Tiffany Pham is a mogul, and she wants you to be a mogul too. Tiffany is the Founder and CEO of Mogul, a platform reaching 18 million women per week – users can read trending content, take courses, solicit advice from other members, find job opportunities. Visit onmogul.com Mogul organizes an annual conference called Mogul X, billed as the modern millennial classroom, and the next one is this Saturday, September 8 in New York City – topics include Finding your mentor, finding your purpose, Build...
Sep 04, 2018•42 min
Our guest today is Umbrex member and Booz alum Wissam Kahi, who’s been a close friend of mine since we sat together in the same cluster at Columbia Business School. In parallel with running his successful consulting practice, Wissam, together with his sister, has started an amazing social enterprise called Eat Offbeat. https://eatoffbeat.com/ Eat Offbeat delivers authentic and home-style ethnic meals that are conceived, prepared and delivered by refugees resettled in NYC. Eat Offbeat was the rec...
Sep 03, 2018•32 min
Nayla Bahri is a former Dean of Students at Columbia Business School who has a PhD in Adult Learning and Leadership. Nayla interviewed professionals who lost their jobs during the Great Recession, and studied their future trajectory. After that setback, some truly flourished, and ended up far better off than before they got fired. Some managed to get back to a similar role and their career plateaued. Some got derailed and didn’t really recover. Nayla sought to identify the factors that different...
Aug 27, 2018•53 min
Louis Hyman is McKinsey alum and Associate Professor of Economic History at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. In this episode we talk about his new book: Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary. The gig economy is not a new phenomenon – this book explores how we got to where we are today. It weaves together the stories of Manpower,Inc. McKinsey & Co., the Bracero program that legally brought seasonal farm laborers ...
Aug 21, 2018•43 min
Chara McGill runs The RMG Group, what has traditionally been called a bookkeeping firm, with about 20 employees based in New York City. Chara suggests a different term for the work her firm does instead of bookkeeping – she calls it “internal accounting operations,” since the work goes well beyond the traditional bookkeeping tasks of general ledger entries. In this episode, Chara shares her advice for independent professionals on how to do the bookkeeping yourself, the signs that it may be time ...
Aug 20, 2018•51 min
Our guest today is Dirk Hanschur, the CEO of Log-hub, a firm that has created a range of supply chain analytics tools that work as Add-ons to Microsoft Excel. In this Episode, Dirk explains a selection of these apps which include geo-coding, distance calculator, live tracking, shortest path calculator, milk run optimization, and more. Log-hub is happy to partner with independent consultants, who can become authorized resellers of the software. A link to their website is in the show notes. https:...
Aug 12, 2018•59 min
To bring her whole self to the game, the business athlete Stays physically fit, flexibility, strength, cardiovascular fitness – because in long days at work, physical fitness supports mental alertness She insists on getting enough sleep She practices some form of mindfulness, to remain centered in the midst of inevitable crises She finds a coach who will help her keep improving her game through deliberate practice She puts time into mastering the basics until they become automatic - She studies ...
Aug 08, 2018•4 min
In which the Engineer Officer told me that he expected me to get out of the wardroom and put my eyeballs on the jobsite. The lesson has carried over to my consulting career.
Aug 07, 2018•6 min
Nick Craig is the author of Leading from Purpose: Clarity and the Confidence to Act When It Matters Most, published in June 2018. Since 2006, Nick’s firm, Core Leadership Institute, has helped more than 10,000 leaders discover and lead from purpose. In this episode, Nick shares his perspective on: What purpose is How to discover your purpose The benefits of leading from purpose While his firm primarily leads private workshops within organizations, they do have two workshops coming up that are op...
Aug 06, 2018•51 min
Certain evolutions on a submarine require the Commanding Officer's approval. This short episode is what I learned from asking permission. The same principles can be applied in any corporate environment.
Aug 05, 2018•9 min
The day I reported to my submarine, I was given a stack of qual cards, one of the best training technologies ever. Do you want new hires to get up to speed quickly? Then consider giving them a qual card so they can take charge of their own learning.
Aug 04, 2018•9 min
As a young ensign newly reported to my submarine, I handed the Engineer Officer a draft that didn't meet his standards. This short episode is the story of when I learned about the concept of completed staff work.
Aug 03, 2018•9 min
Every independent professional needs to determine his or her internal billing rate, that is, what is your time worth to you, in dollars. Most independent professionals I've met have not thought this through, and this leads them to spend time on low-value activities that should be outsourced.
Aug 02, 2018•8 min
I recently received an email with the subject line: BS Questions. Hmm - not very professional, I thought. This short episode provides some thoughts on abbreviations, and one thing I do with abbreviations at the beginning of every study.
