Short answer: not learning enough...

This is especially true for lateral hires who left too early.

Let me tell you a story that perfectly illustrates this...

Meet Anna (name changed for privacy reasons). She was a McKinsey associate, a post-MBA lateral hire.

After 2 years of constant struggle, stress, and anxiety, she was counseled out.

She found a good job. On paper, she was better off. Better pay. Better lifestyle. But deep down, something didn't feel right.

At McKinsey, she incurred significant trauma.

She came to believe she simply wasn't smart enough. That she had failed the most important test of her life.

At first, she blamed McKinsey for being a toxic place that didn't recognize her talents and couldn't utilize them correctly.

But in her new job, she started seeing similar patterns.

Her boss gradually turned from enthusiastic to toxic.

This job was super important for her. So, she didn't want it to end up the same way as with McKinsey.

That made her think deeply about the real root causes.

She started to suspect that maybe there was something she could improve in her work. But she didn't know what exactly.

That's when she asked for my help and joined my coaching program.

We went through a set of practical exercises to diagnose the problem. Indeed, she had some gaps in her toolkit and mindset. That caused tension with her boss. The tension compounded and escalated over time.

We tightened her toolkit, improved her problem-solving, and sharpened her storytelling.

The results followed in a few weeks.

Her boss told her:

“You changed. I don’t know what happened to you, but I really like it. Keep up the good work!”

Very quickly, she was promoted, trusted with a bigger project, and given a few junior colleagues to manage.

It's just one story, but I see a common pattern among many people who left MBB consulting too early.

They simply didn't have enough time to learn well. They didn't find good mentors. And they regret missing this huge opportunity.

It's not something people want to talk about openly. But in private conversations, that's the number one regret ex-MBB consultants share.

If you are an ex-MBB consultant, you can't change how you left MBB. But you can still learn what you came there to learn.

If you are an ex-MBB consultant and want to learn skills you didn’t learn at your firm:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

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If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.

You work crazy hours. You produce dozens of slides per week. But it's still not fast enough for EMs.

Consultants get really puzzled about how they can work faster when they already work at an insane pace. There are simply not enough hours in a day.

Let me give you a typical example.

My client is a McKinsey consultant with 6 months of tenure. She was doing well for her tenure.

Then she joined a tough, fast-paced project.

After a few weeks, the EM said that her slides were okay, but her speed was too slow. He asked her to increase her speed. He even allowed her to reduce the quality of the slides.

She followed his advice. Unfortunately, at the time she didn’t consult with me.

Then, two weeks later, she called me in tears. The situation had become much worse.

She started to churn out slides at a much faster speed but lower quality. Then, just in a few days, the EM complained to her that he couldn’t understand her slides. This time the EM was visibly annoyed and frustrated.

This led to more comments, rework, and iterations. Her workload snowballed into a pile of unfinished work and new tasks.

It escalated so fast that she was rolled off the project for performance issues.

That one episode caused a major setback in her consulting journey and hurt her next performance review. Later, we had to work hard to recover from that negative experience.

Here's the counterintuitive truth.

The problem is not with speed. It's a symptom of a bigger issue.

Speed is just an output. It’s not an input.

That is why you can't work on it directly. Instead, you must find other bottlenecks in your working process and improve them to increase your speed.

Usually, it's a combination of complex sub-skills that must be sequenced and orchestrated properly. Any friction or mistakes will result in slower speed.

Let me offer you a better concept of how to think about speed.

For that, I need to tell you a short story.

When I was a consultant, I once worked on a project in Moscow. On weekends, I had nothing to do, so I went to a shooting range. Yes, in the center of Moscow you can easily find a shooting range.

It was a practical shooting discipline. You have to move from station to station and shoot targets. It’s a competitive sport. The fastest shooter wins.

The instructor was teaching me how to handle the gun safely. He was obsessed with the right techniques, positions, and movements. He made me repeat them slowly again and again. I was anxious to shoot and found the learning techniques boring.

And then he told me one thing that really stuck with me:

‘Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.’

If you execute the best possible technique correctly, without rushing, that would be the fastest way you can potentially move. The right technique is much more important than rushing and hassling.

Practical shooting is awfully similar to consulting work.

For example, to win in practical shooting, you must be fast. But it only counts if you are 100% accurate. If you miss even one target, it doesn’t matter how fast you are. The speed becomes pointless.

That means that you must optimize for two objectives simultaneously: accuracy and speed. And speed is a secondary objective. Please remember this principle.

Accuracy is primary. Speed is secondary.

The same applies to consulting. Your accuracy is much more important than your speed. Don’t take it at face value when your managers are asking you for faster outputs. Stay calm, stay focused, and try to improve your speed without compromising on quality and accuracy.

So, let’s get into the more practical things.

Identifying what your exact bottlenecks and root causes are becomes your highest priority.

You must work on multiple complex skills like problem-solving, slide-making, top-down communication, scope management, prioritization, and workstream management.

Each of these skills has its own subskills to learn.

Then you must sequence and orchestrate them in the right way to achieve the best efficiency and effectiveness.

Let me give you a few pointers where you might waste time.

1. Jumping right to execution without thinking first

This is probably the most common mistake consultants make. They feel incredible pressure to deliver. That’s why they jump to execute slides without spending time to think. For them, thinking even for five minutes feels like a huge waste of time.

As a result, they produce shallow-level content. This leads to more comments, rework, and iterations. At the end, they spend much more time than if they had thought about it thoroughly and produced higher quality outputs.

2. Not having a solid slide-making process

This is a little bit similar, but a bit of a general problem. Often, consultants don’t have a solid, repeatable process of how they produce slides. Every time, they approach it as a creative process.

As a result, they often miss critical steps. They spend too much time thinking about trivial things that can be easily standardized, like design, layout, and graphic elements. But most importantly, if you don’t have a repeatable process, you can’t analyze where you waste time and think about how to improve it. It’s all random and ad hoc.

3. Undercommunicating to your managers

Often, the work you do is genuinely difficult. But your managers don’t have the visibility. They think it’s easy and they wonder why it takes you ages to produce it.

Here, speed isn’t actually the problem. It’s not managing managers’ expectations well. Then the managers have the feeling that everything you do is super slow, and the results are underwhelming.

Unfortunately, finding these bottlenecks on your own is super hard.

Your EMs don't provide you with thoughtful feedback. They don't spend time analyzing your working processes. They don’t tell you which bottlenecks waste your time or how to remove them. They only react to visible mistakes. They focus on symptoms.

As a result, you stress out about speed, but you can’t do anything practical to improve it. Your root causes and bottlenecks remain unresolved for months, if not years.

This is how you risk losing your job because firms like McKinsey are unforgiving. If you don't figure this out on your own, it’s your fault. Goodbye.

