Hyderabad Blues: [HM:257668] An Introduction to Professional Consultants

By Junaid Tahir:

Management consultants help organizations improving their business index in term of better performance, higher customer satisfaction, healthier practices implementation, tweaking strategies and management paradigms, enhanced skill sets of team members, concrete grip on internal process flows and identifying the key areas where improvements are required to be implemented. (You may want to read management consultants' role HERE). Below is the list of specific traits, management consultants are required to possess:

C-Competent – They are up to date with the industry. They are competent enough to understand the problems their client is facing. They have specialised soft and hard tools to ensure thorough audits and ensure continuous improvement.

O-Organized – They understand that staying Organized helps in many ways in terms of time saving, avoiding panic situation, better customer satisfaction and so on. Ensure accessibility of information by keeping documentation, processes and data arranged.

N-Niche Specialist – They are specialists of the domain. Having thorough knowledge, deep level wisdom, in sync with industry activities they ensure they are on top of it when their customers engage them in any sort of discussion related to the niche.

S-Supportive – The consultants help ensure implementation and governance of processes and recommendations based on their audit and analysis. They understand that their customers' success is their success so they strive to support their customers for anything which might help cause improvement in the business domain.

U-Unbiased—With their focus on overall improvement and having belief in supremacy of policies they ensure they are not biased to any person. Though they take into account the sensitivity of the stance taken by different stake holders.

L-Listeners – They understand that effective listening is part of effective communication. They are empathic listeners so that they understand the core of the challenges with the belief in the philosophy of 'customer comes first'

T-Trust Worthy – Winning target is easy, winning customers/people is tough. By becoming trust worthy the consultants make their place in the heart and mind of their customers and develop permanent long-term relationship which is mutually benefit for both the parties. So the consultants develop trust by their consistent candid behaviour, by empathic listening, by giving the right advice, by judging the people fairly and eventually treating them fairly.

A-Analytical – This is the most critical skill all consultants must have. The prime purpose for the Analysis of any given situation is to get to know the root cause(s) of the issue, to forecast the impact and to plan corrective/preventive actions strategy. So basically analytical skill is to visualize a given situation, task, project or issue from several angles in order to breakdown it into smaller steps. Breakdown the big problem in smaller ones and fix one by one. The consultants consider the situation from multiple angles including Statistical, Financial, Operational and Social perspectives in order to come up with the most effective recommendations about the situation, task or project.

N-North Bound Thinkers – with the belief in continuous improvement they always think upwards. They think about perfection from Cost optimization, Quality assurance, Scope control, fault reduction, resource optimization and so on.

T-Time Bound – The consultants fully understand the value of time and sensitivity of market trends hence they ensure brisk audits, fast but sound analysis, controlled implementation of new recommendations by effective delegation.

S-Strategic – Consultants are Visionary. They begin with the end in mind. They see the future today and align their strategies based on their knowledge, experience, market study and risk analysis.

The consultants having these qualities can bring flying colour success to any organization

they work for

or any project they are assigned to.

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About Author: Junaid Tahir is a passionate blogger. He writes articles on Leadership, Stress Management and Life Enhancement subjects at his personal blog

Junaid Tahir
www.DailyTenMinutes.com