No matter what business you’re in, or how long you’ve been doing it, you probably find yourself occasionally out of your element when it comes to new projects, customers and industries.
It’s uncomfortable and unnerving when this happens.
You may not be familiar with the business model. You may not understand the vernacular. You don’t know what you don’t know.
But big league management consultants deal with this all the time. The McKinsey, Bain and Boston folks are paid handsomely to tackle some of corporate America’s toughest challenges.
And they often don’t have deep expertise in the field. But they handle this knowledge gap – this learning-credibility tension – with a number of tactics and strategies.
Alaric Bourgoin and Jean-Francois Harvey have studied management consultants in-depth and shared their findings in their recent HBR article “How Management Consultants Project Expertise and Learn at the Same Time.”
To neutralize threats to self-image and efficacy, management consultants use three closely related tactics:
Crafting relevance. You don’t have to know it all but you do have to know enough to be taken seriously while you learn more. The best way to do this is by reading anything in the public domain about a client and their situation. You can’t possibly know everything, and clients realize this, but they will give you credit for doing your homework. This step is all about establishing credibility.
Crafting resonance. The next step is to put this new information and credibility to use and in context. Your clients must accept you as a professional before they will follow your advice. Using expressions and vocabulary as well as re-telling internal stories gleaned from other staffers helps foster more engagement and acceptance.
Crafting substance. Finally, you must demonstrate clear thinking, deep understanding, and task progress. Text, images, graphs and user stories in PowerPoint (yes, PowerPoint) are still the best way to communicate findings and recommendations. Share these in one-on-one or small groups first to test them and refine them. But then you’ve got to be ready to show what you’ve learned and stand by your approach. Be prepared for push-back and debate.
“Faking it till you make it” is not a bad thing. It’s a necessary learning curve.
And when done sincerely, it can lead to knowledge, credibility and productivity.
Have a great week.
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