I have spent close to 6 years working at various levels in the US and in the UK at a top consulting firm. During this time, I realized that success in consulting came down to three fundamentals: Being seen, being heard, and being trusted.
Being Seen: (Intern – Summer 2017) When I joined consulting 6 years ago as an intern, I was thrown into a complex IT-focused project that was being executed by some of the brightest people I have ever worked with. It was very tempting to do nothing because the project was so complicated and the team was so familiar with the details. I was invisible. I tried to take on whatever small tasks I could to support the team - the first being ordering lunch - and I did it well. I would hand deliver lunches to every team member, always with a smile. People started to see me. This opened up more opportunities for me on the team and the client saw me. I became known as Little Sid. I continue to have a close relationship with this team and with the client to date. I learned that the little things you do when you are invisible go a long way for you to be seen. Being Heard: (First Project – USA – 2018-2021) I started my full-time consulting career with a new transformational program that we were kicking off with our clients. Once again, I found myself at the edge of the room, lacking the confidence to sit at the table and give my opinions on what seemed to be a very complicated problem. It was here that I exercised the power of listening and retaining. I took notes, very detailed ones at first (most of which would make no sense to anyone else) and then got better at making them succinct and meaningful. I learned and absorbed and prepared for the moment when I was in a board meeting with the client and a question was thrown and there was dead silence. In the meekest of voices I gave the solution. The client loved it. I was heard. I learned that quite often to have the most impactful voice in the room, you have to listen. Being Trusted: (Never stops – USA and UK – 2017-2024) It would be tempting for me to find an anecdote or a moment in my career when people started trusting me to deliver on my promises. But the reality of it is that trust is fragile and you have to keep working on it from day 1. Perhaps the most gratifying moment for me was in a tough year where there have been economic uncertainties and the business has been slow, I was able to win a piece of work for my company. With all the challenges that came with identifying the right team, contracting the work, and aligning on the scope, the team trusted that I would deliver. It is a humbling experience when starting a new project to realize that your previous successes count for very little trust. But then again, the fun journey is changing these initial bumps into lasting relationships. I have been fortunate to build many such relationships and I hope to cherish and maintain them as I grow in my career. It was appealing, especially early in my career, to try to jump to the third phase (being trusted) but the first two phases are very important and quite often I had to do things I didn’t enjoy or things that were mundane to reach to the third and most exciting phase of my career. The cycle of being seen, being heard, and being trusted is a hard journey, but it felt a lot easier for me thanks to the support I received from so many mentors, colleagues, and friends along the way. This blog post is dedicated to those superstars who gave me feedback and put a spotlight on me by giving me opportunities to learn and grow. This post was not written with ChatGPT.
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