On 13th February we held one of our regular professional/personal/business development workshops at 3Mile. Hosted by the fantastic Iain Matheson, it was small but perfectly formed – and this blog post has been written to make sure that the nuggets are not lost!
As per the comments from one (of the three!) participants (more feedback from Andy on our meetup page);
Our group today was quite small — three of us were there. But I thoroughly enjoyed that — we were able to have a rapport-building fireside chat about Management Consulting, and make genuine contact. I felt I got to know two local Management Consultants well enough to be able to spot opportunities for them and to be aware of our congruences. I’m keenly aware of the limitations inherent with being a one-man band, and delighted to learn there are others like me “out there” in the Wairarapa.
So yes, you missed out! But, while you’ll never get the gold EXACTLY again – here’s Iain’s notes for your reading, learning and professional development pleasure. We know there’s heaps of management consultants out there so feel free to spread the word.
1: Attached is an electronic copy of my professional development framework that we discussed.
NZ Guide for Aspiring Certified Management Consultants (1st edition) which I authored for IMCNZ in 2017
https://www.imcnz.org.nz/copy-of-body-of-knowledge (2nd edition coming later this year). Includes a range of material including info on:
· The International Council of Management Consulting Institute’s competence framework;
· Low or no cost professional development resources e.g. management consulting books, articles, websites, blogs, and podcasts;
· Overseas and online professional development programmes; and
· New Zealand professional development programmes and support.
2: The management consulting competences assessment tool co-developed by IMCNZ that I talked about (free), where you can assess yourself against others in the world, is at www.assessmyconsulting.com
3: I also recommended Gallop’s Clifton Strengths assessment (aka StrengthsFinder), to identify and build on your strengths (their primary premise is that this is more productive and that you should either worry less about, or be more accepting of, your weaknesses).
I believe about 20m people have taken this assessment to date and it basically ranks their 34 Strengths for you. As each of the 34 has an identified domain (Strategy Thinking, Influencing, Relationship Building, and Executing), I also find it useful to look at how the domains as spread across the 34 and to pay attention to the strengths in my weaker domains and build on these too as these changes tend to stick better).
The website, and the materials that you get with the assessment are pretty comprehensive, so while you can get coaching on this and help with the interpretation, doing it yourself on the website will be fine for most people (US99.99) at https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/
4: Finally, the Institute of Management Consultants NZ has regular meetings and events in both Wellington and Auckland. We do have a few Wairarapa members, and with a few more the establishment of a Wairarapa chapter could be a definite possibility. However, we’d need more that 3 people to turn up to an event!!. Their website (currently being redeveloped but should have most information that people will need) is at http://www.imcnz.org.nz/ and the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (CMC-Global) is at https://www.cmc-global.org
If I have missed anything, or you need something else, please let me know.
Best Wishes
Iain
Dr Iain Matheson, Principal Consultant/Researcher, Matheson Associates Limited, Director, Research Centre for Better Outcomes from Fostering and Residential Care, Adjunct Lecturer in Evaluation Research, Massey University School of People, Environment, and Planning
Skype: mathesoniain Twitter: mathesoniain1