People who have been trained to think like management consultants have one thing in common: They are all Miserable.
SWOT analyses and MECE (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive) charts have one primary use case: Large companies pay for them in order to justify potentially controversial decisions.
That doesn’t mean they lead to good decisions or are satisfactory roadmaps in any sense. The reality is they are 2D cartography of a 3D world that help risk-averse decision makers avoid the scrutiny of Monday Morning Quarterbacks higher up on the corporate chain.
But one side effect of spending 12 hours per day creating these charts is that you start to believe your own bs.
Management consultants view data the way lawyers view evidence: What it tells you doesn’t matter. What it can justify or defend is all that matters.
Management consultants are trained to create “air tight” cases to defend real world decisions, which by definition cannot always or only be defended by logic or available data.
Every risk cannot actually be identified. Those who think they can will live with some form of PTSD. Opportunities cannot all be assessed by CAGR forecasts. Those who think they can will miss out on 100x seismic shifts.
Management consultants don’t actually know how to *think*. They know how to identify land mines that their patrons can get in trouble for overlooking. Their entire lives have been spent in avoidance of loss, which cannot ever be confused with the approach that is required to successfully pursue victory.
If this describes your mindset and you’re finally ready to require your mind to reduce anxiety and achieve your potential, let’s chat!