Have you ever applied to a firm that wants you to interview with 7 to 12 people? They will tell you this is because they are careful or because everyone must have a say in the decision. None of that is true.

In this podcast we explain why the need for multiple interviews is a symptom of a firm that does not know what it wants and therefore cannot make a decision. Increasing the number of interviewers simply removes the accountability from any one person for making a decision, because, with no clear guidelines, no one can or wants to make a decision.

It is easier to be part of 12 people making a decision versus being the sole arbiter whom will be accountable. No one wants that burden when the goalposts keep moving.​

When Booz was acquired by PwC, many consultants joined rival firms. BCG Middle East was a major recipient of Booz employees. In this podcast we explain a promotion tenure limit imposed by the BCG Middle East practice, which we believe was driven by the hiring of so many Booz consultants, and, with greatest respect to BCG, hurts the firm and its culture.

We discuss the policy, why it defeats the principle of demonstrated competency and why it implies that BCG Middle East values the opinions of another firm disproportionately. We feel this policy should change.

In this podcast we discuss the most recent experiences of Sveta, a scholarship holder in our Emerging Fellows program. Sveta hails from a tiny village in the far north-east of Siberia. We helped her join the #1 school in Moscow, moved her to a Grand Ecole in France and she recently joined MBB.

In this podcast we discuss the obligations of the Fellows to spend at least 2 months per annum in their home countries to help with critical development issues. You will find that it takes an enormous amount of influencing to make this happen, and that is normal. Sveta is like any young adult. She wants it all, and we just need to guide her along.

NOTE: Please note that we always change some of the details about clients to protect their identities. 

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This is an exclusive interview that Bill recently had with Firmsconsulting where he shared some counter-intuitive concepts you will not hear anywhere else. Bill was the partner who helped develop and implement the McKinsey philosophy that helped the firm pull ahead of BCG in the 1980’s and 1990’s. He was thereafter the partner who led BCG’s efforts to overtake McKinsey. Why are we releasing this on the first day of the year? We want you to take an aggressive hold of your career this year and begin investing in your future from the first day of the year. This insightful, inspiring and counter intuitive podcast explains the steps McKinsey took in the 1980’s to reposition the firm. To be exceptional, planning is meaningless unless you know what to plan. You need a point of differentiation and you need to consistently drive that difference.
Related:
- What is comparative advantage in your career
- You can find related videos here: Strategy Library

This podcast introduces the new and comprehensive consulting business case + financial analyses + financial modelling training we are about to release. In particular I discuss my internal consulting training and my very first study leading the business case. Contrary to what you may think, the training at McKinsey and BCG can be weak and contain many flaws. This podcast explains how we built on the training at these firms to develop something far more effective.
Related:
- Live-blogging a Financial Service Stratey Study
- You can find related video here: Strategy Library

This podcast introduces the new and comprehensive consulting business case + financial analyses + financial modelling training we are about to release. In particular I discuss my internal consulting training and my very first study leading the business case. Contrary to what you may think, the training at McKinsey and BCG can be weak and contain many flaws. This podcast explains how we built on the training at these firms to develop something far more effective.
Related:
- Live-blogging a Financial Service Stratey Study
- You can find related video here: Strategy Library

This podcast explains how teams are assembled and the role given to consulting stars. Many assume being the manage means you are the best performer. That could not be further from the truth.

Related:
Learn more about consulting from our leadership publicationFirmsconsulting Quarterly

Consulting financial analyses is not at all the same as financial modeling. This podcast explains how they fit into business cases.

Related:
- You learn amazing details from our Live-blogging a Financial Service Stratey Study
- You also learn financial modeling with videos and ppts from our Strategy Library

The CEO of LAB asked us to provide some perspective on three questions. (1) Should LAB, a bank, make coding a mandatory skill-set for new hires? (2) How should LAB position itself against other development finance banks? (3) What is the main benefits case we see in the study? Question 3 was answered in the live blog. Question 2 will be answered in the live-blog soon. This is the answer to question 3. Related:
- You learn about LAB study from our Live-blogging a Financial Service Stratey Study
- You also learn financial modeling with videos and ppts from our Strategy Library

This podcast explains the member changes we will soon make to the Firmsconsulting website. We are rolling out a new way to track contributions from members and reward members for their contributions and support.

This slightly humorous podcast draws an analogy to Nigerian gangsters (or is it “gangstas”) in a famous sci-fi movie and software counterfeiters to explain the problems tier-2 firms create in their obsession to replicate BCG’s analytics tools, toolkits and templates.

Related: You can find previous in-depth discussion and comments on our site.

This podcast explains the common mistake all rivals, tier-2 firms, to McKinsey and BCG make: they value the wrong skills BCG has.

