Important Consulting Guy

Creator of the SWOT analysis & Big 4 consultant

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

A client asked me what I actually do today.

Most consultants would get defensive. I got curious.

The best clients ask hard questions, and a question that hard tells me they’re ready for a deeper level of engagement.

So I didn’t answer right away. Answering right away is what amateurs do.

Instead, I proposed a 2 week discovery phase to properly scope what I do, align on a shared definition of “do,” and pressure-test whether “actually” is the right framing.

They declined and asked me to wrap up by Friday. I’m reading that as urgency, which is a great sign for phase 2.

The deck is 41 slides so far.

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

People keep asking what I actually do.

Fair. Here it is:

You know what time it is.

I borrow your watch.

I tell you the time.

I tell you the time again, as a bar chart.

I benchmark your time against your competitors’ times.

I flag your watch as a single point of failure.

I recommend you lay off the watch.

I’m the watch now.

You’ll still need to check the time yourself.

Because that’s implementation.

I don’t do implementation.

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

how i sleep after recommending my client lay off 20% of their staff

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

Finding: your engineers are slow because they’re in too many meetings

Recommended next step: a weekly sync to track meeting reduction

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

Delivered a 90-slide deck today to a Fortune 500 company today.

Slide 1: The problem.
Slide 4: The problem, as a pyramid.
Slide 11: A quote from one of their engineers, attributed to “industry research.”
Slide 23: A 2x2. Everything is in the top right. I don’t know what the axes are but top right is good.
Slide 40: A picture of a mountain with the word "Leadership" over it.
Slide 58: The problem, benchmarked against other companies with the problem.
Slide 71: Risks. The biggest risk is skipping slide 72.
Slide 72: Phase 2.
Slide 90: The problem agin, with a gradient.

The CEO said “this is a lot.”

Yeah, a lot of value.

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

Set my out of office for a long weekend.

It's a 9 slide PDF. Contacts, coverage plan, open decisions, a timeline for my return.

The client's project lead replied to it.

"Have a great trip. This is the clearest thing you've sent us."

Her boss replied all. "Can we get the final readout in this format?"

They've asked if I can be out of office more.

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

An engineer solved the problem I was hired for in a 2-line Slack message, so naturally I had to stop her.

She suggests they just delete the duplicate service.

It would work.

That’s what scares me.

A solution with no workshop is a solution with no owner, and a solution with no owner might as well be mine.

I reply “love this, let’s take it offline,” which means I’m taking it.

I book a 90-minute alignment session to pressure-test her idea and invite 14 people.

Not her. She’s busy, probably solving things.

By the end the room agrees the service should be deleted, pending a steering committee.

I am the steering committee.

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

consultants after suggesting the client can increase profits by lowering expenses (headcount)

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

Delivered a 90-slide deck today.

Slide 1: the problem.

Slides 2 to 89: proof I listened.

Slide 90: the problem, with a gradient.

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

@BoringBiz_ yeah but AI can't stand confidently in a grey conference room and tell the client with a straight face that profits will go up if they reduce expenses (through headcount reduction)

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

@WSJ the interviewees will be overqualified because clients are definitely dumber than an AI avatar

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

its time to get this money

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

Consulting is borrowing someone’s watch, telling them the time, then recommending they lay off the watch.

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

@McKinsey "technology creates value only when organizations change how work gets done"

I'm going to put this in 90pt font on my next client deck

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

Opened a workshop with an icebreaker. Two truths and a lie.

I went first.

I've run 200 workshops.

I've built 2,800 slides.

I've changed a company.

The whole room guessed the last one was the lie.

Unanimous. First time a room has ever agreed with me.

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

Last month I reorganized a 1,200 person company. The new org chart went out on a Friday, and 3 layers of management became 7.

Monday morning a guy from accounts payable came by my desk and asked who his manager was.

I told him he doesn't report to a person anymore, he reports into a capability. Finance Excellence.

He asked who approves his time off, then.

I said that sits in phase two, once the capability leads are named.

He asked who names them.

I said that's also phase two.

He nodded and went back to his desk. That was 3 weeks ago and he hasn't asked since.

The whole floor has gone quiet.

I've written that up as "reduced organizational noise."

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

A VP I worked with for 6 months wrote me a LinkedIn recommendation.

One sentence.

"Reed was at every meeting."

I asked him to endorse me for "Meetings."

He did it in under a minute.

Fastest he's ever replied to me.

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

@BoringBiz_

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

The client asked for a quick sync. 15 minutes. She had one question: do we renew the software vendor or not.

I prepared 6 slides.

By midnight it was 18.

By 7 AM it was 31.

Slide 1 was the agenda. Slide 2 was why we need an agenda.

At 2:00 she joined and said, "I just need a yes or no."

I said we'd get there.

At 2:06 we were on slide 3, the history of the vendor.

She asked if that meant yes.

I said it depends how we define yes.

At 2:13 she said she had a hard stop.

I said that's a natural place to pause.

She renewed it that afternoon on her own.

We've booked a follow-up for slides 4 to 31.

[Important Consulting Guy @ReedDeckard]

Spent 2 weeks building a stakeholder map for a 3,000 person company.

60 names. 4 colors. Lines everywhere.

Every decision I traced went through the same person.

Linda. Executive assistant to the CEO. 31 years.

I moved her to the center of the map.

The CEO is in the bottom corner now.

He signed off on it.

Linda told him to.