Consultants Books

I first read this book when Bill Halloran spoke at an inservice during my first year of teaching. I read it in a weekend and was truly inspired. The book gives short anecdotes about the life of a teacher which will inspire new teachers and make veteran teachers smile with understanding. I've made it part of my "summer reading list" every year of my teaching career and after ten readings I'm still inspired!

ReInventing Work: Innovative Strategies Relinking Life and Livelihood To Benefit Business and Staff
by Barbara Miller

This is essentially a 90-page workbook as a result of an action research initiative by Artemus Management Consultants, under the Ford Foundation, which therefore explains the high-price tag.

The central premise of this workbook is how to address work-life dilemmas from a business imperative.

From my standpoint, the workbook has been quite well-crafted, even though I have only enjoyed perusing the selected parts pertaining to change dynamics & paradigm pliancy. The related questionnaires are good, as they have been well thought of, too.

I fully concur with the authors: Understanding the dynamics of change helps you & others manage it more effectively.

Read this book if you are embarking on a change initiative in your organisation.

Once again Dr. Rosie Milligan has produced an interesting and useful book. As a writer I'm always looking for a new source to get the word out about my work. Listen to the doctor, it will be good for your career.

Kimberley Lindsay Wilson, author of 11 Things Mama Should Have Told You About Men.

Since this is a serial book,the author has certain contraints, one of them being the lenght of the book. This book has 2 great main charcters-Adam, who is the head of the CCC agency,which is a group of volunteers with varied skills who like to help solve crime, and his administrative assistant,Molly, who has hopes of being an investigator,not just Adams'assistant. Molly is a great character. She has had a hard life,but she is still sunny and optimistic. She knows that if it was not for Adam,whose pocket she tried to pick 7 years ago,she might be a lot worse off in life. Adam did not turn her in to the police,instead he gave her a chance by hiring her as his assistant. Adam is a retired Marine who likes things done by the book,and Molly,while organized and efficient,is much more about feelings. The story is about Molly trying to help an old friend by solving a string of robberies that soon escalate into something more sinister. It is also about Adam and Molly finding out after 7 years of working together that they are much more to each other than co-workers. It helps that they are both mature people -Molly is in her early thirties and Adam is in his early forties. This was a great book but if it were only longer,it would have been fantastic. The ending was too abrupt,as if the author had run out of room and had to tie up loose ends very fast. Also,some to the scenes could have been expanded and some of the characters-especialy the nasty Gloria,could have been more fleshed out. But the author did great with what she had to work with. A great book about two great charcters. As I said before-if it were only longer..................

This book is definitely a thriller, but not the kind most people will anticipate. It keeps the reader turning pages until the very end, but this isn't one of my favorite books. I'm not familiar with other books by William Badke, but I would recommend this book.

To get into the spirit of things, Dr. Goodman starts with a discussion of the lifestyle and credentials of consultants. The energetic and informative way he talks about it is contageous. He does not ignore the downside (every worthwhile venture has one) but he is enthusiastic in talking about all the advantages associated with the work.

From this initial foundation he goes on to talk about marketing one's skills is which perhaps the major challenge faced by consultants new to the enterprise. He offers a number of options on getting one's name known.

This is a book for serious, hands-on people who want to enter the field. For veterans it is a useful reference book. I recommend it highly.

This book was made for beginner or potential consultants. It follows step-by-step guidelines that are easy to comprehend. It has an excellent chapter on writing consulting proposals and includes a sample proposal format. There is a helpful chapter on setting fees and how to legally minimize paying taxes. I found the chapter on "Essentials of a valid contract" to be very useful, along with the outline of a sample contract. This book is a wonderful learning tool for any new consultant and a great reference guide for those already immersed in the business.

Thomas Wentworth is a name probably little known to most Americans but he was one of the most important personalities that served the crown during the reign of Charles I prior to the English Civil War. C.V. Wedgwood wrote this book as a revaluation of her earlier work when she didn't have the access to many of Wentworth's papers. What we have here now is a more balanced view of Wentworth's life and his contributions to history. To many, he was known in history as Earl of Strafford although he held his earldom title for less then a year before his death at the hand of a man whom he so ably served. Some movie goers will remembered that title from that movie "Cromwell" where he make a brief appearance.