But this is a solvable problem.

With the right system and coaching, you can improve much faster than you think. You remove confusion and guessing from your process. In a matter of weeks, you can see dramatic improvements.

If you are an MBB lateral hire and want to improve your output speed, read my full guide explaining the practical system of How to Create Great Slides.

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

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If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.

But you are extremely busy. You work crazy hours. You have so much on your plate. You are always behind on your tasks.

Often, you don’t have time to sleep, let alone do other extracurricular things like learning.

You want to improve, but you simply don’t have time. You ask yourself a question: How can you find time for learning?

And it’s a fair question.

Here you face a very challenging dilemma.

Yes, you don’t have time to learn. But you can’t win in this profession if you don’t improve very fast. Working very hard will not lead to the results you want for yourself.

To illustrate my point, let me tell you about a principle coined by Stephen Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, one that I really like.

Sharpen the Saw

He tells a story about two men cutting down trees in a forest.

One man worked nonstop, and the other one stopped regularly to sharpen his saw. To the first man's surprise, the second one made much more progress and cut many more trees.

This principle applies well to MBB consulting.

It’s not a physical job. You cannot win by brute force, and throwing more hours won’t help.

You must regularly sharpen your saw. Learn how to work much more effectively because the difference between effective and ineffective can be exponential.

One well-executed idea can save you hours, if not days, of stupid work. Also, the impact you deliver can be much higher.

But finding time for learning is extremely hard. I get it. I won’t sugarcoat it. I’ve been in your shoes.

The project or proposal you are working on right now is very important. And you can get in trouble if you don’t do it well.

But let’s be realistic: your effectiveness is pretty low while you are still a junior consultant. So it doesn’t really matter if you work 12 or 8 hours per day. Your partners will not notice.

That is why you must steal time for yourself, an hour here, an hour there. Realistically, it’s very hard to do when you are on an active client project. But very doable when you are on a beach working on client development.

Think of your time as an investment

Each activity you do has ROI (return on investment).

Investing in your learning has enormous ROI. And because your baseline is low, every invested hour now will save an enormous amount of time in the future.

That is why,

I strongly encourage you to prioritize learning.

But even if you dedicate some time to learning, you’ll face another challenge. You don’t know what learning activities yield the best results for you. You don’t know if you need to complete internal training or read some books about critical skills.

And that’s why many consultants don’t invest time in learning, because they can’t see a strong correlation between invested time and results they see on projects.

What you need is a clear learning journey with a structured sequence of actions and skills to learn in the most effective way.

That's why I developed a coaching program for MBB consultants to give you the most effective approach and system to improve your performance and become confident consultants.

MBB Performance Accelerator - The coaching program for MBB consultants.

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

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If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.

And how to build it to get your next promotion.

When I joined McKinsey at 34 as a lateral hire, sponsorship was the weirdest thing for me. I just couldn't understand what that meant.

I worked with partners. They were somewhat friendly to me. I worked really hard, busting my *ss for them. What else was I supposed to do? I just couldn't get it.

But apparently, all of that was not enough.

My hard work was taken for granted. And partners simply didn't care if I worked really hard.

At the same time, I could see how partners treated other consultants preferentially. But they were doing seemingly similar work to what I was doing.

It felt extremely unfair. I thought partners were unfair. I thought that to build strong sponsorship, I had to schmooze and brown-nose. I didn't want to do that.

As a result, I decided that consulting was not for me. I was not cut out for this job.

I only understood what sponsorship was later, when I became an EM and AP.

I could just see that some consultants deserved to be supported, and some did not.

They were not just working hard. They were going the extra mile. They were highly valuable. They stood out from the crowd.

They didn’t work harder. Everyone was working hard. But they were working better. The quality of their ideas, insights, and so-whats was on another level.

It was a no-brainer who to support. And it was not about schmoozing and brown-nosing. It was about the value they created.

If you are an MBB lateral hire struggling with sponsorship and want to build a strong support partner group, I recorded a new YouTube video discussing this and sharing some practical tips and tricks.

Watch the video…

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

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The coaching program for MBB consultants.

It's the biggest pain point for many consultants.

It works like a vicious cycle.

Lack of confidence prevents you from performing at your best. This leads to more criticism from your leaders. This damages your confidence even further.

You want to improve it, but don’t know how.

You don't know where to start.

Because confidence is a symptom, not a root cause.

It's an output, not an input.

That is why it's hard to work on confidence directly.

You must improve dozens of things to build confidence.

In my new YouTube video, I discuss why you lose confidence, how it hurts you, and what practical things you can do to improve it.

Watch this video.

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

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If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.

A very common question MBB consultants ask me.

Firms like McKinsey, BCG, and Bain are well known for their strong feedback culture.

But asking and receiving feedback is tricky, especially if you are a lateral hire coming from the corporate world, where feedback culture is often weak or non-existent.

I joined McKinsey at 34 as a lateral hire.

You know, I didn’t know a lot of unspoken rules. Worst of all, I took everything at face value. As a result, I have made lots of mistakes that could have been easily avoided.

For example, I thought that the feedback sessions were for me to provide feedback to my managers and partners. And I went on a crusade to provide honest feedback to everyone I worked with. I thought I was serving the firm and these people.

But in reality, I was just hurting myself for no reason. Here’s the harsh truth. People are not taking negative feedback well, especially from juniors who haven’t earned their place and respect.

Then I was wondering why they didn’t recognize my hard work and provided negative feedback on my work.

You don’t have to make these silly mistakes. Learn how MBB firms operate before hurting your career.

In my new YouTube video, I discuss how to conduct feedback sessions, what questions to ask, and how to accept feedback in the best way.

How to conduct feedback sessions with partners…

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

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We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

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The coaching program for MBB consultants.

Toxicity is the biggest source of stress for consultants.

If you work at McKinsey, BCG, or Bain, I am sure you have experienced some form of toxic situation.

Unfortunately, it happens more often than we want.

You put people under immense pressure, and stress makes people behave in all kinds of weird ways, including toxic behavior.

Why does it create so much stress for you?

We as humans are social beings. We are hard-wired to read cues from our leaders. If they are unhappy with us, our stress goes through the roof.

It’s a survival mechanism developed through evolution.

In prehistoric times, if your leaders were unhappy with you, that meant exile from the tribe and certain death. That is why your brain sends strong alarm signals.

How to deal with toxic situations?

In my new YouTube video, I discuss why toxic situations happen, how you can deal with them, and how to prevent them from happening.

How to deal with a toxic manager?

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

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We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

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If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.

Something I’ve been struggling with for months.

You know, there’s a lot of hype around AI. And many people build a lot of stuff. But there’s also some skepticism around real impact. Some people try it, but don’t see a big impact.

That’s why I wanted to share how AI helped to solve a very real and difficult problem in my coaching business.

