The Practice of Professional Consulting



Defining a Team

Many consulting firms proudly advertise to clients that teamwork is one of their core values, but the same firms often drive internal performance with financial reward systems tied directly to individual application rates, revenue generation, and individual performance—not to teamwork. Also, by their very nature, consultants are knowledge-workers who like to work independently, may dislike group work, and are often (contrary to their self-perception) competitive rather than collaborative. Faced with this reality, project leaders may have to work that much harder to build a team. It helps if project leaders have a rudimentary knowledge of group psychology and strong skills in managing people. At the same time, ...