Listen to this and all the previous episodes.

Useful links:

• Information about Gate One
• Finance and consultancy sector
• Working in business, consulting and management
• Business, consulting and management job profiles

To hear more Management Consultancy and Leadership related podcast stories:

• Managing a university, Charlie Jeffery, Vice Chancellor, University of York
• Being a project manager, Laura Hallett, York St John
• Corporate Social Responsibility, Daniel Arda
• Tech consulting/project management, Vivien Chung
• Managing economic growth in York, Alex Dochery, York City Council
• Graduating in a global pandemic, Tom Banham , Director of Careers and Placements, UoY
• Getting on the L’Oreal Marketing graduate trainee scheme, Lewis McDowell, L’Oreal

Transcript:

Kate:

You’re listening to the ‘What Do You Actually Do?’ podcast. Each week we want to bring you an inspiring interview, a useful tip or encouraging message to help you find your place in the professional world. Hello and welcome to this episode of ‘What Do You Actually Do?’. My name is Kate Morris and I’ll be your host today. In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about leadership and management consultancy. Today we’re joined by Jo Auger, who’s a Management Consultant at specialist management consultancy firm Gate One. So Jo, what do you actually do? 

Jo:

Wow, straight in with the million dollar question, eh? You know what, 15 years in this job, I’m still not sure my parents understand what I do. So I’m going to do my best attempt at explaining it for you. I think, in summary, if I had to, in a nutshell, I would say that I help organisations transform. And if I think about what that actually, what I mean by that… If you think of any big company or public sector organisation, the leadership of those organisations, they basically have two jobs that they need to do. On the one hand they need to run the business so that it’s relevant for today. And then on the other hand, they need to change the business so that it maintains its relevance for the future for tomorrow. And whilst the people in the company might be really good at knowing how to run the business, you know – they know how to make cars, or sell clothes, or make policy. A lot of the time they won’t have actually experienced transformation or making changes, and therefore they don’t really know how to go about it. Or perhaps they’ve done it before and they’ve had a bad experience. Or they have been an employee in a firm that has managed change badly and they don’t want to impose that onto their staff. So actually, at that point, they would then bring in management consultants, who’s specialism is helping companies change.

Kate:

So, like, what are the actual key elements of that? Are you going in and you’re having to try and work out what does this company do, why do they need it to change, looking at various strategies for how they could change, and then presenting back like – Right, we think this is the best one. Are you sort of trying to convince them to take a certain sort of idea, or are they wanting to just – “Please tell me what to do, because we don’t know how to handle this.” How does it work in actual terms of tasks?

Jo:

Yeah, so normally what happens – the client will have an idea that they’ve got a problem somewhere. So, you know, there’s either an opportunity they want to exploit or a problem that they need to fix. And they’ll talk internally about whether they can do it themselves, they might think about whether they want to recruit somebody into a permanent role to help them. But they will get to a point in a lot of cases where they think – “Actually, you know, we need external help with this”. And to give you a flavour of the kind of problems, it might be that they want to put in a new piece of IT, they might want to restructure the firm, instead of having five business units, they’re going to consolidate into a smaller amount, but they’re not sure how many. It might be they want to launch a new product or launch into a new market. It might be that they’re going to merge with another company. It might be that they want to improve their customer experience. A whole host of different problems. So they normally have an idea that they want some consultancy support, and they will then engage the market in discussion about – “This is the kind of help that we think we need. Can you give us an idea of how you would take us through this journey from our hypotheses of what we’re trying to resolve to the delivery of the solution?”. You would then, you know, we would hopefully win the work, and then we would put in a team who would get into things like – well, actually, what is the problem that they’ve got. So let’s go and do focus interviews with their staff to find out and test the hypothesis. Let’s look at their data, let’s potentially design diagnostics that we need to do that are going to test things. Then let’s explore what we think the options are to fix these problems. So let’s have some design workshops, let’s understand what other companies in a similar industry or beyond are doing. Let’s kind of start to design what we think that the resolution is here. And then, assuming that they buy into one of those resolutions, then it’s about implementing it. So, yes, you know what, you thought you wanted to go from five to three – actually we’ve had a look and we think that it’s actually two. Now let’s go into reorganising the people into that new business unit model, for instance.

Kate:

So there’s a lot of research and exploring ideas, before you actually get down to making those changes and sort of doing the practical stuff.