But first, a bit of context to explain the problem.

If you want to watch my video explaining it and sharing a quick demo, click this link:

How AI helped to solve a really tough problem.

I have a coaching program for MBB consultants. I coach more than 90 MBB consultants to improve their performance.

The biggest challenge for me was client engagement.

Some clients join my program, but wouldn’t do all the required activities.

It’s understandable. Consultants are extremely busy. Sometimes they don’t even have time to sleep, let alone do extracurricular learning.

This problem bothered me a lot.

I spent months trying to solve it because it endangered my business. If clients didn’t get an impact from my program, it would be very bad for my business long-term.

I sent nudging emails, WhatsApp messages, and tried to explain the importance of learning. I rearranged the journey, streamlined it, and removed friction.

It helped a little bit, but the problem persisted.

Then, in March this year, I started using Claude Code. I remembered my old days when I was a software developer.

Step by step, I built a full suite of bite-sized exercises.

Now, if consultants have as little as 30 minutes, they can do a short exercise and learn critical consulting skills like top-down comms, formatting, structuring, slide-making, analytics, issue analysis, storylining, logical reasoning, and others.

Basically, I built a mental gym for consultants.

They can visit it daily and practice critical skills without spending too much time. ROI on invested time is very high because all these skills and scenarios are carefully curated and tested. They built around common mistakes and struggles MBB consultants have. I derived that from 2 years of practical work with dozens of MBB consultants on hundreds of problem-solving reps.

And it worked fantastically!

In a few weeks, the client engagement went through the roof.

Dozens of clients use my exercises on a daily basis. On average, they complete 20-30 exercises in a few days.

Even the old clients, who have already graduated and achieved impressive success, come back and still find something new to learn there.

But for me, the biggest achievement was repeat usage.

You can’t fake repeat usage. Yes, you can make clients try your product once. But you can’t make them use it repeatedly. If clients don’t like it, they won’t come back. Especially, busy and demanding clients like MBB consultants.

Clearly, without AI, I wouldn’t have been able to solve it. I hope you liked my example and it inspires you to solve your own tough problems.

I recorded a short video showing how it looks from the inside. If you are curious, take a sneak peek at my coaching program.

If you are an MBB consultant and want to upgrade your problem-solving, I wrote an Ultimate Guide on how this system works and what common mistakes consultants make at each layer. This is the exact approach I use to coach MBB consultants in my coaching program.

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

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If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.

This is what my evaluator told me after my performance review. These words hit me like a ton of bricks.

‘You are not smart enough,‘ that's how I understood him.

I knew it was extremely dangerous feedback, as problem-solving is the most critical development dimension at McKinsey.

Actually, let me tell you more and up the ante:

Poor problem-solving is the root cause of all your problems in consulting.

Every challenge you experience can be traced back to it: negative feedback, poor ratings, sleepless nights, staffing challenges, weak sponsorship, unbearable stress, and constant insecurities.

When your outputs are not that impressive, they lead to all of those ‘fun prizes’.

But when you fix it, everything changes.

If you can produce high-quality, insightful outputs that impress your partners, they’ll like your work, and they‘ll like you by extension.

You’ll get access to exciting projects, inspiring leaders, cool career opportunities, and, most importantly, you will feel confident, stress-free, and fulfilled.

But let’s get back to my story. At that time, I decided to do everything I could to never get questioned on my problem-solving.

But learning problem-solving was extremely hard.

I started with in-house training and courses. I learned all available frameworks and approaches: the seven-step approach, MECE structuring, the pyramid principle, issue trees, hypothesis trees, and many other fancy things.

To my big surprise, all these frameworks were never used in real practice. Partners and managers demanded them, but I never saw what great looks like in practice.

That's where I got stuck. I didn't know what to do next.

I asked my managers how they learned it.

But they couldn't explain it. They learned intuitively through repetition and experience.

I had to resort to a trial-and-error approach. It was a highly ineffective and time-consuming process, full of mistakes, pain, and stress.

So I had to learn it the hard way.

But after working at McKinsey for 9 years and coaching dozens of consultants,

I developed a simple system to improve problem-solving.

Think of problem-solving as a multi-layered onion.

1. Communication
2. Slide-making
3. Core problem-solving
4. Critical thinking
5. Intrinsics

If you have noise in any of these layers, partners will think you don’t have it.

They won't do an in-depth analysis of your challenges. They will simply label you as not smart. But in reality, you might just make some silly, technical mistakes.

That's why, rather than trying to teach every possible problem-solving framework, I help consultants clear the noise and make their ideas stand out.

It’s much more practical and faster, and it helps to solve immediate pain.

And I see again and again, when consultants fix the noise, they discover they are apparently smart and creative problem solvers. And partners can see that as well.

If you are an MBB consultant and want to upgrade your problem-solving, I wrote an Ultimate Guide on how this system works and what common mistakes consultants make at each layer.

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

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The coaching program for MBB consultants.

A lateral-hire consultant complained to me.

He said that all the knowledge and frameworks he learned, he couldn’t apply to his job: swot analysis, PESTLE analysis, Porter's five forces, BCG matrix, and many others.

He had to learn to work from scratch. He felt that two years of learning didn’t help him at all.

It’s somewhat true, but it’s a little bit simplistic view.

It's not that the MBA education is not good. It's just that the real experience is so much more brutal.

It's like the difference between preparing for a war and then surviving one.

It reminded me of the movie ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ when young soldiers were preparing for a war and finally were happy to be sent to one. They had no idea what they were going to go through.

Don’t blame your MBA degree. Who knows what would happen without that preparation? Maybe it would be 10x harder.

MBAs are good for career track change. They give you good general business knowledge. They open the door to MBB.

But MBB gives you the real, practical experience working in different countries, industries, functions, and companies.

This experience is unique, but the cost is brutal.

Surviving and thriving in MBB consulting requires a different level of preparation, practical, not theoretical. This is where coaching is super important from people who have gone through this journey and helped others as well. So you can learn the unspoken rules and best practices in the most effective way.

If you are a lateral hire in an MBB firm and want to succeed, download and read my new free guide: How to Succeed in MBB as a Lateral Hire.

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

BOOK A FREE 1-1 CONSULTATION

If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.

I truly believe it's a great thing. It creates a strategic advantage for MBB firms.

It keeps the new blood flowing in. It cleans up all the levels in the pyramid. It makes MBB firms attractive to the best talent looking for fast growth.

But there's a big BUT...

For lateral hires, it’s a nightmare.

They risked everything to join MBB Consulting. They abandoned their successful careers and invested in a costly MBA to get there. Only to get eliminated in the first or second year.

Remember the Squid Game TV show?

The first challenge was ‘Red light, Green light’.