This podcast explains the 4 capabilities a firm must have and how to use them:

(1) Values
(2) Strategy approach
(3) Analytics
(4) Ability to draw insights

We can all agree that everyone is obsessed with the analytics at their peril. Tier-2 firms are truly shocked when they apply the same analytics as McKinsey but get a different result and still cannot raise their standing in a client's eyes. There is a reason for that.
Related:
- Interview a Deloittee Strategy and Operation Principal
- Deloitte IT Strategy and McKinsey BTO

Many of us rely on titles to determine if we becoming leaders in a consulting firm. This podcast provides a more important of definition of consulting leadership: who does the consulting firm turn to in times of crises and how do they do so?

In fact, you will see that a leader in a consulting organization can be as young as an analyst and a partner may not be a leader. In fact the level of candor between you and the existing leadership is the only measure that matters. This podcast explains this concept with various examples

Related:
- Competing with a high performing consultant
- Learn all about consulting from our Consulting Offer

Those of you who follow my podcasts would know that I place an incredible amount of emphasis on not just being good at structuring issues and analyses, but also the way you manage people: consulting EQ.

Learn more about the consulting EQ here

Related:
- Detailed videos about consulting EQ (managing, communication, motivating, coaching and mentoring clients and consultants) can be found in our detailed corporate strategy training library

What happens if you are doing a smaller study, but you identify an opportunity to sell-on a larger, more lucrative and glamorous strategy study?

In this podcast I explain how the opportunity for sell-on strategy work is evolving at LAB, the financial services client whose strategy study we are live-blogging, and how an elite firm would handle the situation.

It has nothing to do with sales.

Related:
- Learn more about strategy from our corporate strategy training
- strategy library

Readers in other sectors like financial services, energy, retail, automotive etc., make a massive mistake when looking at the technology strategy study training
we have up on the site.

They assume that the study will not train them about corporate strategy since it is about corporate strategy for technology company. That is major flaw.

This podcast elaborates on some of these reasons:

1. Every corporate strategy study must be done for a client in a sector. Therefore it is impossible to find corporate strategy training which is generic - that is, not specific to a sector.
2. The thinking, techniques and training applied to one sector is designed to be applied to any sector.
3. Even if you worked in financial services and we loaded the financial services strategy study shortly, a sector is so large, the study may not even touch the issues you want to learn - therefore focus on the techniques used versus trying to copy content across for your own studies. Do not get into the habit of simply copying analyses.

Week 1 of the financial services strategy study to enter the US retail banking sector is about done. You can see the detailed live-blogging of the day-by-day analyses, planning and insights here.

This is a real study, done for a real client with a real team of consultants led by Firmsconsulting. Once the study is done, we will post the findings and detailed guide using the map format used for the corporate strategy study training.

This podcast is a wrap-up of the week. We remind readers of the strategy we followed, all the goals we set for the week, our progress against those goals and our key findings thus far. We also discuss a potential scope change and how we will handle that.

It is has been a great week and we wrap up things in New Mexico where the team is conducting more shadow studies / day-in-the-life-of studies of distribution financial intermediary in the border town of Columbus. Related:
- Learn more about financial analysis in our strategy library

The majority of business gurus, journalists, periodicals, publications, journals, blogs, fashionistas and reality movie stars talk about the arrival of China like it is preordained by the Oracle.

It is not.

America has been here before. In fact America has been here 4 times in its history and each time the American model of government, system of capital allocation and creativity helped the country reinvent itself.

In the next 18 months, Firmsconsulting will be leading 5 sweeping studies, at real clients, to find solutions to issues which impede US productivity growth. The detailed findings and extensive training videos to help you replicate such a study will be released once the studies are done.

We will be bold and analyze some of the most vital and controversial issues including healthcare, immigration and the role of government.

This podcast discusses the theme, training material and topic in more detail. Welcome to the era of America Renewed.

For those of you who want an update on where we are in Week 0 of the US financial services study, this podcast will provide a detailed update of the final preparation as the team goes into their on-boarding with just 5 days before the start date.

Expect a few podcasts this week since I am leading the onboarding training and it is much quicker, and less rude, to prepare podcasts versus typing up updates in front of the interns.

Next week, I will shift back to more written updates with a few podcasts and videos thrown in.

Note that this study and the underlying issue of the economics of small business loans is a complex topic. It is best to read the live blog from the beginning to see how we have thought through the issue and structured the team to analyses the hypotheses.

Related:
- You can read about strategy related articles from our Quarterly
- Learn more about financial analysis in our strategy library

Our managing partner Michael Boricki gave an interview at Accepted, a well known site for MBA admission.

This podcast is a response to the email below. The client wanted to know how to change a consulting firm so that her firm could compete against McKinsey.

This podcast is a controversial and thoughtful response to a letter from a reader who overheard his career counselor describing him as a "dumb black kid" who "has no future in business."

In this podcast we look at the rise of value modelling as a shiny new management technique in 2003 and its implosion in 2009. Value modelling is a lot like other big trends like the balance scorecard, business process re-engineering etc. which went belly-up.

Young consultants make some very common mistakes when they start out, and I explain how to use the strategy insight ratio to correct these problems.