The books read very easily and the author's writing skills proves to be superb. She can make the most mundane matter bit more interesting then it should be. The book appears to be well researched, you get a clear understanding of who Thomas Wentworth was and why he did what he did, as a ruthless servant of the crown and his desire for power and acknowledgement from his leige lord, Charles I. If he had survived to serve Charles I during the Civil War, he would have been a great service to him.

Overall, a great book about a little known political figure who had an impact on English history.

The word `Trust' really caught my attention. We are in a knowledge economy and that itself is based on Trust. The WKID pyramid indicates how we go from Data to Information to Knowledge and finally to Wisdom.

Knowledge is transmuted into Wisdom only when it is applied and yields sustainable results. Consulting as a successful business model is based on this single premise. Where trust comes in is to trust individuals enough to invest in them, coach them, and allow them to make smarter decisions to create value.

Personal and corporate lives are being more interwoven. Consulting projects are more multi-disciplinary and the changes that are being affected are more widespread in scope and scale. All of these require that there is trust between clients and consultants. The book however, points out the irony that the process of hiring consultants is becoming more mechanical in nature by methods such as, electronic auctions and blind bids.

The book introduces the concept of a Delivery Triangle: People, Process and Values and how consulting firms can build trustworthy relationships. Having empathy for the client and being able to demonstrate is key to a successful client relationship and smart consultants know this. A joint client-consulting team is an effective way of making the client feel like they are being respected and in contrast to solutions just being imposed on them.

The book emphasized that consulting is people oriented, the recruitment and retention policies have to be carefully evaluated to bring the right kind of people in. The employees have to feel engaged with the consulting firm.

Next, the process part of the equation is discussed. The consulting firm has to decide how it wants to be perceived in the market place: as a brand or a specialized firm. A strategic intent to specialize can be at the peril of foregoing short term revenues. The relationship building aspect cannot happen where procurement departments rely on electronic or standardized selection processes for awarding the work contracts. The danger here is of bringing in the wrong firm and making the consulting firm feel like a commodity. This might have ramifications on the client-firm relationship and the industry on the whole. This further highlights the issue of corporate trust. The sales structures that might work for one client or consulting firm might be very different from what would work for another one. Leading from this, account management has become a discipline unto itself.

The six incremental degrees of management thought leadership is a good way to look at how knowledge becomes wisdom and yields results. The six degrees as covered in the book are internal knowledge-sharing, recognition among colleagues, increased presence on short-lists, lead generation, differentiation, and agenda setting. It also gives people a clear structure and path to navigate in building trust and continuously focusing on the business aspects of consulting. Thought leadership is integrally linked to the culture of a consulting firm.

This book makes a fine point of a consulting project being successful when it is not just a consulting project. The treatment and engagement is of acute concern at both ends and success often hinges on this very soft moving target of a skill set.

A good example is when consulting firms come together and work on a complex project as a consortium. It is potential toxic situation but if managed well, it also can offer the highest rewards. Teamwork and an understanding of how the services can be offered as a bundle as opposed to standalone components greatly enhances the value proposition play for the consulting firms. There were good examples of consulting engagements that required innovative thinking. One of them was the London Eye's revenue generation.

On the whole, I would recommend this book to understand some real concerns that mire the image of consulting as a profession and possible ways to overcome these biases. It reinforced the idea that along with thought leadership, management consultants would do well to develop their social and human sides as well. It should definitely be given a reading by someone entering the consulting industry.

This "pocket reference" is one of the best available and is inexpensive, too. I bought several copies to have them around at the various computers...but they keep turning up missing because everyone takes them back to their desks...this is the most often "lost" publication I've ever bought next to SSCs C Library Reference! I highly recommend this for all but the most guru vi-er...and a definite requirement for every aspiring vi learner. Oh yeah...be sure to tie a rope around it if you want to hang on to it at the office :)