Struggle with poor judgment?
Many consultants struggle with poor judgment. They think it’s an intrinsic trait. But often it breaks due to invisible thinking errors. This post discusses why it happens and how to improve it.
Imagine your partner tells you:
“You must improve your judgment…”
Ouch! This hurts!
It’s very bad feedback.
Basically, it’s a code word for not being smart. And in MBB firms, this sounds like a verdict.
Let me translate what your partner really thinks:
“I don’t understand how you make decisions. You draw conclusions that don’t make sense. I can’t trust you.”
How do I know this? Well, to be completely honest, that’s what I thought when I provided this feedback as an AP. And that’s what I felt when I received this feedback as an associate.
Here’s an even bigger danger:
Often partners don’t even share that feedback.
It’s just easier to stay silent and then never work with you again. This way, there’s less drama and headache.
Then you wonder why you can’t get any traction with partners even though you work so damn hard.
As a result, you get all kinds of problems: no leadership support, weak staffing, negative feedback, disappointing ratings, missed promotions, and even counsel-to-leave decisions.
But what’s happening here? What does judgment even mean? How would one approach fixing it?
In MBB firms, people like to talk about frameworks, issue trees, hypotheses, and insights.
But they rarely discuss the most fundamental layer of problem-solving:
Critical Thinking.
But this is how you think and make decisions. If you make mistakes at this level, everything else you do becomes distorted and random.
Critical thinking can break in many places. Consultants skip logical steps. Make implicit assumptions. Draw incorrect conclusions. Choose the wrong solutions.
That’s when slides become unclear. Messages don’t make sense. Storylines break. And finally, your judgment looks weak and inconsistent.
How to fix that?
When I started coaching MBB consultants, I realized that ‘poor judgment’ feedback is far too broad to tackle effectively. You cannot practice it in the abstract.
But once we break it into smaller chunks, it becomes less scary and more addressable.
Instead of asking, “How do I improve my judgment?”, you can ask a much better question: “Where exactly does my thinking break?”
This question can be answered. And once you answer it, you can fix it.
Usually, it breaks in three places:
1. Misunderstanding the problem
2. Making wrong assumptions
3. Drawing illogical conclusions
And this is not an exhaustive list, but it’s a good 80/20 start.
Let’s discuss them one by one.
1. Misunderstanding the problem
Imagine a partner gives you a task.
You nod, leave the room, and go to execute it.
Several hours later, you produce polished slides. The analysis looks clean. You worked until 2 a.m. Maybe you're even proud of your work.
But the partner says it’s not what he asked for.
He wanted a top-down estimate, and you produced a bottom-up analysis. He needed a decision, but you brought the problem. He expected you to do it in a certain way, but you did it the wrong way.
You solved the wrong problem!
You prepared the correct answer to the wrong question. Your work is technically solid but still pretty useless.
Why does it happen? Well, because consultants don’t ask questions to clarify expectations. They are afraid to look stupid. They don’t want to annoy partners.
So they hope the task becomes clearer along the way.
How to practice it?
It’s a difficult skill to acquire. There are many communication techniques consultants must master.
The real problem isn’t knowing these techniques. It’s the ability to apply them under pressure.
That’s why, in my coaching program, we role-play these situations extensively.
I give consultants vague tasks on purpose. They must understand the context and hidden expectations. They practice asking questions, verifying their understanding, and aligning on the approach.
They learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
If you want to learn more about this specific skill of accepting tasks well, I wrote a very extensive and technical post about it:
2. Making wrong assumptions
What are assumptions?
We need assumptions to make decisions. They fill the gaps in information.
For example, you expect your friend to come to you. You don’t know when exactly. But you assume they take a taxi and it will take 20 minutes. You are not 100% sure. But that’s a reasonable assumption.
Assumptions are not bad by themselves. The danger is making assumptions without realizing it.
These are implicit assumptions.
Once that happens, they become invisible.
You treat them like facts. You build your arguments using assumptions in place of premises.
By the time the argument reaches the partner, it may look solid. But one untested assumption is holding everything up.
It becomes your blind spot. Because you cannot see it, you cannot stress test it.
This is when consultants get caught off guard by simple questions from partners: “Why do you think this way? What’s your assumption here? I don’t agree.”
That’s where the argument crumbles. And the whole solution is rendered completely useless.
