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.

BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION

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

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

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.

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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.

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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.

And how to run them in the best way?

Yesterday, I was talking to my coaching client.

She reminded me of one common misconception consultants have about problem-solving sessions. Many consultants completely misunderstand what problem-solving sessions are and how to run them well. As a result, they hurt their performance and reputation.

Let’s explore this topic.

But before that, a quick side-note.

A problem-solving session (PS) is a McKinsey term.

It means the meetings when we get together as a team (including partners), and discuss current problems, solutions, and outputs.

But at BCG it’s called CTM (case team meeting). What it’s called at Bain, I don’t know, to be honest. Let me know in the comments if you do know.

I remember how I was thinking about PS sessions when I was a first-year consultant at McKinsey.

I understood it literally.

I thought of PS sessions as open debates.

It’s a meeting when we get together as a team, and we solve our current problems. We come up with new ideas as a result of open discussion.

That was the wrong understanding.

I was so naive. It’s so funny and a little embarrassing to remember these things.

As a result, I didn’t prepare for the PS sessions. I just came with the intention to discuss and find the truth together, only to be slaughtered by managers and partners.

Very quickly, I realised that it was not a good way to run PS sessions.

But my client had a slightly different misconception.

She thought that she had to impress partners with unique insights in PS sessions.

On its own, there’s nothing wrong with that. But it was driving the wrong behaviour.

She deliberately withheld important insights and data from her slides. And planned to voice them over in meetings to impress partners. Basically, she was sandbagging the good stuff.

That’s why her slides looked trivial and weak.

You know where it’s going, right?

As a result, she got slaughtered for her poor slides even before she could say anything smart and insightful.

Even if she managed to say a few insights, her partners got really upset about why all of these great insights were not on the slides.

Another naive concept I had:

I expected partners to give me inputs.

I waited for partners to provide me with some unique knowledge and wisdom, and then I could build my outputs. They are partners after all, right? They must know better.

Basically, I waited for their permission to start working. I thought my job was to implement their thinking.

This made me a quite passive problem-solver who didn’t demonstrate enough ownership and drive. Partners hate this type of consultants, especially in MBB firms.

Here’s a better concept of PS sessions.

Problem-solving sessions are needed for partners to push your thinking to the next level.

For that to work well, first, you must push your own problem-solving to your absolute maximum. You must produce the best outputs you can, ideally with a client-ready quality. And then, on the PS sessions, partners can help you to improve them even further.

If you produce great outputs, you’ll have smart and meaningful discussions. If you produce crappy outputs, you’ll get a similar quality discussion.

That’s why, when you come up with poor slides, partners get super frustrated and slaughter you in those meetings.

Also, think about it.

Those meetings are rare exposure points for you to partners.

Whatever you discuss with them, that’s how they see you. That’s the reputation you build.

Let’s say you have 1-2 problem-solving sessions with a partner per week. That means, during a project, you might have just a dozen touch points with your partners.

Every PS session should count.

You’d better prepare really well, not just your outputs but also how you present your findings and how you answer their questions. These things also create a lasting impression of you as a struggling or high-performing consultant.

Yes, partners are different, and they have different preferences.

And once in a while, you will work with partners who have slightly lower standards and expectations.

But holding yourself to higher standards will make you safe and successful in the future.

How to run great problem-solving sessions?

First, be well prepared.

Have an agenda ready. You can say something like:

“Today, I want to discuss 3 topics with you. Unless you have any other important things you want to discuss first.”

That would be a great start for you and would demonstrate your high ownership.

Set the context

For each point you bring, first provide a little bit of context. Remember, partners have the attention span and memory of a goldfish. They forget things. Even if they asked you to do something, don’t expect them to remember it.

Why? Well, because they are extremely fragmented between different projects and client developments. They have to keep so many balls in the air at the same time.

Here’s the best structure for the context setting:

- What is it?
- Why is it important?
- What do we want to achieve?

You can quickly provide this information in the first 20-30 seconds.

Have a perspective

Don’t bring problems. Always bring solutions.

Always have your own perspective and opinion. And be ready to defend it and justify it with some solid logic, facts, or data.

Don’t be defensive

When partners try to say something to you, don’t be defensive. Don’t try to explain to them why it can’t be done.

Instead, try to better understand what they are saying.

They are most likely more experienced and smarter than you. Chances are, they have something valid and important to say. You might not see the bigger picture, or you might not know the important piece of context.

That’s why your first instinct should be to try to understand, not push back.

Because it’s extremely annoying for partners when junior consultants push back at them without even understanding what they are talking about. You don’t look well in this situation.

So, don’t rush it, be careful, and listen to what they tell you. Ask clarifying questions. Playback your understanding.

If you can build on top of their ideas even further, OMG, you will be the best consultant for them. You’ll instantly stand out from the crowd and become a problem-solving partner. Believe me, it’s pretty rare behaviour among consultants. But often, that’s what partners really need.

In conclusion, my main message to you is to treat PS sessions as very important meetings. Your career depends on how you run them. Because at the end of the day, partners assess you and make or break your career.

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.

Maybe even a little bit too much.

But when I was a consultant, I had a very superficial understanding of why we needed them. I thought it was just something partners always insisted on.

That’s why I did them without sufficient care or effort. I just copied some frameworks from practice documents.

But it was a huge missed opportunity.

In this post, I discuss why we use frameworks and how you can make them your super tool for better problem-solving and communication.

But first, let me start with a funny story.

Once, I staffed a high-performing consultant on my project. He was smart and capable.

As one of the first tasks, I asked him to create a list of client questions. I wanted us to keep track of them so that we don’t forget them.

Instead, he created a framework of an ancient temple with a roof, pillars, and a foundation.

I was confused why he created a framework when I just needed to keep track of simple questions, which most likely would end up in the backup anyway.

Then I understood. He just couldn’t make a simple slide. He pushed to overdeliver and structure his work.

His good training kicked in. Someone taught him that he had to do that. But he didn’t fully understand the purpose of frameworks and applied them in all situations.

I was laughing really hard.

I said that I would give him a high score for the effort, but a low score for being wrong. In consulting, it’s also very helpful to be right. It’s not just the effort that counts.

Fast forward a few years, and he had become a highly successful EM. The best consultant I ever worked with.

Recently, he texted me, reminding me of that funny story. And he sent me that slide, slightly improved and sanitized.

By the way, don’t take it as a best practice framework. Some can call it a never-dying classic. I think it’s a little bit outdated. I like a bit more tailored and modern frameworks.

If that was not the right use of frameworks, what is it then?

First, let’s start with understanding why partners need frameworks.

Structure

Frameworks help to show the structure of the project.

One of the biggest concerns partners have at the beginning of each project is whether the team has structured the project in the right way and that they don’t miss anything important.

They want to prevent a nightmare situation, when, at the end of the project, the team discovers that they haven’t done a big chunk of the project scope or missed some important question.

Why? Well, when the project ends, the budget will run out, and their team will be taken away from them. Partners will be left with the problem on their own. They don’t want to end up in this situation.

Frameworks help them to check the structure. That’s why partners will be quite demanding about that.

Approach

Frameworks help to show your approach to solving the problem.

It’s the second reason why partners need frameworks. It’s important to show clients that you have a scientific approach and you know what you are doing as a firm. You don’t work chaotically and haphazardly.

Also, a good framework helps to navigate clients through a complex project. In every meeting, you can remind them of the approach, where you are in the project, and which component you are discussing today.

This way, clients understand what’s happening right now, why you don’t discuss dozens of things at the same time, and why we focus only on this subset of issues.

Otherwise, if they don’t have that mental structure, they will pull you in different directions. That will create chaos and frustration.

That’s why a great framework should be introduced in the first days of the project, and then can be used as a navigation map throughout the whole project.

Now you know why it’s important.

Let’s discuss the next question.

How do you create good frameworks?

When I was a consultant, I always looked at practice documents for inspiration. It’s not a bad place to start from.

But later, I tried to create my own frameworks tailored to specific client situations and problems at hand.

Here, it’s important to be absolutely clinical in structuring. If your structure is not MECE, partners will go absolutely ballistic.

I won’t spend too much time explaining structuring. If you want to learn more about good structuring, read this post:

Design

With frameworks, it’s critical to be a little bit more sophisticated in design.

Generally, I preach for simpler and more functional design. But with frameworks, design will play a more important role.

The main reason is that you won’t have tons of content in frameworks. If you make it in an amateurish way, your partners will kill it before even showing it to clients. Because partners worry about how you represent the firm and not dilute the credibility.

That’s why you need to make it look more professional and aesthetically pleasing.

Questions and Answers

I really like this one approach to using frameworks.

I would write key strategic questions in frameworks.

And then, as the project progresses, replace questions with answers.

This way, clients can see how the project is shaping up and how the strategic recommendations are being built.

Closing thoughts

To wrap up, my main message here is that frameworks are not another useless chore that partners ask you to do. It’s an important instrument for you to structure your work and take your clients on a problem-solving journey with you.

That’s how you can stand out from others.

That’s how you can win.

If you’re an MBB consultant and want personalized coaching to improve your performance and become a confident consultant:

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.

And how to create and use it?

I struggled with issue trees a lot when I was a consultant at McKinsey.

But my managers and partners were pushing me to master this skill. They emphasized that it’s absolutely critical for improving my problem-solving.

The same things I heard in firm training. Issue trees made perfect sense in the mock problems. But when it came to real problems, I couldn’t get the same clarity and utility.

I felt the real pressure to learn this skill, but didn’t know how.

On top of that, there was one confusing contradiction.

My partners always talked about issues, but almost never created issue trees in real projects. I couldn’t see what best practices looked like and how they were applied in real projects.

Every time I created my own issue trees and showed them to my managers, they always cringed and dismissed them.

That is why in this post, I explain issue trees in a more direct, non-cryptic way. I also give you some practical tips on how you can apply them in your everyday work.

This post is a part of a series in which I reflect on Critical Thinking. I discuss different parts of critical thinking as an important part of problem-solving skills.

If you want to read another post from this series, here’s another important topic:

What are the assumptions?

There will be more posts in this series. Stay tuned.

You know, it took me years to actually internalize this knowledge.

When I worked at McKinsey, I problem-solved mostly intuitively. And it worked fine until I had to teach consultants how to do that.

This is when I encountered serious limitations.

Apparently, what was obvious for me was not necessarily obvious for others, and vice versa. I lacked the right concepts and vocabulary to teach things that I knew intuitively.

At that time, I understood all my managers and partners, who felt the importance of issues, but couldn’t really explain it in a way that was understandable to first-year and even second-year consultants.

Now, in my coaching program, I teach consultants through practical exercises. That’s the best way to learn these complex skills by not only seeing how their own mistakes originate, but also what best practice outputs look like.

I have this special exercise to improve critical thinking.

Consultants solve a fairly complicated problem by writing their thoughts in an essay. They register every thought and statement. They label them as certain logical entities like issues, insights, assumptions, arguments, implications, hypotheses, solutions, and so on.

This approach reveals gaps in critical thinking. It shows specific steps where mistakes originate. It shows lapses in judgment and logic.

It’s quite revealing.

You know, the most damaging mistakes happen at the issue analysis level, basically, at the very beginning of their problem-solving process.

Then, it almost doesn’t matter what they do, because other thoughts are mere derivatives. If their issues are wrong, their solutions will be either wrong or not deep enough.

Let me show what the typical mistakes consultants make are.

But first, let’s start with the definition.

What is an issue?

An issue is a clearly stated question or problem that requires judgment, reasoning, or a decision to solve the overall problem. They break the problem into manageable parts.

There are two common mistakes consultants make in analysing their issues: not structuring them well or not going deep enough.

Let’s discuss them one by one.

1. Structuring

You’ve probably heard this many times.

You must break down and structure your issues.

The most common mistake here is not structuring your issues properly.

When you look at your problem as a whole, you don’t see nuances that can help you find unique solutions.

That’s why your solutions will be either wrong or not deep enough. You are risking missing big elements of your problem.

When it happens, you lose your battle in the very beginning. And then it almost doesn’t matter what you do afterwards.

Issue trees

Structuring issues is what most people mean by issue trees. Basically, it’s a nested structure that consists of multiple hierarchical elements of smaller issues.

As a consultant, I remember trying to make issue trees for my workstreams. It almost always resulted in some kind of soul-crushing exercise. I couldn’t quite nail it. And my managers were never happy with my issue trees.

I think my problem was that I was doing it mechanically without really understanding the importance of the issues. I struggled to make it specific enough.

Another common misconception is that issue trees are suitable only for large problems, like a project or a workstream level.

But when it comes to smaller problems, consultants neglect to break down and structure their issues.

They just accept issues as they were presented to them, without structuring and exploring them further.

That limits their problem-solving.

On the other hand, experienced managers and partners always go deep into analysing their issues. They don’t necessarily create issue trees. But they always think deeply about issues and structure them in their minds.

This is all happening below the surface that is invisible to consultants.

That’s why there’s a confusing contradiction.

Leaders push you to learn how to analyze issues, but don’t use issue trees in practical work.

That’s why you struggle to learn it, because you simply don’t see how it’s done.

Basically, my main message here is not to worry about issue trees per se, but make sure you break down and structure your issues properly.

2. Going deeper

This one is also quite a common mistake.

I am sure you’ve heard it many times that you must go deeper, ask yourself five WHY’s, and break down problems to first principles.

All these recommendations are super valid, but I think consultants practically struggle to understand where to apply them and how.

Here, it’s important not just to define the issue, but to push to understand the reality and why it resulted in the issues you observe. For some reason, this is where consultants struggle. They don’t question issues. They don’t try to understand the reality they are facing and experiencing.

But my experience shows that all elegant, non-trivial, and out-of-the-box solutions originate in a deep understanding of issues. You create the best solutions not because of creative brainstorming, but by deeply understanding the issues you are solving.

Root causes vs symptoms

The most effective way to push your thinking deeper is to think about symptoms and root causes. When analyzing issues, ask yourself what is driving the issues, and what are the mere consequences.

If you try to address symptoms, you get nowhere.

But if you identify the real root causes, the solution will be very effective and non-trivial. Because for external observers who hadn’t gone on this mental journey with you, your solutions will look like elegant, groundbreaking, and out-of-the-box thinking.

They will think that you are just a genius coming up with these unique ideas. But in reality, you just have a robust thinking system.

Insights

If you think about it, in essence, unique insights are just a deep understanding of the issues you are solving.

Specifically, if you find the underlying root cause of one or multiple issues. And that root cause is not visible on the surface. But if you address it, you solve the visible symptoms in an elegant way.

That’s how you create groundbreaking insights.

Real example

I know it all sounds too theoretical.

That’s why we use practical exercises in my coaching program to really learn these important concepts.

Let me give you a real example from my consulting practice.

One of my clients has had a significant problem with a dramatic increase in customer churn.

We broke down that issue into smaller components: poor customer service, high competition, poor product quality, and others. Then, we started checking each one of them by doing specific analyses.

In a couple of weeks, we discovered a groundbreaking one. Apparently, one of the sales regions was selling restricted products. They created a fraudulent scheme to meet their sales quota to receive higher bonuses.

But because these were not real sales, the churn on these products increased dramatically, spoiling the total average for the whole company.

That was a shocking insight for the client executives. They didn’t know it was happening in its own operations.

Basically, we found this insight in the place where you typically wouldn’t look when analysing churn. But because we were going through our MECE structure, we looked at every potential explanation and left no stone unturned.

Closing thoughts

In essence, analyzing issues is in fact the most important part of problem-solving.

Because if you discover your issues properly, solutions will be quite obvious but very effective.

And the opposite is true.

If you don’t analyse your issues, it will not matter what solutions you come up with because you risk being wrong or trivial.

Most consultants skip that step, and they make a big mistake. Make sure you spend sufficient time problem-solving on your issues before you move on to finding solutions.

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.

But it doesn’t have to be this way for you.

In this post, I reflect on why it happens and how you can game the system to make it more favourable for you.

You know, as a consultant, I often found myself on the receiving side of toxic leadership. It was not a pleasant experience. It was actually my main source of stress and anxiety.

We, humans, are social beings. We are hard-wired to be sensitive to social cues. And if our leaders are unhappy with us, our brain sends hardcore emotional alarms. It’s a survival mechanism because in prehistoric times, that would mean certain exile from the tribe and certain death.

Unfortunately, toxicity was the norm.

In my early years, all the leaders I worked with were quite toxic. I had seen virtually no partners who demonstrated the nurturing leadership style I could admire. There were some good leaders, but they were extremely rare exceptions.

At that time, one question always bothered me.

Why do most partners have toxic leadership styles?

Was that the price of success at McKinsey? I wondered whether, in order to become successful, I also had to become a toxic manager.

The more I thought about it, the more I started asking myself a different question:

Can I break this pattern?

Can I become a successful leader, but with a nurturing leadership style? Can I show myself and others that it’s possible at McKinsey?

I made it my mission when I became an EM and AP.

I wanted to demonstrate by my own example that it’s possible to be successful without being toxic. I wanted to prove it to myself first of all.

In fact, it was possible.

And it worked very well for me. Apparently, it was a great strategy. It gave me a significant competitive advantage. But it had certain challenges and failures (read further in my post).

I managed to build a strong followership.

Most consultants liked my leadership style. I invested a significant amount of my time into coaching and mentorship.

That allowed me to staff the best performers. Then, my performance as an EM dramatically improved thanks to the great work of my teams.

But it was not all roses and sunshine.

I have to admit, there were a few situations when I turned into a toxic manager myself.

In rare situations, I turned into a horrible manager who demonstrated all the terrible behaviors I despised when I was a consultant.

Oh my god, I hated it!

These situations completely shattered the internal image I had of myself as a great leader. It felt like my pink glasses broke inside my eyes.

It was eating me alive. That led to more resentment toward myself and the consultants I was treating toxically. As a result, I tried to avoid working with consultants who made me feel this way.

It was a strong emotional reaction.

I know I shouldn’t have done this. I should have controlled myself better.

But you know, in certain situations, I just couldn’t control it. I understand that it was exacerbated by the strong stress I was going through. These toxic situations never happened when things went well.

I was not proud of my behavior.

I was actually ashamed of it, because I betrayed that ambition and vision I had in my mind for myself.

With time, I learned to be more patient and resilient, not reacting too strongly to external circumstances. But once in a while, I still went into that toxic spiral.

But why am I sharing this with you?

I want you to understand the anatomy of the problem better.

Of course, you can expect everyone to be nice and kind, but that’s not a practical and realistic approach to life and work.

I want you to grasp the issue more clearly, so you can solve it for yourself. If you know what your leaders are experiencing and what triggers them, you can navigate it more effectively.

You know, I remembered all the toxic leaders I met as a consultant. When I became an EM myself, I gained insight into their behaviour. Suddenly, it stopped being black and white as I thought before. I could see their perspective as well.

Here’s the big insight I got from that experience.

Toxicity is a symptom of a bigger problem.

It’s usually a symptom of a complex situation and a complex relationship between consultants and managers. And consultants’ individual performance is a big contributing factor there.

If you see a toxic leader, it’s always helpful to look at the situation from a bigger perspective.

People are rarely toxic by nature.

Not the majority. Yes, sometimes you get to meet pathological a**holes, but they are extremely rare, especially in MBB firms. But in most situations, they are all decent and even kind people.

There are two common reasons for toxicity.

First, the stress makes people behave in weird ways.

Most likely, your managers experience an unbearable amount of stress. Often, they are also being treated themselves toxically by superiors. And when they can’t cope with it effectively, that toxicity spills over to team members.

Try to observe them from a neutral point of view. Empathize with their pain and challenges. You will see a lot of new things that you were blind to before, due to the negative emotions and animosity you developed.

That can help you to shift the perspective and improve the relationship, not make it even worse. You can break the spiral of negative emotions.

Second, your performance is a big factor.

The poorer your performance, the more toxicity you endure.

It becomes a trigger and amplifier.

Especially, if you see an unusual number of toxic leaders around you, being toxic towards you, not other people, then maybe it’s a YOU problem. Think about it.

Not you as a person, but your performance and inability to build a trusted relationship with your leaders.

Poor performance makes consultants vulnerable.

And the opposite is true.

When I improved my performance, I managed to protect myself from most of the toxicity around me. Suddenly, my partners started treating me with respect. Even those who were notorious for being toxic and treating others horribly.

That’s why I coach consultants to achieve high performance to protect them from unnecessary stress and toxic leadership. That became a part of my coaching playbook for consultants.

And here’s the final insight.

If you want to become a nurturing manager yourself, you can do that only if you achieve high performance.

In MBB consulting, it’s virtually impossible to be a nice leader to your teams if your projects are failing, and your partners apply immense pressure on you. You either crack under the pressure or you get fired very soon for poor performance.

That’s why improving performance becomes the most effective lever to improve your experience working in an MBB firm as a consultant and as a future EM.

If you want more tactical and practical advice on how to deal with toxic managers, read my previous post on this topic:

How to deal with a toxic manager?

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.

Why do you need to know that?

Let me explain…

Imagine you get a task from your partner or manager. It’s a content task, not some process management one.

Most likely, they already have a hypothesis in mind.

Understand this. Your manager or partner has worked for many years in consulting. That’s how they think and operate. They just want you to execute.

If you don’t know their hypothesis, you open yourself to a significant risk.

Imagine this scenario…

Your analysis goes against your partner’s hypothesis.

You step into the meeting with them.

What do you think will happen in that meeting?

For you, it will feel like an ambush.