Jo:

Yeah, and I think this is perhaps sometimes a bit of the criticism that’s levelled at management consultants – that we think we have the answer, and it doesn’t matter what the client says, we’re just going to come in and tell them what to do, because we know best and we’ve seen it all a thousand times before. But actually, really understanding the nuanced issues or opportunities that your client is facing, and getting underneath the skin of it, and yeah, and exploring what it is that they’re trying to fix, why that’s important to them, and then getting the evidence points to help shape your thinking as to what good looks like. Yeah, there is a large part of research and stakeholder engagement, speaking to people and finding out what they think – so a lot of that involved in the early days.

Kate:

It sounds like there’s a lot of kinds of meetings, both internally and these different focus groups, etc. How is your day different from normal now we’re in the midst of a kind of never-ending global pandemic?

Jo:

Well, it’s actually, I’m probably less impacted than a lot of other jobs. So as a consultant, you’re sort of sent off with your office in a backpack, because you spend the majority of your time on clients’ sites. So pre-pandemic, I would expect to be on clients’ sites three or four days a week, and then back in Gate One’s office one to two days a week. So actually, therefore, I was used to working in different environments, using technology, having my laptop, having my phone, being able to work on trains, planes, automobiles – all that good stuff. You know, I spent four years working in the Netherlands and I would commute each week, so I had all my kit that I needed. So actually, in some ways, this is quite nice, I don’t have any of that commute anymore. And I’m used to working with people online, so it’s not so much of a big change for me.

Kate:

Do you think that… Because there must be massive advantages – not just in terms of your own kind of energy levels, insanity, etc – but in terms of the environmental impact and the financial cost of all the travelling. Do you think that… Is there sort of a mood to maybe adopt more of this remote working moving forward? Or are people sort of planning on – “Well, once the situation’s under control, we’ll just get back to normal and we’ll be on the client’s site again?”.

Jo:

Yeah, it’s a great question. And I think, you know, the genie is out the bottle, it’s hard to put it back in. I think there probably has been a movement away in terms of – a lot of the time traditionally, clients wanted their consultants on site to make sure that they knew that it was their work that was being done, and that the consultants weren’t off doing other stuff and charging them. And I think that now clients are working from home and we’ve shown that we can still deliver value in this remote working, I think there’s probably been a movement from that, which would make it easier for us to do our work remotely. I think that being said though, there’s two things that perhaps aren’t as well suited to remote working. So one is, a lot of what we do is to build relationships, is to establish trust, get on with people, because they know their business, and whilst we know change, you need the marriage of the two, and that you need to unlock a lot of their knowledge and what they have. And I think that it can be harder to build those strong relationships with people you don’t know remotely. So I think there’s always going to be a need to have some kind of face to face presence. And similarly, a lot of the time what we’re dealing with can be quite sensitive or it can be quite strategic, there can be difficult messages. If you have to tell a senior person that the direction they’ve been going down for a long time perhaps isn’t the right way, that can be better in person. So I think it’s going to be more about working out when we need to be in person, and perhaps keeping those kinds of high value face to face things face to face. But then recognising that a lot can be done remotely.

Kate:

It is interesting how that kind of presentism that we were all sort of enforced to work under for so many years – it’s starting to lift now. People are starting to see – actually a lot of people have got a good work ethic and integrity, and are getting on with their work. They don’t need to just be visible doing that. You can kind of tell pretty quickly if someone’s not done what they’re supposed to be doing.

Jo:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s also nice for consultants, because you join a company, you know I work for Gate One. But then back pre-pandemic, you would spend the majority of your time on the client’s site. So actually, I do think there’s something important for us about coming back together as a firm, sharing knowledge, sharing insights, you know, kind of contributing to the culture of the firm you work for.

Kate:

So you said at the start that you’ve been doing this for 15 years now. What was your starting point? Where did your interest in management consultancy come from?