I felt bad for those who got eliminated first. They didn't even understand what was happening. They were not given a proper chance to compete.

Basically, this is what some lateral hires get in MBB firms. They get eliminated before they can even learn the right skills and build the right support system.

It’s extremely confusing and disorienting.

It’s good for MBB firms. The survival of the fittest, as they call it. But for you individually, it’s not great. What if that was your big breakthrough? What if it were your big chance to boost your career? Losing that chance would be devastating. At least, that's how I thought about it.

If this is how you feel in MBB as a lateral hire and you want to improve your chances of success, I wrote a free guide on How to Succeed in MBB as a Lateral Hire.

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION

If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.

Then, I found a cheat sheet that helped me a lot.

Here's how it started...

On my first project, I was given a process workstream. I couldn’t demonstrate my problem-solving abilities.

Then, in my first review, I was given a 'Concerns' rating in my problem-solving dimension.

I got really scared. I knew it was really bad for me.

I wanted to ensure nobody ever questioned my problem-solving.

Since then, I have been obsessed with learning it.

But learning problem-solving was tricky. There were so many resources, techniques, and frameworks, and most of them were far from practical.

I always felt that my answers were too flat and obvious.

But I didn't know how to make them better.

Then, I accidentally found a laminated piece of paper with problem-solving questions listed on both sides.

Since then, whenever I solved problems, I always used that cheat sheet for inspiration. And you know, it helped a lot.

My problem-solving improved dramatically.

Now, after many years, I realize that my problem-solving has improved not because of some magic cheat sheet, but because of the discipline of asking myself the right questions at the right time.

If you want to download that cheat sheet, I actually improved it, added new questions, and turned it into a downloadable guide.

MBB Problem-Solving Cheatsheet

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

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The coaching program for MBB consultants.

I joined McKinsey at 34 as an experienced hire.

I used to be a confident communicator. But at McKinsey, I became this unconfident and reserved person who wouldn’t speak up in meetings.

It seemed that in the consulting environment, louder colleagues prevailed. Younger consultants were much more confident and outspoken. They always knew what to say.

On top of that, partners were incredibly fast and impatient. It was very hard to keep up with the conversation flow, let alone contribute anything meaningful.

When I finally built up the courage to speak up, I was always shut down and interrupted. Sometimes, even ridiculed. After a few of those moments, I just stopped trying.

My confidence was completely destroyed.

But that was the worst thing I could do. In MBB consulting, being silent is extremely dangerous. You simply can’t grow. To be successful, you must be visible and outspoken.

It took me a while to realize that this was not a confidence problem. It was a skill gap. Communication is a complex skill consisting of a few important elements. Here, I broke it down into two main categories: structure and tactics.

Part one: Structure

To be completely honest, when I look back at my failed communications, I simply didn’t have anything interesting to say. I was not prepared. I often rambled incoherently. No wonder others interrupted me.

For effective communication, it’s important to prepare good points to make. They can be your findings, insights, and perspectives.

Here’s my advice for you: Prepare your points in advance. Structure them in a top-down way. Rehearse a few times before the meeting. Anticipate any potential questions.

This is when you practice top-down communication.

Please understand this. We don’t speak in a top-down way in daily life. It’s not natural for us. That’s why you should force yourself and practice this as a skill, not treat it as a talent or inspiration. It’s a very technical thing, and can be learned.

You can practice top-down communication using my new interactive exercise. It will provide you with realistic consulting scenarios asking you to prepare structured communications (steerco, client meeting, email to partners).

Try to Practice Top-Down Communications

Part two: Conversational Tactics

Initially, I had this naive understanding of how communication worked.

I expected that when I talked, people would listen to me patiently, understand what I had to say, and appreciate my contributions. And when it didn’t happen, when people interrupted me, I considered it a personal failure. And that demotivated me and destroyed my confidence.

But then I realized that it’s a normal thing. That’s how humans interact. Through asking questions, they try to understand the topics being discussed.

Partners often interrupt. They ask questions. They go on tangents. You can’t expect to speak in monologues. That’s not how meetings work.

Instead of being afraid of interruptions, I decided to accept them as the norm. And learn to proactively manage the whole conversation from the beginning to the end.

Here are a few tactics I found helpful to identify and practice:

- Set the context and agenda of the meetings;
- Acknowledge and deflect the question;
- Grab attention before speaking;
- Circle back to the main conversation;
- Ask clarifying questions;
- Summarize the conversation.

How did I learn them?

Well, it was pretty simple. I observed others demonstrating great techniques that I liked, and then I wrote down the exact verbiage for my future use. Then I practiced and adapted them for my speech, so they sound natural to me. For me, as a non-native English speaker, that was an important part of my skill-building.

Once I learned to combine structure with tactics, everything changed.

I stopped dreading meetings. Even when I had nothing particularly insightful to say, the tactics alone made me come across as a competent and confident consultant.

I hope this will be helpful in your consulting work.

If you want a faster way to learn communication structuring, I built an interactive exercise where you can practice structuring your communication. It gives you real scenarios and AI-powered feedback. It’s actually quite spooky how precise it is.

Try the Communication Exercise

P.S. If you are an MBB consultant who wants to improve performance and become confident, book a discovery call to discuss how I can help you.

BOOK A FREE 1-1 CONSULTATION CALL

If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.

Imagine you bring a perfect slide to a partner. One question, and the whole thing crumbles. It’s extremely embarrassing. And damaging to your reputation.

Why does it happen?

Most likely, you make implicit assumptions.

A single implicit assumption can torpedo your whole problem-solving effort, often rendering your outputs absolutely useless.

What are implicit assumptions?

It’s the assumption you make in your argument that you don’t even know you are making.

And the hardest part is you don't see them.

Enough theory, let’s use one example to illustrate this point.

Here is a challenge for you. I give you a simple statement. Find an implicit assumption here.

A consumer goods company discovers that its top 10% of customers generate 55% of revenue. The marketing team proposes shifting 70% of the Ad budget from broad awareness to targeted retention for the high-value customers.

Does this look alright to you? Makes sense?

PAUSE HERE. THINK CAREFULLY…

What is the key implicit assumption here?

The key assumption here is that the top 10% group is self-sustaining.

But think for a minute, what if it is not true?

Where did those high-value customers come from? They most likely entered as new customers through the very broad awareness campaigns you are now cutting.

Kill the top of the funnel, and the bottom dries up within 18 months.

Imagine the partner catching this. That would be quite embarrassing.

At McKinsey, I saw this all the time.

Confident, data-backed recommendations built on assumptions nobody questioned.

And then a partner asks one question, and the whole thing crumbles.

This is what separates good consultants from great ones. Not sharper math. No better slides. The ability to see what the argument is silently assuming.

This is where critical thinking is absolutely important.

