Chiriquí, Panama

[dropcap style=»book»]W[/dropcap]e are in the middle of the Yuletide period. As such, I would like to add a touch of festive fun to the proceedings and talk about some of the challenges you might come up against in your work as a consultant. To this, I shall use the example of the game of bridge. We also have a Spanish game called “Mus” which requires similar skills and which was the subject of an article I wrote dealing with the similarities between consultancy and Mus(Sastre, 2005). In consultancy, you will often find yourself in the following situations in which you will have to use your nouse in order to come out on the other side:

▪   You do not have much to go on initially, and you are asked to make “major bids” without having enough time to prepare them. You have to “make the most of the little that you have”, interpret this scant information the best you can and make your experience count. In consultancy it is of the utmost importance “to create a coherent discourse” showing a connecting thread in your reports in such a way that whatever you put forward is grounded on hypotheses or information on which you have pondered. Many of these will be questionable, but you must not “get caught with your pants down” when asked about something you have yet to consider the reason why it was not included. . Many hypotheses can be argued, but you must not get “caught out” with something for which you had not considered the reason why you assumed it in the first place.

▪   In Spain there is a well-known culture of “as you were gonna”. By that we mean that many clients will say “as you were going to do this, why do you not look at the other and sort it to out too”, becoming, at times, a never-ending process. This is especially commonplace in the Public Sector Administration, often due to the fact that the process of expanding contracts or new projects is complex. You have to know when to apply the brakes, whilst still providing the required service. I have said before on numerous occasions that the art of consultancy includes technique (product) and service.

▪   A team is formed to perform the project and, at the end, the Project Leader or main expert ends up on their own. This has happened to me many times when I was have been contracted for a project by other companies. Generally, consultancy is, as I have said many times, a passionate and creative job, though always tough.

I am a Civil Engineer graduating in the days when it took 6 years to complete although most students needed 8 as it was such hard going.You had to put the hours in with your studies; there was no other way. Still, we all found time for the odd game of “Mus”, a card game in which without them (in other words, bad cards), just like poker, you could still win. But never bet money, just your pride and maybe the occasional beer

A brief one today. I shall write no more, but you can read the entire article I had published in the Highways Magazine edited by the Spanish Highways Association  in 2005. In this article, I illustrate the links between consultancy and “Mus”.

Why not take a seat at the table and send me your comments about a do-or-die move that you played in your professional life. Do you hold your cards close to your chest? Or are you more daring?

Happy New Year for 2014