Jo:

I’m laughing because I really think I stumbled into this. So my degree is in politics, I had a third year in industry, which meant that I spent half the year working in the political office of Sky News and then the remaining half working for an MP. And I had an interesting year, I learnt a lot. Everybody was very nice to me, but I didn’t love it and I was surrounded by people that were really, really motivated and engaged about politics, it was all they could talk about at dinner parties. And I was like – oh my goodness, I don’t really fit into this camp, and I don’t think this is a career for me. And then my dad found an advert for a management consultancy graduate scheme. And I actually think I rocked up and I didn’t really know what I was applying for, in all honesty. And I then went through the assessments centre, still not really knowing. And I think that probably I spent my first two years in a bit of a… trying to get to grips with what this was, because I think management consultancy… Unless, you know a consultant, it’s not like – I know what a doctor is, I’ve been to a GP, I’ve been to a hospital. Or I know what a lawyer is because I read books and I see them in films. You know, unless you know about it, it can be harder to actually really understand what it is. So yes, I’d say I fell into it.

Kate:

It’s a funny one, isn’t it? It’s such an ambiguous term – management consultancy – and lots of people are like – Oh, yeah, it sounds really fancy. You’re a consultant, but it’s kind of what is it, what do they really do? It’s interesting that you did the grad scheme, but you kind of still were unsure about the, you know, what you would be doing in the job. I mean, would you say that… Because often employers are kind of – “Oh, you need to be very clear on your motivations and your skill set, and how it fits with what we’re looking for”. I mean, would you say that because management consultancy requires quite a broad skill set and they are looking for people who can, you know, build these relationships and problem solve – these kind of a lot of fairly generic graduate skills – is the way that you fell into it, because you had that broad skill set and they were able to say – Right, we can just mold you and train you to do the specific things that we need you to do. That was enough to sort of get you in, or would you say nowadays it’s more – you’ve really got to know about management consultancy and why you want to do it?

Jo:

No, my view is the former, which is: consultancy and management consultancy – it’s a broad church. So you have people who have been in industry for the bulk of their careers and then decide to come and have a change, and their knowledge is narrow, but deep in their particular area – I’ve worked in a contact centre for 20 years, and I’m now going to join a customer experience team specialising on how to improve contact lenses. So that’s one kind of breed of people. And then you have at the other end of that scale, you have people like me who, straight out of university, onto a graduate scheme, trained in how to be a management consultant, but not with a particular sector or capability specialism. And actually, what is really still my bread and butter, I suppose, even now to this day, more senior and 15 years in, is some of the attributes of what it takes to be able to work in different situations on different problems in sometimes pressurised environments. And so I was able to demonstrate – presumed I was able to demonstrate – those skills through that interview and assessment centre process. And I think then the comment about – “Oh, well, I didn’t really know what I was doing for two years” – is because in those two years I had such a variety of projects. And actually, you know, for the rest of my career that’s been true. I’ve been in lots of industries and lots of different companies, in lots of different departments, within different businesses. And so therefore, I sort of, when I was still in those early days, I thought that it was going to get to a point where I would start to specialise in a particular area. And you can do that – you can take your career into that even as a generalist graduate, you can say – “Yeah, you know what, I’m really passionate about retail and I love digital, and I really want to focus on trying to help retail organisations think about how they can establish and improve their online presence”. And you could try to shape your career down that path. For me, I’ve always enjoyed the change and the variety, and so I haven’t gone down that kind of specialist route. 

Kate:

Can you say a bit more about the specific skills, or sort of personality traits or qualities, that you think you need to have to be happy and successful working both in management consultancy, but in your role now you have a leadership role as well, you manage a team of other consultants. So what would you say are the key things you need to have if you want to build a career in this, and for it not to be… Because some people would be mega stressed by working in kind of environments where you’re dealing with a lot of change, as you say, you’re working under pressure. So what are the things that, if you want to kind of enjoy it and naturally feel like it’s a good fit, would you say you need to have?

Jo:

Yeah. And again, I think because it is this broad church, I think that there are different profiles. But talking of kind of probably what makes up the majority, I’ll stick to the kind of the more general stuff. So I think you absolutely have to be versatile. So you might end up, you know, you might start and do six months in a retailer, and then you might switch to a car manufacturer, and then you might go to a government department. Then you might go back to a retailer, but it’s a different type of retailer. And, you know, you can’t always control the projects that you are put forward for. It depends on what your company is selling, what the clients want, your availability vs. who else is available in the firm when a project comes available. So being versatile and being happy in an environment that is changing is absolutely one. Similarly – ambiguity. So you might end up in a situation whereby you have nothing more than an address and a client’s name, and kind of a role description, and off you go. And if the company that you work for is good, then absolutely you should have been prepped about what you’ve been sold to do and what’s going to happen. But the reality is, you can do all the prep that you want – until you’re actually in with the client, you don’t know exactly the circumstances that you’re going to be facing. And, of course, you know, from the client’s perspective, they’re paying not an insignificant amount of money for even junior resources. So you need to be able to be happy with ambiguity and confident that you can work through it, and keep that consultant guard up in front of the clients. I think you have to be a people person to some degree. You have to be able to get the most out of people, you have to enjoy people’s company. You know, if you think about what it feels like from a client’s perspective, a lot of the time the people that you’re working with, it’s probably their bosses that have decided you’re needed, and then they’re told that you’re coming in. They may not have worked with consultants before, they might be intimidated about are you judging them, you know, what your conclusion is going to mean for their job security. Or they might have had a bad experience with consultants, so sometimes there’s some kind of prejudice you have to work through. And even if there’s not, even if they’re kind of completely neutral or even positive – t he fact is that they have the knowledge that you need to unlock, because you need to combine that with the knowledge you bring to get to the right answer. So you need to be able to get that out of people. So I think, yeah, definitely kind of being a people person. And then the last one I would say is – we work on projects. So there’ll be scope for a certain amount of time. They’ll be, you know, in a lot of cases priced on that, the team will be put in, your deliverables that you have to produce in that time by certain dates will be predefined and you then have to deliver in line to that. And so therefore, that brings with it, there’s pros and cons to it. But it can mean that there’s pressurised deadlines. It can mean that you’re having to report risks and issues that are impacting those deadlines. It can be… I think it’s not for everybody, because each new project is the most important thing, or one of the most important things that an organisation is doing. So therefore you constantly need to be on your best foot forward. There’s perhaps less lulls than you might have in other jobs. 

Kate:

I guess that must keep it interesting, though. If there’s kind of, you know there’s a focus to what you’re doing and then it’s going to change again, rather than just chugging over for years and years doing the same thing.

Jo:

Absolutely. And I think it’s almost kind of addictive. I love – I almost sort of see it as – pitting myself against these big problems. And you go in and, yeah, you know, it’s going to be hard, but then you hopefully conquer. And the team that you’ve worked with, you’ve got this great camaraderie with them. And you learn so much as well, because you have such exposure to how different organisations run, how different managers manage, how firms structure things you work with. You know, what tends to happen is, if an organisation is investing in consultants, they’ll normally make sure that they put their good people into the team as well, because they want to get the value. So yeah, I love the variety and I love the learning. 

Kate:

I just imagined you with a sword and shield there, pitting yourself into management problems. So it sounds like you really enjoy it and you’re fascinated by it, even sort of after quite a few years in. What’s like the worst aspect of the role? What’s the thing you have to kind of, you just accept because of the good stuff?

Jo:

It’s a good question. So I think this isn’t my worst aspect. I think some people would say the travel, and we’ve touched on this on the remote working, but depending on where the client is, you can… I’ve been all over the country and a lot of Europe. For instance, I missed the London Olympics because I had to be away for that fortnight. I live in London, I was really excited by it, and I was in America. You know, I’ve missed a lot of friends’ birthday parties, because my train from Runcorn to London got delayed, and, you know, and I miss it. And personally I quite like to travel, not missing my friends’ birthday parties. But I was, you know, in my 20s, I was in a hotel, I didn’t have to make my bed, clean the house, see my flatmates too much, I got a budget for my dinner. So I always personally quite liked that. But I think if you have a hobby that you want to maintain and, you know, or you have to do, and there’s team elements of that, then I think.. Or, you know, if you are just more of a homebody. I think that can be hard. For me personally, the hardest thing is actually, although I said that I like this idea of I see myself as pitting myself against these big, hairy problems, there is also then a confidence issue that comes with that. So the downside of being comfortable with ambiguity is that I don’t know anybody that’s truly comfortable with ambiguity. It still makes you nervous and you’re still worried about whether, you know, a CIO or COO or the head of department of a big organisation is going to find you out. So I think that for me there are challenges around confidence – am I going to be good enough, am I going to be able to rise to this challenge, or is this the project that will be the one where I get found out. 

Kate:

So it’s the old imposter syndrome creeping in.

Jo:

Yes, exactly. 

