Momentum is a Key to High Performance

How do consultants become superstars? What is their secret? They become Masters of Momentum, riding powerful waves of success and motivation.

How do consultants become superstars?

I get this question a lot. It puzzled me for a long time. I couldn't quite find a single common trait between high performers.

The first reaction was to tell about their unique skills. Their unparalleled impact. Their groundbreaking outputs. Their fantastic people skills.

But it is not helpful for beginners. If they try to repeat everything superstars do, they get overwhelmed.

When we look at superstars, we see the destination, not the journey. They didn't become superstars overnight. They had their fair share of mistakes and setbacks.

We need to understand what made their journeys different from others.

The answer was always on the surface, but I couldn't quite formulate it.

But when I started working on this newsletter, I noticed an interesting pattern. Every post boils down to one critical recommendation.

Kickstart, Sustain, and Amplify Momentum.

What Is Momentum?

Momentum is a physics term.

It is defined by the mass and velocity of an object. The greater the mass and velocity, the greater the momentum.

An impulse is required to create momentum. It is a force applied to the object multiplied by time.

In business, we adopted this term to explain positive progress in a project.

It can be a great meeting with a client or discovering a groundbreaking insight.

Momentum creates a few positive by-products.

Halo effect. It is a cognitive bias in which our overall impression of someone influences how we see their work.

Your wins will make your leaders and clients think everything you do is fantastic. They will look at your work with favorable lenses, not being overly strict.

Trust. When you start scoring wins, leadership starts trusting you more. It will result in more freedom and flexibility. That is precisely what you need to focus on finding your subsequent wins.

Motivation. These wins will motivate you and your team. Motivated consultants are more creative and productive. This will lead to even better outcomes.

All these factors create more favorable conditions than you had before. It makes work ten times easier and more fun.

How Does It Work?

There are different levels of momentum. It can be daily, project, or career level. For us, it is most helpful to discuss project-level momentum.

Momentum operates within the typical content creation cycle. When teams create new content, syndicate it, and present it to clients. Usually, it is a 1-2 weeks timeline.

Let's imagine the following situation.

You start a new project. The first few weeks are always uncomfortable. You don't know the topic, clients, or even your own leadership. It is tough to produce anything meaningful.

But leadership already gets anxious. They want to impress clients. As a result, they apply pressure on the team. Panic mode is activated.

But you know that you need to kickstart the momentum. You look for an early win opportunity. You just need one great insight.

You get scrappy and creative. You squeeze existing limited data. And find one!

As a result, you create an insightful slide. Don’t forget to make it a high-quality one. You show it to your leaders, and they get impressed. They show it to clients and they get impressed.

Everyone exhales!

Leaders start trusting you more. They give you more autonomy and stop generating random tasks. They can become hands-off leaders and focus on other priorities.

Clients see the value you create. They can't help but start respecting you. Any future data requests receive a higher priority.

Now, you have a better situation than you started with. You have some flexibility in where you put your attention and time. Clients are more cooperative. Now you can do more than before.

You focus on the next big win. And repeat this cycle again and again.

Impact On Performance

Working in momentum is great for your reputation. You will look like a genius to your leadership - smart, driven, productive, and resourceful.

This gives you the powerful push that moves you from an Average to a High-Performing consultant.

You can ride them far if you can create and sustain momentum waves.

Given time, you can achieve success that is unimaginable for you now. It allows you to unlock a more capable version of yourself and work in more favorable conditions. That can increase your productivity and output manifolds.

Also, you need to consider the Effect of Serendipity. Serendipity - good luck in making unexpected and fortunate discoveries. You will get new opportunities that were not available to you before.

Once you taste the true power of momentum, you'll refuse to work outside of it. It just will not make sense to you.

Without momentum, the work becomes much more complex and pointless. People get more strict with your outputs. You feel demotivated, and your capacity reduces. Everything is against you. It's like swimming against a strong stream. Extremely hard and slow.

Start and Sustain Momentum

Initially, starting and sustaining momentum will be hard. It is a complex concept to grasp and execute in practice.

It will feel like learning to surf on real waves. It is hard to stand up and keep balance in the beginning. But after many repetitions, you learn to do it well.

For new hires, I recommend practicing starting momentum again and again. You need to ask yourself, what is the most impressive win you can make in the current circumstances? Not several, just one, but a big one.

When I think about it, it reminds me of a scene in a Marvel movie when Doctor Strange was learning to open a time portal. First, it started with a few sparkles; then, he learned to do it properly.

In my previous posts, I told stories about creating and sustaining momentum. Please have a read.

What if you get stuck while working on the project?

The challenging project nearly got me fired.

How to become a standalone consultant.

Don't Kill Your Momentum

Momentum is hard to create but easy to kill.

There are many ways to kill it. Here are just a few of them.

Don't Ask What To Do. When you ask your leadership what you should do, you kill momentum because you enter a reactive mode of working and will always be behind.

Always try to devise your action plan and align it with leadership. If they tell you what to do, make it your own version, improve it, and drive it like your idea.

Don't Try To Execute Everything. Avoid attempting to execute every task on your to-do list. You divert focus from the most impactful wins by spreading yourself too thin.

Instead, always define what 1-2 things are the most impactful to do. And bet big on them. Sometimes, you can be wrong, but that's ok; this will be a winning strategy in the long term.

Don't Complain. The moment you start whining and complaining, you kill momentum. A negative mindset not only demotivates you but also destroys the trust of your leaders.

You can't drive momentum and be sorry for yourself. It doesn't work like that.

Instead, adopt an extreme ownership mindset. Consider everything you do as your responsibility. Focus on what you can control and ignore what you can't.

Closing Thoughts

Creating and sustaining momentum is an advanced skill. It requires an orchestration of all consulting skills into a single smooth flow.

But having an awareness of this in early tenures is a considerable advantage.

Consultants are intelligent people. When they know what their objective looks like and what they need to do, they will figure out how to do it.

I have seen it work like a charm many times.

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P.S.

I feel your pain.

As a consultant, I struggled to perform and faced an impossible situation with extremely high expectations and minimal support.

My life turned into relentless stress, pain, and anxiety. But I always suspected that there should be a better way.

All that pain was not necessary with the right support.

Nine years later, I designed the coaching program I desperately needed back then. Its sole focus is helping you excel and achieve high performance.

Only then can you build strong sponsorships, find great projects, and become confident.

If you are an MBB consultant and want to achieve high performance, please
Book a 1-1 Discovery Session.

Learn more about the Hero Journey coaching program.

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