The partner will ask you dozens of questions. Even if you know the answers, you will be caught off guard and start doubting yourself.

You will say something like:

“Ah, I am not sure. Let me double-check that. I’ll come back to you.”

How do you think you will look to your partner?

Yes, like an incompetent consultant.

But imagine an opposite scenario…

You know your partner’s hypothesis. And when doing your analysis, you already see that the facts go against that hypothesis.

What do you do?

No, I am not asking you to fabricate the fake facts to meet your partner’s hypothesis.

Instead, you prepare for a battle.

You anticipate the questions your partner will be asking you. You double and triple-check every fact and argument. You prepare support and proof for every piece of data.

You go into that meeting ready.

Then, you fight like a lion in that meeting. You respond with confidence and conviction.

You manage to convince your partner.

What do you think he will be thinking of you?

He will see you as a competent and confident consultant.

That’s what you want to build your reputation as a successful and high-performing consultant.

But consultants often ask:

How do you find out your partner’s hypothesis?

Well, the answer is pretty simple.

Ask that at the time of accepting the task.

That’s what I coach consultants in my coaching program. Ask clarifying questions in a way that doesn’t trigger and annoy your partners and managers. We even role-play these situations, so consultants can learn the right techniques. If you want to learn more about this important skill, read my post: Accept tasks well and understand expectations.

But unfortunately, sometimes that’s not enough.

Even if you ask clarifying questions, for whatever reason, you can’t get the answers you need. What to do in this situation?

Let me share one story that happened to my client.

There was a situation when one of my clients, in fact, asked his manager about his hypothesis.

But the manager responded that he had one, but won’t tell it to the consultant, and wanted to see what the consultant would come up with.

They had this broken and even toxic relationship, and that’s why the manager responded in this weird way.

The consultant went on to execute this task.

He didn’t come up with the right answer. As a result, he had to do the second iteration to correct his mistake.

The manager got upset, and it further strained an already difficult relationship.

But that situation could have been easily avoided.

That consultant asked me for help to make a post-mortem analysis of what he could have done better, and why the technique of asking clarifying questions failed him in this situation. And most importantly, what he could learn from this situation and not repeat the same mistakes again.

We jumped on the call.

My first question was: “Did you guess his hypothesis right?”

The consultant’s answer completely startled me: “I haven’t even thought about it.”

Apparently, he didn’t even ask that question himself.

The manager told him that he had a specific hypothesis in mind, and he expected the consultant to guess it right. But that consultant didn’t even think of what that hypothesis could be.

He just started doing the analysis and let the data dictate his answer.

Then, when the manager mentioned his hypothesis, the consultant was caught off guard because it was completely opposite to what he had created.

He didn’t even think about an alternative version of reality.

The data was actually showing him that. But he chose to ignore that and proceeded with the first idea that came to his mind.

What was the right way to do it?

Well, first, he had to think about what potential hypotheses his manager could have.

He should have come up with multiple potential options. In fact, it was a simple structuring situation. Some of the options could be more probable, some of them less. But all of them have the right to exist and should be carefully considered.

Then he had to ask himself a question: “What set of conditions should be true for alternative scenarios to be right?”

That’s the moment when he could catch that mistake and see that some of the data was actually supporting the alternative reality.

Here’s the important lesson.

Often, you don’t need partners to tell you their hypothesis. You can explore all the potential options, explore each of them, and select the best one. This way, you prevent yourself from being caught off guard or being blinded by the first idea that comes to your mind.

It’s important to think about your hypothesis before you actually look into data because data can skew your point of view and cloud your judgment.

But once you create a mental map of potential solutions, you will be able to judge the situation much more independently.

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.

Once in a while, you’ll face a really tough problem.

But you absolutely have to solve it. There’s no other way around it. The stakes are high, and often your personal career is on the line.

It can be a moment of truth for you. If you solve it, it can propel your career to new heights.

But you try everything, and nothing works.

What are you going to do in this situation?

Here’s an unusual problem-solving trick I used in the most challenging situations.

Use meditation for problem-solving.

I know it sounds strange, but hear me out.

It all started on a project in Australia.

It was a very good project overall. I really liked the topic, the clients, and the leadership team.

But it was my time to transition to an EM role, and I was stressing out about everything like crazy. I was maybe even overreacting a bit.

The first week I assumed the EM role, I received a very challenging task.

The senior client (an ex-McKinsey partner) asked us to synthesize our transformation program into one page. He said he couldn’t make sense of all the disjointed initiatives we had.

Of course, that problem landed in my lap.

It was a fairly high-level conceptual problem. I couldn’t really trust my team to do that. So I had to solve it myself.

I struggled with this problem for a few days. I couldn’t really make it work.

The initiatives were indeed too disjointed and fragmented.

I was really frustrated with this task. I had to make sense of these initiatives even if I didn’t design them in the first place.

Sometimes, we as consultants get these random tasks with impossible inputs and expectations. But clients are clients, and my partners wanted this to happen.

So I had to play along and solve this problem.

I decided to work over the weekend because the meeting with the client was on Monday. Luckily, it was an out-of-town project, so my weekend was pretty free.

During that period of transition to an EM role, I experienced unbearable stress. To cope with this, I regularly practiced meditation.

What I noticed was that it was very hard to calm my mind during meditation. It kept wandering around, thinking about all the random things. A lot of new ideas kept coming to my mind during those moments.

That’s when I thought:

Can I use it to my advantage?

So I decided to experiment.

I wanted to see if I could generate new ideas while meditating.

