge inappropriate corporate cultural trends. 

2. Leaders should embrace, recognize and promote positive trends.

3. Leaders should recognize and quash any negative trends.

Corporate Villain Combat Training

Meeting Length:

Personal preference:  No meeting should ever take 1 hour.  I always try to schedule the meetings for 30 minutes.  The shortened time line encourages brevity and specificity when communicating.

I’ve reviewed my calendar for the last 3 months and I’m in an average of 5.5 hours of meetings per day.  That is a crazy waste of time.  If those could have been 30 minute meetings only, the savings would add up quickly.

Facilitator Tool Kit:

 

Agenda – You need a plan.  Say it together, “I need a plan”.  How you can effectively guide the direction and tenor of any effort without a plan is beyond me.  This tool is effective against all the villains because it prevents soliloquies, interrogations and other time sucks.

Agendas can be very simple.  Topic – Time constraints – Action Items – Responsible - Date.  Consistency in format is not necessary provided it can be easily understood for non attendees.  Arguably a consistent format of the meetings notes trumps the necessity for a stringent agenda template. 

Contrary to what some marketers may tell you… branding of meeting agendas does not affect company valuation.

 

Meeting Notes – Each meeting should have a scribe which captures the major decisions discussed.  It is your responsibility to set the expectation that everyone invited to the meeting will review the meeting notes and know them.   The notes should be captured in a repository of some sort that allows for easy searching, organization and retrieval.   

 

Facilitator Powers – cape and tights are optional.  Masks should definitely be used.

You wouldn’t be set free without revealing your powers. 

Interruption – this is my favorite method of pulling stories, anecdotes, ramblings, rehashing, mini-presentations, weekend plans, conference room quarterbacks back to the topic at hand. 

Referee – there are times when the negotiating can be very heated.  The facilitator has the right to call foul if one of the parties is moving from factual and objective to personal and subjective.  Immediately state the foul and bring the discussion back on topic.

Time Keeper – since the agenda contains the timelines for the topics, this minute (pun intended) but massive power allows for flowing through the agenda.

 

 

Common facilitator questions:

1.       A manager keeps coming to my meeting and derailing, how do I handle this?

a.       If the manager is not invited then you should approach them separately and indicate that the goals of the meeting are x,y,z.  You’d be happy to add the manager to a future agenda if they would like to discuss a specific topic related to the goals of group.

2.       My culture is meeting heavy, how can this be altered?

a.       Be a catalyst of change, none of the teams that I’ve ever used these techniques above have ever complained about having extra time to accomplish their work.  Word will eventually get around that you run an effective meeting and hopefully it will transfer over to other facilitators.

3.       This will never work.

a.       I agree, it probably won’t work for you.  Please feel free to read my upcoming “Positive Contagious Leadership” post early next week.

4.       How do you address phone meetings?

a.       Excellent question.  As the world is tightly coupled through technology while removing personal interaction it is becoming increasingly difficult to be communicate on a meaningful level.  The same tenets apply to conference calls.  It is imperative for the facilitator to ensure everyone is engaged on all the topics.  No-one likes to repeat themselves. 

                                                               i.      Vijay: “Carlos, what do you think about this approach?” 

                                                             ii.      Vijay: “Hello, Carlos?”,

                                                            iii.      Carlos: “Oh hey, yeah, ummmm what was the question again?”

b.      This is frustrating.  Stop surfing the web when on a conference call!

 

Wrap Up:

The above tools are to help ensure you have effective and valuable discussions with your colleagues.  There will be situations when not all approaches outlined will be effective or relevant.  It is your responsibility as the facilitator to use them.

Effective Meeting Villains

Effective Meeting Villains

Facilitation is an expected trait from any leader.  Time and time again we will all sit through a meeting wondering why we are there.  After thorough research involving searching my memory the list of the primary offenders and their traits are listed below.

The Villains

Name: The ReHasher aka Earl of Echo
SOP: This individual will lapse into long winded and unnecessary soliloquies surrounding everything historical that was previously discussed.          

Name: The Pop Culture Commenter
SOP: Every problem is followed by a movie, television, pop-culture reference or quote.      

Name: Please Me Professional
SOP: Each item must be addressed to a single person’s pleasure.  Considers all meetings to be a personal time to have an inquisition on all topics.          

Name: The Handout Hipster
SOP: This special meeting attendee weighs the value of her contribution through the weight of the stack of handouts.  Often expresses surprise when the entire stack which would make Tolstoy’s editor cry cannot be addressed in a single meeting.      
Name: The Etch-a-Sketch™ Executive
SOP: This special meeting attendee often suffer from the Rehash curse.  No information, decisions or discussions ever stick to his oil slick veneer.          

Name: PowerPoint™ Apostle
SOP: Presenter professional who believes that if it is worth communication, it is worth making a full slide deck with transitions.  Easy to identify from the array of personal laser pointers and projectors that accompany them.  If no projector is available, becomes an effective Handout Hipster.     


The next post will address how to handle each villain.  The good news is that it isn’t rocket surgery or brain science.