Unfortunately, it’s not being taught in consulting, although I would argue it’s the most fundamental layer of your problem-solving. If you make mistakes at this layer, your problem-solving will be super weak.

Partners spot these things pretty easily because they have tons of experience and sharp pattern recognition. But you don't have that yet.

What can you do to compensate?

You can learn and practice it.

For this reason, I built an interactive exercise for MBB consultants to practice spotting implicit assumptions and strengthen their critical thinking.

Implicit Assumptions Exercise

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. It’s a no-commitment call, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

BOOK A FREE 1-1 CONSULTATION

If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.

I cringed every time I heard these words at McKinsey.

It sounded like I needed to network more. Schedule coffee chats. Ask partners to support me.

So I tried. And it felt incredibly awkward.

It was like asking someone to like me.

Partners always replied, "Yes, of course." But it never converted into anything meaningful.

Here's the thing.

It doesn't work this way.

Partners sponsor consultants not because they like to drink coffee.

They sponsor consultants who are valuable to them. Who can make their projects better. Who can solve tough, ambiguous problems in an impressive way.

And they can see value in your work during actual projects, and sometimes during client developments.

That’s why building sponsorship is not a networking strategy.

It is a byproduct of your performance.

One strong project with the right partner will do more for your consulting career than a year of random coffee chats.

Stop trying to network your way to sponsorship.

Start being someone worth sponsoring.

How to do it?

The best way to do that is to radically upgrade your problem-solving.

Learn to work on the level that impresses partners. Then, the relationships will follow naturally. You won’t even need to ask for it. Partners will offer sponsorship themselves.

Hard to believe? In fact, that’s how it works for high performers.

If you are a senior MBB consultant preparing for your EM promotion, I wrote a simple step-by-step guide on “How to Get EM Promotion” (link in the comments).

How to Get EM Promotion

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. It’s a no-commitment call, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

BOOK A FREE 1-1 CONSULTATION

If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.

A BCG consultant texted me at 2 am.

The partner had given her harsh feedback.

She was too slow. Her slides were not crisp enough.

Her PL made it even worse by giving her nothing but formatting work, which made it really hard to showcase herself.

She told me,

“I can’t get my slides right. They are either too detailed or too high-level. I do so many iterations, it’s embarrassing.”

If you are a consultant, you know how it goes.

You make mistakes, you get harsh feedback, it kills your confidence, you make more mistakes, and the cycle keeps spinning again and again.

It’s a vicious cycle.

You dig yourself into a deep emotional hole (unintentionally). It feels impossible to get out of that hole once you’re in it. The deeper you are, the harder it is to recover.

The problem is never just slides.

I see this pattern too many times. It’s never one thing. It’s a set of issues, both technical and psychological at the same time, feeding into each other.

What to do in this situation?

So I put her on a strict recovery plan.

A set of simple actions and mindset reframes.

To be honest, the technical fixes are fairly straightforward.

Make sure you understand the problem. Prioritize important things. Think before you produce. Produce high-quality outputs. That’s it, really.

But here’s the thing: when you’re emotionally drained, exhausted, and your confidence is shattered, even the simplest fixes feel like climbing a steep mountain.

That’s why the recovery has to start with very simple but effective actions.

You must stop the bleeding first.

Find what specific actions create the most drag. Fix them with the best practice techniques. Slowly, you start gaining momentum, and that will feel much better.

Emotional state improves, which will give you additional motivation.

I know it’s hard, but it’s possible. You just need to be more intentional, less reactive.

If you feel stuck in your performance and development, I wrote a simple guide on what you can do, a set of simple actions, and mindset reframes.

Free Guide: How to Get Unstuck

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. It’s a no-commitment call, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

BOOK A FREE 1-1 CONSULTATION

If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.

Her partners pushed her to sell new projects.

But she didn’t know how to do it.

On our coaching call, we discussed how consulting firms sell projects. And how she could position herself better in that process.

When I was an EM, I had a very naive understanding of how McKinsey sells projects.

I thought it happens like in fancy TV shows like Billions or Suits.

One rainmaker partner comes to clients, delivers a perfect pitch, answers tough questions, and voila, the multi-million dollar project is sold.

But it doesn’t work this way. Not even close.

The real principle behind McKinsey’s sales machine is far more prosaic. It is also far more effective.

It’s built on repeatable business.

McKinsey likes to work with large clients for long periods of time. It’s a strategic choice that gives them a huge advantage.

Think about it. It's extremely difficult to find a new client and sell a complex project. It's simply not effective.

But how do they achieve repeatability?

Here’s another critical principle in play.

Client obsession

To work with large businesses repeatedly, the critical ingredient is building strong relationships with senior clients.

I remember, at McKinsey, client service was raised to a cult status.

At every training, at every meeting, client service would be reminded and reinforced. Every hard decision would be resolved in favor of the clients’ needs and impact.

And it’s not high-level altruistic BS.

Every partner knows that it’s a survival code. It’s the DNA of the organization. They know that impact is the only differentiator they have. Other things are easily copyable.

That’s why McKinsey partners are ready to play a long game.

Let me give you one specific example.

If you say the phrase “sell to clients,” partners will immediately correct you. They will say to you:

“At McKinsey, we don’t sell to clients. We develop them.”

Because language forms our thinking and actions. And it shapes our reality as a consequence. That’s why partners are quite strict in enforcing this principle.

Here, for the sake of this post, I am saying the word “selling” just to make it easier to understand. Although I still feel slightly awkward saying the word ‘selling.’

How do McKinsey partners sell projects?

They work together as a team to land a sale. The best way to think about it is like hunting as a pack of wolves.

Partners organize themselves into CSTs (Client Service Teams) to serve one big client. It’s a loosely formed hierarchical group. Everyone has their own role and objectives.

Partners can be part of different CSTs at the same time. It’s actually expected that a partner has a few large clients.

There’s usually one senior partner who leads the CST. The senior partner is called a DCS (Director of Client Services). He makes the main strategic calls.

Usually, a DCS owns critical client relationships, typically with the CEO and board members. Sometimes, there can be multiple senior partners who also contribute.

Partners usually align themselves with certain topics, business units, or functions in the client organization. They are expected to have critical relationships with key executives.

How do CSTs operate?

Senior partners define a strategic agenda for CSTs. They do it by talking to client leadership: the CEO, shareholders, and board members. Then they cascade and delegate these priorities to partners and APs.

Then, it’s the job of partners to work with client executives to detail topics and co-create proposals.

That’s where APs and EMs will help partners to execute and build proposals. The main objective is to co-create, tailor, and align them with clients.

This is important for you to understand. Partners and APs have a conflict of interest. Basically, an AP needs to become a partner and carve out their own space in a CST. That’s why there could be some tensions, especially if APs are becoming more and more senior.

For APs, it’s better to work with senior partners directly. They don’t have a direct conflict of interest. And APs need senior partners’ support for partner election.

For EMs, it’s better to work with partners directly. Same point on conflict of interest. Also, for EMs it’s more valuable, because partners’ feedback will count more than APs’.

So imagine this situation.

Client managers come to the CEO with a proposal to start a project with McKinsey.

It’s already very well developed and aligned internally. The strategic importance is well defined. The impact is well estimated. The scope is sharply formulated.

It’s easy for the CEO to make a positive decision.

That’s how McKinsey creates projects that never appear in RFPs. Ideally, they do not wait for clients to ask for projects. They manufacture strategic clarity, alignment, and urgency inside the client organization proactively.

Where can senior EMs fit in?

If you are a senior EM, I assume you want to become a partner in the future. Before that, you need to become an AP, which is basically a partner in training.

To get promoted to AP, EMs need to demonstrate that they have client platforms, at least two CSTs serving large clients with repeatable business.

If EMs get included in CSTs, they are called core EMs. Practically speaking, EMs are expected to serve these clients more consistently. It’s not an obligation, but more of a recommendation.

What does this mean for your role?

When partners ask EMs to go ‘to sell’.

In fact, they implicitly ask EMs to build trusted relationships with clients, one or two levels below the top.

Your job is to become the closest, most trusted person for those executives. Not being too commercial. Not too pushy. But useful and helpful.

So when your partners tell you “go and sell,” don’t take it too literally.

Build a strong relationship with your clients. Identify their biggest pain points and ambitions. Activate these relationships when opportunities arise.

This will give you the foundation for your future sales.

Sales in consulting come from trust.

This is especially important for high-ticket projects.

—

At the end of our coaching call, I asked my client.

Do you have clients with whom you have strong relationships? She said yes.

Do you think you can talk with them to find out what problems they experience and how you can help them? She said yes.

Do you think these problems can potentially become project-worthy? She said yes.

Do you feel you could go and sell now? She said yes.

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

BOOK A FREE 1-1 CONSULTATION

If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.

It’s vague. It’s generic. It’s confusing.

Your partners tell you to work on problem-solving, slide-making, or communication.

You take it seriously. You try to fix it.

But then, in the next review, something new pops up. Then again. And again. Often, you can make a full circle, and your old feedback reappears again.

I call it the Whack-a-Mole game.

You know that arcade game? Little moles pop up, you hit one with the hammer, it goes down, and another one pops up somewhere else.

That’s exactly how development feedback feels. A never-ending game, and often quite pointless to be honest.

Why your feedback is not what it seems.

The real reason is that you receive symptoms as feedback, not root causes.

So what are the real root causes then?

In fact, there are two main root causes.

The first one is a lack of exposure.

Partners simply don’t know you. Your partners never really see you work because they interact only with your EM.

If the partners haven’t seen you, or only saw you once or twice, they form some incomplete or incorrect impression of you. That’s why they provide pretty generic feedback.

If you think this is your problem, read this post:

The second one is that your work doesn’t stand out.

It doesn’t impress your partners. They NEVER react like that:

“Damn, this is amazing! We absolutely love how you work. Come join our next project.”

Instead, you sort of blend in with ordinary people. You look more or less the same as everyone else.

Then, when it’s time for feedback, your partners can’t say,

“You know, I don’t know her,” or “I just don’t like how she works.“

That would sound highly unprofessional.

Instead, they say generic feedback that is safe. You can tell it to any consultant of your tenure, and it won’t be wrong.

For example, needs to work on problem-solving, improve presence, and upgrade slide-making.

But you take this feedback at face value and start fixing it religiously.

Guess how effective that would be?

And it’s not your fault. You are not doing anything wrong. You might even be doing everything your partners told you to do.

But you haven’t added anything of your own. No insights. No wow factors. Nothing above and beyond. Just adequate execution.

Unfortunately, in MBB firms, this is not enough.

There are always some eager and smart consultants who do incredible things. And you will look bleak compared to them.

I promise, there are always people like that. And partners remember them, and mentally compare you to these people.

In fact, that generic feedback itself might be technically true.

Yes, your problem-solving could be sharper. Your slides could be prettier. Your communication could be better.

But even if you fix that, you don’t address the root causes.

Actually, addressing the real root causes requires a different set of actions.

The main priorities are to make partners know you and to like how you work.

Let me pause here and emphasize these important points.

You must stand out.

You must impress your partners.

How to do that?

Fortunately, you don’t have to fix dozens of different problems and issues.

Almost all of your issues are rooted in problem-solving.

Think about it. Staffing issues, sponsorship problems, performance reviews, long working hours, unbearable stress, and a bad lifestyle.

If your problem-solving process doesn’t work well, everything starts resonating in a negative way.

Your partners don’t like how you work, they start providing negative feedback, and it all results in many bad implications, such as staffing issues, poor feedback, and overwork.

But the moment you fix your problem-solving to the level that your outputs impress your partners, everything changes.

Suddenly, partners start liking what you do, and by extension, you as well.

Your motivation and confidence improve. It becomes much easier to work and score new wins.

You kickstart a positive momentum.

That’s why most of your focus and effort should be directed at improving your problem-solving.

If you want to learn how to do that, read this post:

That’s why in my coaching program, 80% of our focus is directed to upgrading problem-solving.

We break it down into every micro-component, from receiving tasks to logical thinking and slide-making. We look at everything, and I try to find the exact point where it breaks.

Typically, consultants struggle to improve their problem-solving because they approach it as a whole. They lump everything together into one pile and say, “My problem-solving doesn’t work.”

They don’t know what to fix. So they start thinking, “My problem-solving is bad. I am not smart enough.”

But in fact, it’s just a technical problem. We must break it down into smaller components and logical steps, and find specific bottlenecks to fix.

As a result, we see these beautiful transformation moments.

A consultant fixes just one or two bottlenecks.

Suddenly, partners tell them: “Whoa, you changed overnight! We love your outputs. What happened?”

And immediately, the positive feedback starts flowing. People like it. They become cheerful around you. They want to help you.

When everyone around you is in a good mood and wants to help, work becomes easier. Your own mood improves. Your motivation improves. And when your motivation improves, you realize you’re actually getting smarter. New ideas start coming to you.

A positive cycle begins to spin.

That’s how you improve fast.

If you struggle with understanding your vague feedback, I can help you.

I developed a new AI tool that takes your specific development feedback and breaks it down to specific symptoms and root causes. And it provides you with actionable advice you can start implementing today.

Try it now: MBB Feedback Decypher

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

BOOK A FREE 1-1 CONSULTATION

If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.

But all these issues are almost always rooted in one underlying issue:

Problem-solving.

It’s a core skill in MBB consulting.

