I don't have time for learning
Consultants are extremely busy. They often don’t have time to sleep, let alone to learn. But learning well is the only way to win in this profession. It’s a very challenging dilemma.
As an MBB consultant, you’ve heard many times that you need to learn. Learn many complex skills. Learn to work well.
But you are extremely busy. You work crazy hours. You have so much on your plate. You are always behind on your tasks.
Often, you don’t have time to sleep, let alone do other extracurricular things like learning.
You want to improve, but you simply don’t have time. You ask yourself a question: How can you find time for learning?
And it’s a fair question.
Here you face a very challenging dilemma.
Yes, you don’t have time to learn. But you can’t win in this profession if you don’t improve very fast. Working very hard will not lead to the results you want for yourself.
To illustrate my point, let me tell you about a principle coined by Stephen Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, one that I really like.
Sharpen the Saw
He tells a story about two men cutting down trees in a forest.
One man worked nonstop, and the other one stopped regularly to sharpen his saw. To the first man's surprise, the second one made much more progress and cut many more trees.
This principle applies well to MBB consulting.
It’s not a physical job. You cannot win by brute force, and throwing more hours won’t help.
You must regularly sharpen your saw. Learn how to work much more effectively because the difference between effective and ineffective can be exponential.
One well-executed idea can save you hours, if not days, of stupid work. Also, the impact you deliver can be much higher.
But finding time for learning is extremely hard. I get it. I won’t sugarcoat it. I’ve been in your shoes.
The project or proposal you are working on right now is very important. And you can get in trouble if you don’t do it well.
But let’s be realistic: your effectiveness is pretty low while you are still a junior consultant. So it doesn’t really matter if you work 12 or 8 hours per day. Your partners will not notice.
That is why you must steal time for yourself, an hour here, an hour there. Realistically, it’s very hard to do when you are on an active client project. But very doable when you are on a beach working on client development.
Think of your time as an investment
Each activity you do has ROI (return on investment).
Investing in your learning has enormous ROI. And because your baseline is low, every invested hour now will save an enormous amount of time in the future.
That is why,
I strongly encourage you to prioritize learning.
But even if you dedicate some time to learning, you’ll face another challenge. You don’t know what learning activities yield the best results for you. You don’t know if you need to complete internal training or read some books about critical skills.
And that’s why many consultants don’t invest time in learning, because they can’t see a strong correlation between invested time and results they see on projects.
What you need is a clear learning journey with a structured sequence of actions and skills to learn in the most effective way.
That's why I developed a coaching program for MBB consultants to give you the most effective approach and system to improve your performance and become confident consultants.
MBB Performance Accelerator - The coaching program for MBB consultants.
If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:
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.