Aug 01, 2018•5 min
I’ve been working on eliminating decisions from my life wherever possible and replacing decisions with habits and routines. One area in particular that I’ve focused on for the past few years is my morning routine. I’ve tried adding and removing elements to see what works best for me. In this episode, I share the current version of my morning routine, which helps me win the day. I don't suggest you adopt my routine, but I do encourage you to find a routine that works for you. A book on the topic ...
Jul 31, 2018•10 min
Yify Zhang, a McKinsey alum, is also a singer - songwriter - violinist. In this episode, Yify shares how she combines her music with a career as an independent consultant. Do visit Yify's website, where you can stream all her songs, watch her music videos, and find out the dates of her upcoming live performances: http://www.yifyzhang.com/
Jul 30, 2018•45 min
McKinsey taught me this framework - the four conditions that are required to drive behavior change: 1) Understanding and commitment 2) Skills 3) Role modeling 4) Formal mechanisms This short episode gives an overview with an example of how to apply the framework.
Jul 29, 2018•6 min
This is a story about the actual wedding photographer who took the pictures at my wedding, Drew, and his fictional doppelgänger, Drew Prime.
Jul 28, 2018•7 min
Thirty years ago I stood at attention and, multiple times per day over the course of ten days, shouted "This midshipman has no excuse, sir!" What I learned from this experience at orientation before starting ROTC has proved to be a valuable lifelong lesson in extreme ownership.
Jul 27, 2018•4 min
Ready, Set, Go! is a great way to start a footrace. For any artistic or entrepreneurial project, not so much. When you have a new project in mind, there is no Ready. There is only Go.
Jul 26, 2018•3 min
Asking questions with the mind of a child can yield new insights. Here's a short episode on what a friend learned when his daughter asked a doorman why the soles of his shoes are so thick.
Jul 25, 2018•3 min
You wouldn't hire a plumber who isn't comfortable using a wrench, or a lumberjack who can't handle a chainsaw. A professional needs to master the tools of the trade. For independent consultants, a fundamental tool is Excel. For most, it isn't necessary to program in Visual Basic or write macros, but it is essential to master all the basic tools, including, for example, pivot tables, vlookups, if functions, date functions. In this short episode, I share some suggestions on how to sharpen your Exc...
Jul 24, 2018•16 min
Per Sjofors runs a firm called Sales for Profit – they have developed survey tools to measure a customer’s willingness to pay, and the help their clients determine what marketing method is most effective in their market which advertising targets the company should focus on which product features drive the highest willingness to buy and the optimum price of a given product or service In this episode, Per gives an overview of his firm’s methodology and how they work with clients. One thing Per tol...
Jul 23, 2018•36 min
Are you thinking about transitioning to independent consulting? This episode provides eight steps you can take now to set yourself up for success when you officially launch your own practice.
Jul 22, 2018•9 min
Interviewing experts can be one of the most powerful sources of insight when learning about a company or a market. This short episode has 11 tips that I've developed to help get the deepest insights from these interactions.
Jul 21, 2018•11 min
Many of us stick with the 2-3 influence techniques that we are most comfortable with. Mastering the full range of 10 ethical influence techniques is a superpower. In this short episode I briefly describe each technique. My introduction to this range of techniques came during Initial Leadership Workshop at McKinsey, and I draw directly on a slim booklet that McKinsey provided called Interpersonal and Interactive Skills. That book isn't published publicly, but the author is Terry Bacon and he cove...
Jul 20, 2018•13 min
Scheduling meetings over email is time consuming - I've spent more time scheduling a call than actually having the call. Last fall I found a solution: Calendly. In this short episode I share the basics of the tool. Check out the tool at: https://calendly.com/
Jul 19, 2018•7 min
Yogi Berra said: "If you don't know where you're going, you might not get there." I like to step back and reflect about once a year and write down all my goals. In this short episode I describe how I approach this exercise, suggest a few variations, and the benefits I've seen. Would love to hear your thoughts, and any questions you'd like answered on the show.
Jul 18, 2018•8 min
Chad Oakley is the CEO of Charles Aris, an executive search firm based in North Carolina. One of the firm’s practice areas is Strategy & Corporate Development – and they’ve completed nearly 600 searches in that space. Charles Aris publishes an annual strategy consulting compensation study which is available free on their website. So Chad is one of the most knowledgeable people in the U.S. about the market demand for alums of McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and other top consulting firms. In this episod...
Jul 16, 2018•49 min
Our guest today is Umbrex member Kevin Nedd. Kevin is a McKinsey alum and independent consultant who focuses on running Project Management Offices, or PMOs. In our discussion, Kevin provides his perspective on when a company should set up a PMO, including examples of PMOs that Kevin has led the day to day work of running a PMO the tool kit used by a PMO, including templates and processes effective progress reviews PMO maturity levels We also discuss Kevin’s service as a township committeeman and...
Jul 09, 2018•44 min