For that, I started by uploading all relevant information into my operating memory. I spent around 30 minutes reading all the relevant initiatives. There were around 40-50 of them.

Then, I started meditating.

This time, instead of trying to calm down my mind, I let it roam free.

I remember sitting in front of a big window in my room at the Sheraton hotel in Sydney, just opposite Hyde Park. The view was truly scenic.

I don’t remember how much time I spent meditating. But it worked.

An elegant idea came to me on how to structure all the initiatives into a meaningful concept.

Unfortunately, I can’t share that slide with you as it was 7 years ago.

But I remember the impact of that slide.

The client was thoroughly impressed.

After that, multiple times, he had mentioned to my partners that I was the only consultant who actually understood what was happening on that large transformation.

Then, in a few weeks, I was urgently recalled to my home office. The client got so furious. He called the senior partners and demanded that I stay on the project.

One of the senior partners called the managing partner of my office in Kazakhstan and asked him to keep me on the project.

By this, he managed to prolong my staffing on that project for one more month. Then, I was recalled to do a critical project for the home office.

To be honest, that experience was surreal. That was the first time clients demanded that I stay on the project. It was flattering, I can’t deny.

Anyway, enough bragging.

On a serious note, that one trick became a part of my problem-solving toolkit.

Since then, every time I faced an impossible problem, I would use that trick.

I would download critical information into my mind and then meditate to solve it.

It never let me down.

Try it and let me know if it works for you.

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.

Insecurities kick in even if you are a tenured consultant. And if you are a newbie, it’s a hundred times harder.

But often, how you start your workstream determines how it will go.

Will you work the whole project reactively, constantly fighting fires?

Or will you work proactively, leading your clients to a great impact?

It’s often decided in the first few weeks, if not days.

In this post, I want to share with you how to start your workstream well.

To help you better understand my points, I want to do it by giving you a real example.

Meet Amy, she’s a first-year consultant at BCG (name changed for privacy reasons).

Her start at the firm was not great. She got a couple of bad projects. Now, she’s fighting with a negative rating.

Of course, that’s affected her confidence and reputation. Even the simplest things became very hard for her to do.

She worked on an organisation redesign case. She was given a new workstream to manage (or a module, as they call it at BCG). She was tasked to look into one large business unit to reorganize and optimize it.

She asked for my help. It was a moment of truth for her. Either she finds a way to build momentum, or she again falls into a reactive mode of working and most likely gets fired soon.

Amy is a member of my coaching program for MBB consultants. She joined recently and just started to learn.

On top of practical coaching, sometimes I help my clients with their real project problems. Because often one strong impulse can help them build momentum. On top of that, it shows them a very practical example of how good problem-solving works in practice.

Amy asked me to look at her document. She wanted to check if she had set up the workstream well.

We jumped on a call. She showed her document.

To be honest, I couldn’t understand much. It was just a bunch of fragmented pages: baseline, pain points, best practice cases, and even some early org. design options.

My first reaction was:

“I think you are missing your approach page.”

What does it mean? Let me explain.

When you set up your workstream, you need to define your approach first.

How are you going to solve this problem for the client? How should your client make design decisions? It should be structured upfront, and you must explain to your clients and partners before you start working.

Otherwise, your clients and partners will be lost and confused very quickly. You will show them random pages, but the bigger picture will be missing. But you won’t even get to your main points, because your managers and partners will not allow you to get there. That’s when it can go down the hill for you.

And this applies not only to org. design projects, but pretty much any workstream you work on.

Okay, how to do it practically?

To be honest, I didn’t have the answer right away. It was not clear how to structure her workstream. It seemed messy and complex.

We continued to discuss and problem-solve what the approach could look like.

One thing I noticed was that she had all these different levers and insights in her mind. She collected them in client interviews.

I really liked what she was telling me. They seemed quite specific and insightful. But I couldn’t see them on the slides. She wasn’t showing her ideas.

That means her partners and clients couldn’t see them either.

I suggested why we don’t use these ideas. Why not put them on a page? Structure them as levers and support each lever with the observations and insights.

It became clear that if she created that slide, it would structure the whole workstream. Because after that, every analysis becomes a deep dive. And that page with levers will hold the whole document together.

Then, she could use it as an anchoring page explaining to clients what she was doing overall and what was being discussed at any meeting.

We agreed that at that time, it was the most important page she had to create.

She shared the draft of that page with me. I didn’t like the quality of that page. I told her that the draft was too simplistic and trivial. And asked her to push for more specificity and insight. The second version was much better.

She texted me the next day saying that the manager really liked that slide and shared that it was actually more than he expected.

That slide immediately became a centerpiece of the workstream and sparked lots of good discussions.

The partner also liked that page and used it to come up with a conceptual slide based on these levers, and they presented it to the client CEO. Clients responded positively. They bought into the whole workstream approach.

All that time, Amy was in the epicenter of these positive discussions. She had built the positive momentum of her workstream.

A few weeks later, she showed me a few flattering feedback emails that the leadership team sent to Amy’s evaluator. That was exactly what she needed at that time to improve her rating situation.

Learnings

Your approach to your workstream is absolutely essential.

As a consultant, you can’t work haphazardly. You must create an anchoring structure that helps your clients understand what you are doing. Without that structure, your clients will be confused and lost.

Every time you meet with clients, you start with that approach. This way, you ground them and remind them of what you are doing.

And then, you can deep dive into specific parts of that approach. And they can follow your logic across many days and weeks of you working on your workstream.

Your managers and partners know that. That is why they get upset if you don’t have an approach page early in your workstream development. They will push you to do that if you can’t do it yourself. But that’s how you will lose the strategic initiative.

That’s how you get negative feedback on your structuring and problem-solving skills. It’s better not to wait until your partners tell you to do that, believe me.

The most common mistake here is when consultants create an elaborate process plan, thinking that it defines the workstream approach.

They start with diagnostics, then design initiatives, and finally go into implementation. But that’s not what the workstream approach means. It’s not about process. It’s about the logical approach to solving your problem.

How to come up with the right approach?

Unfortunately, this one-size-fits-all approach won’t work.

That’s where you must really think deeply. That’s what real problem-solving looks like.

Typically, I would look for some library documents for inspiration. But be careful, don’t copy the approach mindlessly. Make sure it’s tailored to your unique situation and context.

Okay, this is for this topic. I hope it was helpful.

Let me know if you have any questions. Drop a comment below.

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.

When they work, they don’t take into account the needs and priorities of their partners.

They solve problems in a theoretical vacuum. They approach them like math challenges in high school. Like hypothetical problems that have right or wrong answers.

But real problems are complex and messy. You don’t always get the full context you need. There are different stakeholders with different agendas.

Then, consultants get sorely disappointed when partners don’t like what they created. And most frustrating, consultants don’t know why it happened.

Does this sound familiar?

Let me push beyond theory here and provide you with a real-life example.

One of my clients, a second-year BCG consultant, asked for help.

Yes, sometimes in my coaching program, I help consultants with their real project problems. I play the role of a problem-solving partner.

It’s helpful for consultants to get the momentum going. And it’s entertaining for me because I miss the problem-solving part of working at McKinsey.

His partner asked him to create a slide showing the plan for the next phase of their transformation program.

Fairly simple ask, right?

He sent me his slide for a sanity check.

Immediately, I could see he was missing the mark.

He created a simple slide with program horizons and activities that the client had to complete. It was a normal execution of a routine task.

But it came off as overly simplistic.

In any other situation, simplicity is a great thing.

That’s what partners ask you to do. De-clutter your slides and de-word your messages. Make top-down communication slides.

But not in this situation.

Do you want to guess what was wrong here?

Let’s pause here. Try to come up with your own answer…

Well, I didn’t need to know that partner to understand what he really needed.

There was a high chance that he wanted a continuation of his transformation project.

Usually, that’s any partner’s number one priority, especially when it comes to large transformation programs.

He wanted to use this slide to make a point that the next phases will be even more complex. And the client will need consultants’ support.

But the simplified slide defeated the purpose. If it’s so simple, why hire consultants? They can do it themselves.

Instead, I asked him to create a more detailed slide showing how much complexity needed to be managed in the next phases.

Truth be told, the project was indeed very complex, and the next phases involved heavy implementation, including coordination of multiple conflicting stakeholders and organizations.

So, it was not a lie. Actually, the consultant misrepresented the complexity with his initial slide.

The consultant followed my advice and created that detailed slide.

He showed that slide to the partner.

The partner was ecstatic!

It was exactly what he needed.

The consultant said it was the first time the partner reviewed and accepted such a complex slide without any comments or iterations.

Here’s the main lesson:

You can’t be effective if you don’t know the needs of your partners.

If you tailor your outputs to the needs of your partners, you’ll become the best consultants for them because others don’t do it. And it’s always painful and frustrating for partners to redo what consultants create.

But how do I know what my partners need? Consultants often ask.

This one is very simple.

They actually tell you that all the time.

You will be surprised how obvious that is if you tune in to what they say. We often are just not open to that information, focusing on our own problems.

And don’t assume that their needs are aligned with the project’s or firm’s goals. People often have personal goals that they need to achieve. Sometimes they are aligned with other goals, sometimes they are not.

Here are just a few examples:

- A partner wants to build a strong relationship with a new client executive.

- An AP wants to get more exposure and visibility with the senior partner.

- The EM is up for a promotion next cycle and needs the support from partners.

These needs often will generate some activities for you that don’t make a lot of sense.

For example:

- A partner will ask you to deep dive into the topic that is not even in the scope of the project, to please the new executive.

- An AP can ask you to help with a new client proposal that is not even in the scope of the project, to please senior partners.

- An EM will ask you to create content, but will present it himself at leadership meetings and will not give you enough airtime and credit.

If you don’t know their motives, their actions will look random and unfair. But if you know them, you can use them to your advantage to build stronger relationships.

Please, understand one simple truth:

Consulting is people’s business.

For you to be successful, you need to be aware of these invisible currents. That will help you navigate this complex environment more effectively.

That’s how you win.

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.

What I often see in my coaching work is that consultants usually make lots of mistakes in critical thinking without even knowing it.

Critical thinking is the most fundamental part of problem-solving. You can have good or bad critical thinking. Depending on that, you will be a good or bad problem-solver.

That’s where mistakes originate.

Then, they manifest in all kinds of nasty things, like incorrect solutions, trivial answers, poor judgments, random slides, unnecessary rework, wasted time, and sleepless nights. You can continue this list for a long time.

But here’s the catch.

It’s extremely hard to diagnose.

These mistakes will seem random and unrelated.

Then, consultants wonder why they can’t work well.

Why is everything they do wrong? Why are partners never satisfied? Why do all the mistakes seem to be new, and they can’t spot any patterns? How to fix that?

As a result, they start to believe they are not smart enough for this job.

But in fact, there’s a pattern in your mistakes.

It usually happens deep down in your critical thinking. But then, they manifest in random ways.

