I recently ran into a short video by the New South Wales government which does a great job of introducing the notion of behavioral insights and application in the governmental space. Although still early, behavioral insights and the application of behavioral economics principles have been going global in the public policy space.

Over the past few years, I have been involved with a number of projects that utilize behavioral economics principles to improve outcomes or change people’s behavior. Since this blog has a long history covering management consulting, I thought I would share some thoughts on integrating behavioral economics into the practice of consulting.

Over the years, I have had to opportunity to manage different groups and perhaps more importantly observe how different managers and consultants face obstacles. Often these techniques for addressing obstacles are passed down through mentorship or peer exchanges, and as such, these techniques are less documented. Here are some of the techniques that come to mind and are especially more common in entrepreneurial or intrapreneurial situations:

On this Father’s Day, I wanted to give a short tribute to my dad, and reflect on his professional influence on me. My father is a great man. He received an education in electrical engineering, served in the U.S. Army, been involved in numerous industrial and technology companies around the world, started a number of entrepreneurial ventures, had two kids with my mom (myself and my brother), been successfully married for more than forty years, supported numerous workers and business partners, and managed to stay energized and reasonably healthy to date.

Although I’ve developed a number of blog posts addressing the practice of management consulting, I have spent little time tying things together into a framework of secret

In helping companies develop, tune-up, or reboot their professional services organizations, here are some example of complaints I’ve heard that reflect the need for change:

Got an idea from Dan Wallace (Twitter handle: @Ideafood) to write a manifesto (link to some other examples here). As many regular readers may know, I am pretty passionate about the practice of business and management consulting. Without further ado, here is a working draft of my management consulting manifesto:

Eventually projects with consultants come to an end. Similar to completion of a good run as an employee of a firm, feelings at the end of a consulting project can be bittersweet. For me, the sweetness of successfully completing a project feels great, while the end of the day-to-day, close working relationship with the client can make one reflect for a moment longer.

Over the years through consulting mentors, peers, and personal experience, I’ve learned of some tricks to making transitions smoother for both clients and consultants. Here are some:

When people think about consultants, they often think about those that work for companies like McKinsey, Accenture, Deloitte, etc. These are companies that are essentially independent from product vendors. However, there are a number of companies that provide consulting or professional services as part of product companies (e.g., companies like Cisco, Avaya, Nortel, Ericsson, IBM) that may sell things like hardware or software.

It’s a tale of Big Company and Small Company.

Big Company likes Small Company’s:

• focus and style
• entrepreneurial attitude and skills.

Small Company likes Big Company’s:

• scale of resources
• scope and number of customers.

Big Company hates thing like: