Do you know what your partners need?
Consultants often solve problems in isolation. They tend to ignore what partners actually need. This post is for consultants who want to tailor outputs to leadership agendas and earn their trust.
Here’s one common mistake consultants make.
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:
We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.
If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:
The coaching program for MBB consultants.
The slide complexity example cuts right to the core tension in consulting work. Most guidance says simplify everything, but here the partner needed complexity to justify continued engagement. This reminds me of something I saw at a smaller firm where we'd over-simplify deliverables thinking we were being helpful, but clients would sometimes push back because it made their internal challenges look trivial to thier boards. The invisible currents metaphor is spot-on too. Partners' personal goals (relationship building, promotion cycles, visibility) create these weird incentive structures that dont map cleanly onto project objectives. Once you start noticing these patterns its hard to unsee them, and suddenly half the "random" requests make way more sense.