But many consultants underestimate how much rigor and structure they must have to operate at this high level.

In this post, I reflect on how you can learn to think well.

These reflections are based on years of working at McKinsey and coaching dozens of MBB consultants.

Bear with me. This post can get a little bit dry and conceptual. But it can be the most important skill you need to learn that will have a ripple effect on everything you do.

I strongly encourage you to understand, implement, and operate these concepts in your day-to-day consulting job.

The first question I want to pose:

Why are some people better at problem-solving?

Well, some consultants get it with talent. It’s natural for them. They work intuitively, and it just works. They don’t know why and how. Around 5-10% of people get it without much struggle. Good for them.

But what if you are like me, and these things don’t come naturally to you?

You know, I was never the smartest guy in the room. I had to acquire problem-solving skills through hard work and trial and error.

I didn’t like it when people said that it’s a purely intrinsic trait. You either have it or you don’t.

I believe problem-solving can be taught and learned.

But first, let’s better understand the problem we are facing.

Consultants often don’t know how to think in a structured way.

They operate under huge pressure to deliver. Managers breathe down their necks to produce slides. Everything must be done fast.

As a result, consultants mistakenly think that their job is to produce slides. And the speed is somehow more important than the substance and quality.

It is not!

That’s how they get to produce shallow-level outputs, frustrating managers and partners.

That’s why you must always carve out time to think. That’s what makes you valuable.

But sometimes, the situation can be a bit more difficult.

Even if consultants try to think hard, they don’t know how to do it well. Good ideas just don’t come to their minds.

Or worse, they come up with incorrect or incomplete ideas that do not solve the actual problems. Or their ideas are just too trivial, not getting to the right level of depth and insight.

This is when partners will provide feedback on poor problem-solving. Often, it’s a code word for not being smart.

Problem-solving gaps are often invisible because their symptoms always manifest in random ways somewhere downstream of their work, often in slides. And partners always react to outputs, the real root causes go unnoticed for months and years.

As a result,

Consultants blame their poor slide-making.

But at some point, you’ll realize that it doesn’t matter how much you work on improving your slide-making skills. You still get stuck in the average bunch.

The solution hides in a different place.

Because you often deal with symptoms, you do not see the real root causes.

In my coaching program, we solve this problem by doing a detailed diagnosis through practical exercises, and then I show consultants what specific root causes and bottlenecks they have.

These root causes often take different shapes and forms, for example, not understanding the problem well, making implicit assumptions, deriving incorrect conclusions, and coming up with incorrect solutions. Each of them requires its own set of actions and techniques.

Now, I hope you appreciate the importance of the problem of thinking. Let’s discuss some practical techniques.

What does good thinking look like?

Inner Dialog

The first concept I want you to understand is that a good thinking process should go like an inner dialogue.

The key here is to ask yourself the right questions.

Here’s what I often see in my coaching program.

When we discuss problems with consultants, if I ask them leading questions, they typically answer them correctly. That tells me that they are smart and can think logically.

But when they solve problems on their own, they miss lots of obvious ideas and don’t come up with the right answers.

Basically, they don’t ask themselves the right questions.

If you think about it, in essence,

Good problem-solving is asking yourself the right questions.

Because if you ask yourself the right questions, answering them is much easier, almost intuitive, and obvious. But asking the right questions, this is what’s really hard.

But this is good news for us.

You can learn this skill. Yes, it takes a bit of practice and discipline. But it’s not some mysterious or intrinsic trait. It’s a technical and acquirable skill.

Logical flow

The second concept I want you to understand is that your thinking must go in logical flow, like a process or an algorithm.

Often, I see how consultants don’t have any structured process or flow.

They jump from one thing to another in a haphazard way. They often skip multiple steps. They throw in random ideas without knowing why.

Then, they can’t track back where they made a mistake or what steps need stress testing. They create blind spots for themselves that bite them later in the process.

Let me be more precise here. You can think haphazardly. Nothing wrong with that. At the end of the day, that’s how our brains are wired to think.

But then, you must structure your thoughts in a logical flow, with each new thought derived from previous ones.

And you must stress test the logical integrity of your thinking because every logical step is important. If you make a mistake in any of these steps, then the whole solution becomes wrong and useless.

Basically, you must activate your System 2 thinking (according to the book ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ by Daniel Kahneman).

Logical entities

On top of that, you must have full cognitive awareness and control of your own thinking. I know it sounds obvious, but in reality its’s extremely hard to achieve.

In your logical flow, you must operate with certain logical entities or objects.

At the very basic level, we can define the following entities: issues, assumptions, conclusions, hypotheses, and solutions.

I remember when I was a consultant, I was practicing to label every thought I had in my mind. This is an issue, this is an assumption, this is a piece of data. I forbid myself from using thoughts without clearly labeling them.

Yes, it’s hard intellectual work. Sometimes you have this good thought, you know it’s valuable. But you don’t know what it is. Is it a fact, issue, assumption, or hypothesis?

But if you don’t have that level of control in your thinking, it’s hard to expect your problem-solving to be sharp and deep.

Additionally, if you want, you can go even deeper into the theory of critical thinking. There, you can stress test the soundness of your premises and arguments. If you want to do that, ping me an email, and I will share great video lectures you can watch.

To further illustrate my point, let me give you a few examples of typical mistakes.

Unclear issues

Consultants often don’t define the issues very well.

They don’t break them down into smaller, more manageable pieces. And even if they do it, they don’t dig deeper to understand these issues. How do they work? Why are they broken? What are the underlying reasons?

But I would claim that the main problem-solving happens at this level.

The deeper you understand the issues you are solving, the sharper and more groundbreaking solutions you can develop.

Implicit assumptions

Another very common mistake is making implicit assumptions without even knowing it.

It’s a dangerous habit because you don’t even know where the problem is. If those assumptions are incorrect, the whole solution will crumble.

This is why many consultants get caught off guard by their partners.

They come to the problem-solving session with this supposedly brilliant solution, only to be slaughtered by a seemingly simple question about their underlying assumptions.

Illogical conclusions

Quite often, consultants make mistakes in deriving logical conclusions.

Sometimes it’s because they rush it and think carelessly. Sometimes it’s because they don’t have good thinking discipline.

But I want you to feel the pain of these mistakes and the damage they create.

Often, one simple logical mistake can render your whole solution useless. And all your hard work is wasted. Instead of scoring a good win, you damage your reputation.

Suboptimal solutions

One of the most invisible problems is when consultants develop suboptimal or trivial solutions. They look fine on the surface, but they don’t pass the quality bar of partners.

Why does it happen?

Often, consultants choose the first idea that comes to their mind and rush to execute it without checking for better alternative solutions. Then, when a partner asks why you haven’t considered another more effective idea, consultants get caught completely off guard.

