Stuck between mediocrity and excellence

There is an entirely different world in management consulting that I'm being exposed to and it's what I'll call, big "S". It's a world made up of surrogates (like the Bruce Willis movie) that require very little sleep and run on pure octane. It's a world where pictures of 2 x 2's, concentric circles, and numbers all jumble together to make a work of art that Andy Warhol could admire. It's a world so full of flash and information load- you have absolutely no choice but to get sucked in. Lead times are in nanoseconds and deadlines appear like ninja assassins. They aren't there when the lights are on, but when the lights go down, they'll instantly appear and kill you. Unfortunately for me, I'm one that represents what I'll call little "o." We are simple human beings that believe in practical approaches and take into account human emotional intelligence. We communicate in a simple manner with no more than six bullets and m...

Being successful in a large professional services firm can require a sip or two from the Kool-Aid pitcher. You need to believe in the messaging. Believe that you have a career path. Believe that at the end of the day, there is no where else that you would rather be. However, if you stay at a firm long enough, there are some things that come across the radar that make you question everything. If you are like me and are one of the few to not contribute to the high turnover percentage in management consulting, those questions start to pop up more often than not. Over the past two weeks, I've been getting a healthy dose of our firm's recruiting messaging and goals over the next few years to "dominate the world"... OK. Maybe I'm being overly dramatic, but I have the right to interpret a data point or two the way that I want. As a management consultant, the natural tendency is to challenge everything. But sometimes there are things that are so utterly ridiculous, tha...