Boost your consulting skills...without a day of training

Perhaps, as the founder of a Consulting Skills Training business, I should be focused on selling you on the idea of formal training. But the truth is, the training days we deliver are just one method to boost your consulting skills. There are many other ways you can invest in your personal development and they don't all require significant time or financial commitment.

I'm going to share a few ideas with you. If you are fortunate to be heading off on a summer holiday in the coming weeks, perhaps it will afford you a bit of head space to explore some of these further or give them a go. I'll also provide links to longer articles which we have published this month on The Skilled Consultant.

Read a book

The average person in the UK spends almost 3 hours a day on their smartphone. That adds up to well over an entire waking day a week. And, as we are increasingly bombarded with notifications, updates, and fast entertainment, we are being primed to seek instant gratification whilst our ability to concentrate and focus decreases.

Engaging in deep reading and focusing on longer texts can improve brain connectivity and function. Professionals who practised sustained attention and deep focus were found to perform better academically and professionally. And, studies have demonstrated benefits for our mental well-being and stress levels too.

The message? Put down your phone and pick up a book.

With this in mind, we’ve curated a list of ten books for consultants. If you are going to commit to a ‘deep read’ you may as well make sure it’s a valuable one! There is immense value packed into the pages of these books, so you are sure to get a capability boost alongside the broader benefits for your brain.

Our bookshelf holds some expected classics and newer treasures, and covers a range of skills including client delivery, business development and sales, and leadership and management. Hopefully something for consultants at all stages of their career.

For a bit more about each book, a peek inside a couple, and links to all, please click through to our article: Ten must-read books for consultants

Identify your skills gaps

Identifying your skills gaps is critical if you are to focus your personal development in the best place - where will you get the biggest 'bang for your buck'? What do you need to be good at to do your job well? How should you balance developing deeper expertise in an area of excellence versus plugging capability gaps in areas that you find tougher?

We work with consulting firms to answer these questions for their team. For firms who don't need, or can't stretch to engaging us in this way, we have created the Consulting Skills Accelerator Toolkit. It includes a database of 400 detailed definitions of skills across 100 different areas - a great starting point for setting consultants up to drive their skill development in the most valuable areas.

You may want to just think this through yourself. To nail down a manageable set of capabilities that are important to you, I recommend asking yourself two questions:

1. What are the strengths I have that, when fully developed, will be true sources of differentiation?
2. What capabilities do I need to keep the promises I make? (these could include weaknesses you need to work on)

The target output from those is a set of ~15 skills that are important for you to develop to realise your personal vision as a consultant.

Track and use your learning data

Once you are clear on your skills gaps, consistently developing them requires discipline.

You know how to gather, interpret, and apply data effectively - you are a consultant after all. When you do this for a client it provides insights that simplify complex problems and reveal new opportunities. You can reap those same benefits by gathering data about your own learning and development.

How might you do that?

• Start a habit tracker. If there’s a secret sauce to developing yourself consistently and with discipline, it’s a habit tracker. Track everything worth tracking, good and bad. You'd do this with KPIs in a client’s business, so apply the same rigour to yourself. For a guide on habit tracking, click here

• Take 5 minutes at the end of each day to engage in some structured reflection. Here are some prompts to help you:

- What did I plan to do today? What did I actually get done?

- How did the day go? What success did I experience? What challenges did I endure?

- What did I learn today? About myself? About others? What do I plan to do differently or the same tomorrow?

- With whom did I interact? Anyone I need to update, thank, ask a question of, share feedback with?

These ideas were provided by Gareth Russell (Executive Coach and Honeycomb Trainer) in an article he wrote for The Skilled Consultant: Three L&D Hacks You Can Begin Today. Check it out for many more valuable tips on developing your skills.

Speak to a coach

Coaching is a booming industry, consistently showing double digit growth. However, many people remain somewhat sceptical about engaging a coach, or unsure what a coach may be able to support them with. This isn't surprising - the use cases for coaching vary widely, from the very practical (how do I get better at time management?) through to the profoundly philosophical (what is the meaning of my [professional] life?). 

So, how do you know when time with a coach would be beneficial, and how do you find the right one to work with?

I can provide a professional perspective on this, as we have a number of consulting firm clients who have taken a holistic approach to supporting their team through coaching. Thinking of one in particular - they often come to us with a specific development need and ask how we might help. When those needs are focused on an individual the answer is often not training, but coaching. In these cases we typically introduce a trusted coach - whether a suitably qualified member of our training team or a third party specialist.

For this particular client we’ve helped individuals get coaching on Sales habits, confidence and clarity communicating with senior audiences, and specific development areas relating to personal gravitas and presence. The common theme is that these are less about ‘skills’ and more about mindset, self-awareness, and confidence. This approach creates tangible growth that is paying dividends for the individuals involved, and their firm.

Executive Coach and Honeycomb Trainer, James Anderson , published an article called Does A Consultant Need A Coach? on The Skilled Consultant. It explores the use cases for coaching and provides some practical suggestions to support firms and individuals ready to take their first steps into coaching.

We have recently launched dates for three brand new webinars. These are topics that our clients have told us they'd particularly value, so we've developed these accordingly.

All are free to join - just register using the links provided.

Beyond the Competency Framework: Help your consulting team know HOW to do what you're asking of them

You likely have a Competency Framework so your team know WHAT you want them to do. But do they know HOW? We help our clients develop the powerful triad - a Skills Framework and Mindset Framework to sit along their Competency Framework. In this webinar, we will dive into the blockers to capability development, discuss how to address them, and share examples of Skills Frameworks and Mindset Frameworks so you can help your team develop their capabilities faster.

Wednesday, 18 September 2024, 14:00 (BST) - REGISTER HERE

Does Training work? Measuring the impact of your training investment - ripple effects, leading indicators, and changing your firm

Training is a major investment of time and money. But, most consulting firms don't have great systems to track the benefits they get from that training. We don't think that's good enough. In this webinar we'll be explaining how we embed Impact Analytics, what data sources you need for different types of training, and sharing examples of the measurable impact that's possible. You'll be able to take our approach and apply it to your own training sessions.

Thursday, 24 October 2024, 14:00 (BST) - REGISTER HERE

Taster session: Developing your Network as a Consultant

A lot of consultants have a fear of Sales. Even the word has a bad rep. But Sales is really about relationships. Having a network of strong relationships can set you up to make the sales part easy - you're just helping solve problems for people you know. In this taster session we'll be digging in to some important building blocks. Join us to learn a systematic approach to developing your network as a consultant, with practical tools to apply during and after the session.

Wednesday, 20 October 2024, 14:00 (GMT) - REGISTER HERE

👋 Thank you for reading. I’m Deri Hughes. I run a training business that helps consulting team leaders develop exceptional teams.

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