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The Management Consultant and CEO - Getting On The Same Wavelength is Critical to Consulting Success

Guest post by: John Butler

Article Overview: Getting into the head of the CEO is critical for the consultant to be effective and successful. How to do it with success? Let's talk about it.

The Management Consultant and CEO - Getting On The Same Wavelength is Critical to Consulting Success

Getting into the head of the CEO is critical for a consultant to be effective and successful.

Imagine if you will, two brains, fully functioning and at their best, one from a great consultant, the other from a CEO. Imagine, it is the year 2110 and we have the technology to temporarily remove them, keep them alive and fully functioning, without any damage, and bring them on to a special location and put them aside.

Now imagine the brains become linked through a special process where they can see each others thoughts, learn from each others experiences and gain each others wisdom and know with certainty that they can work together to achieve great things. Then, after this "meeting of the minds" has occurred, they are put back into their respective bodies and go charging ahead with transforming their businesses and companies.

The value to the consultant and CEO of both understanding each other and what is in their heads can be enormous.

A meeting of the "minds" if you will is what needs to happen between great consultants and their CEO clients. Getting into that space and place, where the energy flow between the two is flowing easily, naturally and with a slight bit of excitement is a "must have" for the top consultant.

In the real world, today, we have to accomplish a smaller knowledge transfer and proportional understanding in a more "old fashioned way." By asking questions, actively listening, probing answers with further questions, and then it starts to happen.

There should come a point in the conversations and in the relationship, when both the consultant and the CEO start to "see" and "feel" the meeting of their two minds begin to happen. You might say it was "chemistry" or we "clicked" or some other term indicating a "connection" at the highest level.

Practically speaking, you must engage and discuss with the CEO and top managers and find out what three or four 'critical numbers' are in their heads all the time.

You must get them to talk about these numbers, what it means to them personally, the company, the organization and link your proposition as an investment proposal to help them achieve these numbers

Getting into the head of the CEO or the economic buyer and seeing where the buyer stands in the socio-economic hierarchy definitely influences their trigger points.

Different types of buyers tend to see value in different ways. You must be aware that value is in the eye of the beholder. It's like the taste of a good wine, or a fine piece of art. See what your client sees and know what they value.

For example, the CEO, or economic buyer, sees value as 'return on investment'. In order to help him improve the bottom line, therefore, you must talk about financial performance, return on investment, profit drivers, and the big picture.

It is important to understand that features, advantages and benefits in the smaller projects are more appropriate with a functional buyer, and probably less so, or even non existent in the mind of a CEO.

The CEO will want to talk bigger picture, bigger numbers and so should you. It is imperative that you walk this talk with the CEO and the major numbers for a major assignment.

In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins points out how important it is for you to identify the correct 'economic denominator'. This is the critical number that determines the ongoing success or failure of a business and it provides the conduit to the "meeting of the minds" that will continue to link the consultant and CEO as they endeavor together to solve problems and move the company.

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Article Tags: ceo, management consultant, successful consultant, Successful Consulting



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