—

Here, I shared only the most common mistakes consultants make in the thinking process.

But the main point I want to make is that when you go through your logical flow, you must stress test your thoughts. Otherwise, your partners will do it for you.

Writing is a superpower

Here’s a super hack you can use to improve your thinking.

Write your thoughts in a document.

This way, you make your thinking process more transparent, and you can examine if your logic is sound.

If you think about it, our minds are not really wired to think in a logical and sequential way. Your thoughts swirl around in your mind, jumping from one to another. It’s really easy to make mistakes this way.

But it’s really hard to bullshit on paper. You’ll expose your own thinking. You can challenge and stress-test your own ideas. You will see where your mistakes originate.

Yes, it’s a much slower process. But it can be a super effective tool for solving complex and high-profile problems.

The moment of truth

Here’s another useful mindset trick I used in my problem-solving process.

At the end of the problem-solving process, I define a moment of truth.

It’s the time when I commit to the final solution.

Because I knew that if my solution was wrong, and I made a mistake in my logical thinking, everything I do beyond that point will be a complete waste of time and often will lead to serious negative repercussions like rework, stress, and reputational damage.

But I had to make that commitment, because if I don’t do it, I won’t be able to complete my task at all. And that would be even more damaging for me.

That was an important moment in my problem-solving.

That’s where I would make the final checks and stress tests, before proceeding any further.

My two main fears

When I was making that commitment, I had two major fears.

Years of experience taught me that there are two typical and most damaging mistakes I can make at this stage.

The first one is that making any logical mistake would render my whole solution wrong. That’s why I would retrace my whole logical flow and stress test every element, making sure it’s solid.

The second one is coming up with a trivial solution.

I was afraid that I got tunnel vision and didn’t notice something obvious lying on the surface, for example, a much more effective solution. And then when I show it to my partner, he would notice it right away, and I would feel embarrassed.

That’s why I would really push myself to find a better alternative solution. Or think about if someone wants to attack me, how would they do it?

How to learn to think well

You know, learning to think well is not easy.

I, as a coach, am genuinely challenged by this problem myself. How to teach to think well all my coaching clients.

Think about it for a second. How would you teach anyone how to think well? It’s a very complex problem.

Here’s the hack I use in my coaching practice.

We know that people learn best while doing things, through practice.

That’s why consultants in my program do practical exercises. This way, we can find the real root causes of their problem-solving and thinking process.

And here’s the catch.

Different people have different problems. What is obvious for you is not obvious for others. If you try to learn all possible mistakes and how to avoid them, it becomes an impossible task. It’s not effective.

That’s why a personalized approach is very important to diagnose what specific mistakes and bottlenecks you have. And fix them through actionable feedback and effective techniques.

Let me give you an example.

I really like one particular exercise.

I ask consultants to solve a problem by writing their thoughts in a structured way: issues → insights → assumptions → conclusions → hypotheses → solutions.

No need to make slides. Just pure thinking.

This way, we bootstrap the learning process. We remove unnecessary work on slide-making. Because if your solutions are wrong, you’ll make the wrong slides. But if your solutions are right, the slides will be much easier to make. We leave only the essence of thinking and problem-solving.

This exercise is super effective and insightful.

It helps us to make your mistakes visible. We can see how and when exactly they originate, and how they affect solutions.

Then, it becomes super obvious how to fix them, and at what steps of the logical thinking process they must pay more attention and apply more rigor.

That’s how you learn to think well.

If you found this helpful, read two of my deep-dive posts on the topic of critical thinking:

Are you struggling with deciphering your development feedback?

If you read until the very end, it means you really want to improve your performance as a consultant. And I know, one of your key challenges your grappling with is deciphering your development feedback you receive from your partners.

For this exact problem, I developed a new AI tool that can help you with that. It uses the wealth of knowledge I created on this website and my coaching program.

It takes your specific development feedback and breaks it down to specific symptoms and root causes. And based on that, it provides you with actionable advice you can start implementing today.

It’s still in a testing phase. But you can test it as an early adopter. Please, send me an email with your feedback if it’s a hit or miss.

Here’s the link: MBB Feedback Decypher.

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

BOOK A FREE 1-1 CONSULTATION

If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.

I get this question a lot, sometimes from consultants, but mostly from fellow coaches.

They have a hard time understanding why I would do that. They are afraid that if people get all their knowledge for free, they won’t buy their products.

But I have a different philosophy.

I believe that knowledge by itself is not enough to become a successful MBB consultant. It’s super helpful, but not enough.

People are generally very bad at applying theory in practice.

The right implementation is super important.

Otherwise, you would read a comprehensive guide and become a commercial pilot, an Olympic swimmer, or a UFC champion.

But unfortunately, it doesn’t work this way.

We as humans learn in a very specific way. The best way to learn is by doing. This is where practice is important, especially in such a complex field as strategy consulting.

The right coaching can make learning more effective and can amplify and accelerate it.

That’s why all professional athletes have personal coaches. It would be unthinkable for them to try to do it alone. Even GOATs (greatest of all time) like Messi and Ronaldo have coaches, although, arguably, these athletes are more accomplished than the coaches they hire.

Don’t get me wrong. You can learn on your own, no problem. Many consultants did that, including me.

But MBB consulting is a game of limited chances and time. Given unlimited time, you can learn anything you want. But unfortunately, in MBB consulting, you don’t have that time.

Learning by trial and error is not effective, and it can even be dangerous.

While you learn, you make unnecessary mistakes, damage your reputation, and incur an unhealthy amount of stress.

It’s much better to learn from others than from your own mistakes.

Credibility and trust

There is another reason why I share all my knowledge.

Writing allows me to build credibility and trust with my potential clients.

I write in a very specific and detailed way. This way, consultants can judge the level of expertise and knowledge I have.

People who resonate with my approach and style will be drawn to me even more. This allows me to find MY people. People with whom I would enjoy coaching.

Ideas factory

And finally, writing is my ideas factory.

This is how I crystallize the knowledge I acquire in real, practical work.

Consistent writing forces me to structure my ideas, articulate them clearly, and deepen my understanding.

That’s why by reading my website, you’ll get the latest and greatest knowledge and expertise I have.

What is the best way to read my website?

If you want to learn more by reading my website, I suggest you read the Playbook section first. There, I collect the most detailed and practical guides on everything you need to know as an MBB consultant.

The only problem is that you need to sift through quite a considerable amount of content to get what you want.

That’s why, in my coaching program, consultants learn by doing practical exercises, and we discuss their personal challenges and issues, and I provide tailored feedback to fix them in the most effective way.

If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation

We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. It’s a no-commitment call, just straight answers to your biggest questions.

BOOK A FREE 1-1 CONSULTATION

If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:

The coaching program for MBB consultants.