The role of a consultant is dynamic and complex, requiring a unique blend of skills that go beyond pure technical proficiency. In this 2-part article, I will outline the 5 key skills of an effective consultant, then discuss how to hone and highlight these skills.
Being a consultant is no easy feat, and almost every successful consultant is characterised by competent mastery of the following 5 key skills — problem solving, leadership, data and quantitative skills, teamwork, and communication. These abilities encompass both hard and soft skills — taken together, they enable consultants to navigate the fast-paced, ever-evolving consulting landscape.
1. Problem solving
It should come as no surprise that problem solving is one of the most useful skills for a consultant, whose job role practically centres around solving problems for organisations, businesses, and individuals. On a daily basis, consultants are helping their clients resolve challenging issues to bring about desired outcomes.
While problem solving can be a challenging skill to define, it essentially involves being adept at analysing circumstances, spotting problems, and coming up with creative and robust solutions. Critical thinking, resourcefulness, and being able to consider a variety of viewpoints and possibilities are all necessary for effective problem solving.
For instance, consultants are often faced with overly general and broad problem statements such as “help us increase profits” or “help us launch a programme to empower high-ability, low-income youths”.
The first step to tackling complex and multifaceted issues is to deconstruct them into more manageable parts and rigorously define the problem statement. This is likely to involve teasing out the client’s constraints, capabilities, and priorities to translate the amorphous symptoms that the client is concerned about into concrete problem statements such as “help us to increase revenue from coffee sales by 10% within the next year by enhancing our value proposition to our target demographic of young working professionals, without exceeding a budget of 100k USD”.
After defining the problem, the role of consultants is to establish hypotheses, test them, and offer innovative, data-driven solutions using critical thinking and their domain-specific expertise. These solutions are made specifically to address the requirements and goals of their clientele, and stellar problem solving skills are needed to ensure such solutions are targeted, actionable and creative.
2. Leadership
While leadership is looked favourably upon by virtually every employer, it is especially important for consultants.
“Leadership” does not refer to being bossy, demanding or uptight — in fact, these would tend to backfire and turn clients and colleagues off. Instead, leadership looks more like inspiring trust and confidence, rallying team members around a shared goal, and stepping forth to take initiative when problems arise.
In the setting of a consulting firm, where timelines are tight and work pressure is sky high, such leadership is tantamount to ensuring high employee morale and motivation. Additionally, good leadership also involves retaining accountability for project results and managing client relationships — all clients, after all, would want to work with consultants who can meet expectations.
Even in day to day scenarios like team meetings, conflict resolution, and decision making, good leadership is essential to ensure smooth operations within the firm. Overall, effective leadership fosters long-term success in the consulting industry by improving a consultant’s capacity to produce results and maintain a reputation for excellence.
Consultants are often empowered to drive their own work streams. The project leader or engagement manager might spearhead the problem definition process and assign entire sub-problems to the team. For instance, the problem of enhancing marketing might be broken down into social media advertisements, influencers, and word-of-mouth — each consultant would then independently tackle one workstream, and be expected to deliver key insights and recommendations.
In the early years of your consulting career leadership is about taking ownership over these assigned tasks, seeing them through to completion, and helping other members of the team as necessary. As you progress to more senior levels, the more conventional understanding of leadership kicks in, where you are expected to empower, guide, and train your team to satisfy the client’s demands.
3. Data and quantitative skills
Soft skills alone are not enough, and one of the most crucial hard skills that consultants need is data and quantitative skills.
This simply refers to the ability to handle, evaluate, and extrapolate meaning from numerical and statistical data, as well as proficiency in utilising analytical tools like Excel, VBA, or Python. Excel, in particular, is often touted as the bread and butter of consultants — being familiar with shortcuts and more efficient ways to run analyses is a key booster for a career in consulting.
While it may not seem like it, a strong foundation in maths is often essential for consultants to succeed. Consultants usually double as experts in quantitative analysis, and are highly skilled at analysing complicated issues, developing hypotheses, and applying mathematical and statistical methods to produce insightful results.
For financial consultants especially, a strong financial acumen is crucial to daily tasks like cost-benefit analysis, financial modelling, and determining the sustainability of investments. Here, being a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) can be a useful credential to have.
Consultants also need to be skilled at risk assessment and management, using quantitative techniques to spot possible dangers and create plans to reduce them.
4. Communication
Also important is the ability to effectively communicate quantitative findings and strategies to clients and colleagues — which is why effective communication is the key to successful engagements. Consultants communicate with all kinds of people, like colleagues, supervisors, and clients. The key, therefore, lies in adapting the style of communication for each target audience.
Clear and effective communication is indispensable in ensuring efficiency and teamwork in virtually every industry, and consulting is no exception. For instance, consultants must be able to simplify difficult concepts and issues that arise. This allows clients to easily comprehend key insights, and for colleagues to efficiently exchange data and engage in productive teamwork. It also enables consultants to handle difficulties or disputes that arise throughout a project while preserving good client connections.
A particularity of communication in consulting (and most high-level executive settings) is abiding by the Pyramid Principle. In essence, this involves providing the key recommendation first, followed by the main supporting insights, and then the data that led to those insights. C-suite executives are pressed for time and want the most important information right out of the gate; they don’t often worry themselves with the minute details of your financial model!
5. Teamwork
Good communication naturally fosters teamwork, which is essential for consultants. In order to address complicated problems, consultants frequently must collaborate in diverse teams that bring together a variety of skills, perspectives, and experience.
Teamwork allows a project team to tap into the unique strengths and insights of each member — thereby allowing the client to benefit from each team member’s abilities. Besides ensuring optimal outcomes for each project, this also makes each member feel seen, valued and respected, which can boost the overall morale of the firm. This can result in a virtuous cycle where consultants are more motivated to deliver, hence delivering better results, which once again boosts team morale for the next project.
Final thoughts
Depending on the type of consulting and the demographic one is involved with, consultants may need industry-specific expertise to better understand their clients’ needs.
Despite this, you will find that these 5 skills serve as the cornerstone upon which consultants build their reputation for providing reliable recommendations and bringing about positive change in client organisations.
Stay tuned to find out more about how to develop these key skills!
Lucas Foo is a Psychology, Philosophy, and Linguistics Undergraduate at the University of Oxford. He enjoys drawing insights from ambiguity to create real and positive impact.
This article is co-authored by Yunzhang Liang, a History undergraduate at the University of Oxford. She enjoys reading, writing, thinking, exploring, and connecting with like-minded individuals.