How do you fix it?
We want to make assumptions visible. So you can stress test them before you use them in your arguments.
In my coaching program, I developed a set of interactive, bite-sized exercises where consultants practice spotting implicit assumptions and correctly labeling them.
How does it work? They are presented with simple statements that on the surface look fine, but in reality are built on a hidden assumption. If that assumption is wrong, the whole argument is wrong.
For example, a consultant recommends shifting 70% of the advertising budget from broad campaigns to retention programs because the top 10% of customers generate 55% of revenue.
Sounds reasonable, right?
But this recommendation implicitly assumes that the high-value segment can sustain itself without continued customer acquisition. In reality, broad campaigns may be bringing in the new customers who eventually become high-value customers, so cutting them could destroy the pipeline that feeds the segment.
That’s how consultants learn to recognize implicit assumptions, label them clearly, explain their basis, and stress test them.
Why are bite-sized exercises important?
To learn effectively, you need quality reps.
You need to build strong pattern recognition. It normally takes months or years to develop. You don’t have that kind of time.
In real projects, assumptions are buried inside complicated analyses, messy conversations, and fifty-page decks. Most go unnoticed, so you receive too little feedback to improve quickly.
Bite-sized exercises isolate one thinking skill at a time, allowing you to get many repetitions, recognize patterns, and improve much faster.
If you want to learn more about implicit assumptions, I wrote a more detailed post explaining how it works and how you technically practice it:
3. Drawing illogical conclusions
Now imagine that you understood the task correctly. You made your assumptions explicit, and they are reasonable.
But you can still reach the wrong conclusion.
This is where logical reasoning comes into play.
I know, the moment you hear ‘logic,’ it sounds academic and boring. But the basic principles are actually simple, and it helps you locate the exact flaw in your thinking.
Let me walk you through it.
At the most fundamental level, you build arguments to support your solutions and recommendations.
An argument is a line of reasoning that starts with premises and reaches a conclusion.
For example: “All expenses above $100 require approval. This expense is $150. Therefore, this expense requires approval.”
The first two sentences are the premises. The last is the conclusion.
A sound argument must be logically valid, and its premises must be true.
Validity checks whether the conclusion logically follows from the premises.
In the example, it does follow because the expense exceeds the $100 approval threshold.
Truth checks whether the premises are factually correct.
Is the policy real? Is the expense actually $150?
A logically valid argument can still produce the wrong conclusion if one of its premises is false.
Why does this matter?
Because it equips you with the right vocabulary to diagnose what’s exactly wrong with your arguments.
Did someone make a conclusion without proper premises? Did the conclusion fail to follow? Or is the structure valid, but one of the premises factually untrue?
That’s when logic stops being mushy philosophy and becomes a practical consulting tool.
How do you practice this?
In a similar way you practice implicit assumptions.
But only this time, the design of exercises is slightly different.
Consultants receive short arguments that look plausible but contain a logical flaw. They must identify exactly what is wrong with the argument.
You check not just arguments structurally but spot any decision-making biases.
For example, a consultant recommends rolling out a new productivity program to all 5,000 employees because a pilot with 12 employees increased productivity by 25%.
Sounds okay?
Well, this conclusion is based on hasty generalization. A small group of selected employees may not represent thousands of people across different roles, departments, and levels of motivation.
This is just an example of one type of fallacy. In the exercises, you practice spotting dozens of them.
Once you do many reps, you build strong pattern recognition and spot logical flaws instantly. You can also articulate them more precisely. People will think you are just very smart, but actually you were trained very well.
Okay, let’s take stock.
We covered three common mistakes that undermine your critical thinking and make people question your judgment.
They’re only a part of the bigger picture. We haven’t touched on other important skills like structuring, issue analysis, top-down communication, storylining, or many other problem-solving skills.
The point I wanted to make is simple.
Consulting is not some mysterious talent or intrinsic trait. It’s a technical skill that can be taught and learned.
Yes, it’s complex and overwhelming at times, but with the right system and support, you can learn it fairly fast and in a less painful way.
Your problems are not due to a lack of talent, intellect, or hard work.
You are just severely under-coached.
If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your problem-solving and critical thinking through personalized coaching support:
BOOK A FREE 1-1 CONSULTATION CALL
We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. It’s a no-commitment call, 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.