Kate:

It’s so interesting how that affects all of us, regardless of what level of seniority and experience you have, it is just so annoying that it can still haunt you despite all your achievements.

Jo:

Absolutely, I agree. So, yeah, and I think what I find really reassuring about it is – the more we talk about it, and the more that you do hear other people that you respect who also have it, I think that takes away some of its power. This is what I tell myself. 

Kate:

You’re back on the sword and shield again. So for students kind of thinking about breaking into management consultancy, what would you say are the key challenges on the horizon? We’ve touched upon the fact that things might change because the remote working has opened up new possibilities. But it sounds like it’s likely to be more of a hybrid in reality. What are the key things that are facing the sector that would be useful for them to sort of start to research or reflect on a bit more?

Jo:

It’s a good question. And don’t Google it, because you’ll find loads of really scary things. And I think, you know, the good news is that management consultancy is, because by its nature it’s about change, it therefore suits itself to navigating changing circumstances. So I think it will, you know, always exist in some form or other. But in terms of the challenges, I think the rise of digital. So there’s kind of two elements to that. So there’s first of all, the part of our clients, a lot of the problems that our clients face increasingly have a digital component to them. The reality of the world that we live in now is the customers, users, they expect seamless multi-channel experiences and firms are under pressure to take cost out, and technology helps deliver both of those objectives. So I think having an understanding of technology, and I don’t mean by this that you need to be deep into coding, but just understanding and researching what are the trends in digital, what does that mean for firms, what’s happening with robotics and AI, big data, all these important things. I think getting an understanding of that, because if you choose this as a career, you’ll be operating in that space. And then the second part of that kind of digital piece is also – I don’t think consulting firms are immune from the need to digitise either. And therefore, if we think about what we are going to end up probably replacing in the future, it’s probably some of the things that can be done by computers. So the research, the analysis, that’s the stuff that I can imagine at some point will be less of a feature of our job. So I think kind of it’s something for the industry to think about in a human-driven sector, industry, how do we also digitise ourselves. So yeah, that’s two. And then I think there’s also something about – today if we look at younger employees and candidates, you know, there’s a lot about how people are looking for more meaning in their jobs and better work-life balance, and it’s about, you know, kind of there’s more of an element of giving back. And I wonder whether, I’m not sure management consultancy has a good reputation for that all for kind of work-life balance. So I think in a competition for the top talent, how do we continue to be getting good people and coming up with a proposition that speaks to them.

Kate:

That’s interesting. So it’s kind of changes that the industry might have to make to fit the candidates, rather than candidates having to change to fit the developing needs of the industry.

Jo:

Yeah, I think so.

Kate:

Have you got any sort of advice for people in terms of useful work experience? You know, is anything particularly – oh yeah, if you try to get more experience in this or that, that would stand out in an application, or that would be a good tester to see if you enjoy this type of work.

Jo:

It’s a bit of a difficult one. So I know some of the bigger firms, they do offer internships and apprenticeship type things. So I think that is something to look at if, you know, if you can get into it. But of course, there’s probably more people interested than spaces available. I think otherwise, getting work experience in the kind of organisations that buy management consultants is good. So by that I mean, you know, your local fish and chips shop, for instance, probably is not going to have the money or the interest in engaging management consultants. Whereas if you could be in a more corporate environment for a bigger company, then you’re probably going to be exposed to some of the issues that companies face and get an idea of the discussions, and what’s top of mind for them. So I think that that’s probably, you know, whether it’s in an HR department, finance department, marketing, tech – trying to perhaps get some exposure to that would be good, if you couldn’t get on to management consultancy directly.

Kate:

Brilliant! OK, well, for more information about the careers we’ve mentioned today, I’m going to add some relevant links to the show notes and a link to the full transcript of today’s show, and put some stuff about the work experience opportunities in there. But I just wanted to say, Jo, thank you so much for sharing your time with us today and agreeing to do this. I really appreciate it, it was really, really interesting.

Jo:

Thank you very much for having me.

Kate:

Thank you for joining us this week on ‘What Do You Actually Do?’. This episode was hosted by me, Kate Morris, edited by Stephen Furlong, and produced by both of us. If you love this podcast, spread the word and follow us. Are you eager to get more tips? Follow University of York Careers and Placements on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. All useful links are in this episode’s description. This has been produced at the University of York Careers and Placements. For more information visit york.ac.uk/careers