It’s good news for you.

If you can fix your critical thinking, the whole branches and categories of your mistakes will be eradicated. That’s how you improve your performance.

But today, I want to discuss one specific, the most common, and damaging logical mistake.

Implicit assumptions.

We all know what an assumption is. If you don’t, let me introduce it first.

Assumption - A belief you treat as true for now, used to move the analysis forward when data is missing or incomplete.

You need assumptions to progress your thinking and use them in building your arguments and conclusions.

An implicit assumption is an assumption that you are making unknowingly. But you use it in your arguments and conclusions nevertheless.

If an implicit assumption happens to be wrong, your whole argument and solution crumbles.

You will be surprised how often it happens.

Usually, partners are good at spotting implicit assumptions because they look at your solutions with an impartial view.

When it happens, you will feel embarrassed about missing such an obvious thing. And your partners will think that you are not so smart.

Okay, we covered a lot of theoretical ground. I know it can be hard to digest.

Let me give you an example.

For example, you make the following statement:

“If it’s snowing, schools will be closed.”

It’s a reasonable statement. And we know it’s true from our life experience.

But wait. Let’s challenge that. Ask yourself: Why is it true?

If you carefully examine this argument, you will notice that there’s an implicit assumption built in. We assume everyone knows this important piece of context.

Do you want to try to find it yourself? Pause here and think.

Okay, let’s write the full argument.

It’s snowing.

You live in California. It’s a pretty rare event for this climate.

Authorities don’t plan for that. They don’t have enough snowplowing machines, trucks, and workers.

As a result, there will be a collapse on roads and highways.

Knowing that, authorities proactively cancel school classes to ease the pressure on the transport system.

So here the implicit assumption is that the transport system collapses because of snow in California.

But let’s push our thinking even more.

Imagine, now you travel to Canada. It started to snow there, and you don’t go to school.

The next day, the teacher asks why you didn’t show up. You are surprised and say that because it snowed.

Your teacher asks you: “What does it have to do with school?”

In Canada, snow is a normal thing. Life doesn’t stop because of that.

This is where you will be wrong with your implicit assumption.

So implicit assumptions can be true or can be false. And if they are false, you will find yourself in a world of trouble.

But if you don’t know you are making implicit assumptions, you can’t stress test them.

So be careful.

But how to catch these implicit assumptions?

It’s a very good question. And it’s quite a tough one.

It’s actually one of my fears when I problem-solve.

What if I miss implicit assumptions? That’s why I try to double and triple-check everything.

Here’s the thing.

Our brains are wired to make assumptions.

That’s how it saves energy. It always defaults into System 1 thinking, according to the book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman.

That’s why I don’t trust my brain to solve complex problems. I try to double-check every logical step to make sure I am not missing anything.

But the inherent problem here is that it’s hard to check something that you don’t know exists. That’s why you should always be alert and careful not to miss it.

How to do it practically?

Basically, if you think about it, we use implicit assumptions to make some arguments and conclusions. That’s where you must try to catch them.

I use a few test questions.

The best and simplest one is the ‘Why’ question. In our snow example, a simple why question exposed the implicit assumption right away.

Other questions I really like:

“What if this is not true?” or “In what situation is this statement not true?”

They will help to reframe your thinking and consider other potential scenarios and options of the reality that you may be missing.

For example, in our ‘snow’ example, if you ask this question, you’ll realize that this statement won’t be true if snow doesn’t cause a transport collapse.

In what reality is this possible? If authorities are ready for these scenarios and they have enough snowplowing machines, trucks, and workers.

Additionally, that line of thinking will also give you some new insights about the issues you are solving.

Final advice.

Practice at spotting implicit assumptions in your personal life. The more you practice, the better you become.

Actually, we use a lot of implicit assumptions in our relationships. Someone treated you badly, and you instantly think they are bad people. Here’s an implicit assumption.

But they might have some personal issues. Maybe you did something to trigger them. If you think about it, there could be different explanations. But we always resort to the worst one without even checking the basis for that.

Okay, that’s it for implicit assumptions.

But there’s a bigger question.

How do you improve your critical thinking?

This is another great question!

It’s actually the holy grail of consulting.

If you can solve that, you will achieve singularity.

You will solve an intelligence challenge. It’s like having a magic wand. You can solve any problem and do whatever you want.

Of course, you can always do it yourself.

But it’s very difficult to do, mostly because of the obscurity of how it works. The whole critical thinking is like a black box. You don’t know how it works or when it fails you.

This is where coaching is especially helpful.

But I solved this problem in my coaching program.

To work on critical thinking, we use a special type of exercise.

I called it essay problem-solving.

I give consultants a realistic problem to solve.

Instead of doing slides, I ask consultants to write an essay on how they think. Write all their issues, insights, assumptions, conclusions, hypotheses, and solutions. They should write it in a logical and clear way.

We do it in a multi-step way. We play it like a chess game. This way, we simulate the real-life problem-solving environment.

When consultants write their thoughts, it becomes super visible where mistakes originate. And how they affect the whole problem-solving logic.

That’s how you not just learn to spot these mistakes, but also how to do it in the right way. This exercise teaches you how to come up with non-trivial, out-of-the-box solutions.

The impact of this learning is tremendous.

Basically, you learn how to think in a systematic and robust way. This way, you can solve any tough problems that are thrown at you. And your leaders will think you are a genius. But you just have a robust and reliable system.

If that’s something you are interested in doing, and you want to improve your critical thinking and overall problem-solving,

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.