CONSULTING DEMONS
Inside the Unscrupulous World of Global Corporate Consulting
"What is a Management Consultant?" the prized MBA candidate asked.
"The best of us - and that could be you - know without ever needing to ask. We're a breed apart," the consultant observed, arrogance and irony in perfect balance.
"Okay, so that could be me, but what does that mean?" the MBA persisted.
"Of course there's money involved," the consultant offered. "Great deals of money. World travel, first-class living. A chance to influence every corporation on the planet. Virtually no limits to whatever secrets and appetites you feel you need to indulge".
"Yes, but what is it that we do?" the recruit tried one last time, his doubts rapidly evaporating.
"You'll see"
In this book Lewis Pinault takes a humorous and insightful look at the world of management consultants in this no-holds-barred view of the business.
· For aspiring consultants, this is an unvarnished look at the life of a consultant, with essential, darkly revealing guidelines on how to get ahead and an enlightening perspective on the brutal infighting that can engulf even the most civilized consulting firm.
· For current executives and potential clients, Pinault reveals what consultants are really thinking and scheming, and explores the unscrupulous lengths to which a consulting firm will go in order to protect and increase its own lucrative fees.
· For the general reader, this is a rollicking yarn brimming with vignettes drawn from a consultant's daily work, including such characteristic consulting activities as "benchmarking" (deep-cover corporate espionage), "business transformation" (mass brainwashing), and "client entertainment" (global debauchery)
ISBN 0-471-496-197
JOHN WILEY & SONS, LTD
Chichester New York Weinheim Brisbane Singapore Toronto
Rezensionen / Stimmen
McKrull & Company
Lewis Pinault, der Autor dieses Buches, wollte nie Unternehmensberater werden. Er wurde es trotzdem und brachte es in dieser Zeit bis zum Partner einer fuehrenden Beraturngsfirma in Hongkong. Pinaults Karriere und seiner Faehigkeit zur Selbstreflexion verdanken wir einen spannenden Insider-Report aus der Beratungsbranche. In rund 20 Szenebildern schildert Pinault seinen Aufstieg und dessen jaehes Ende. Eine Autobiografie, die sich ueber weite Stecken liest wie eine moderne Fassung des Hochstaplermaerchens "Felix Krull".
... Stilsicher schildert Pinault typische Szenen aus dem Berateralltag: Dienstbesprechungen, Kundenpraesentationen, Barbesuche im Kollegenkreis, Versagen im Privatleben (Pinault bringt es auf zwei gescheiterte Ehen). Diese Passagen werden umrahmt von sachlichen Abhandlungen ueber den Wandel der Consulting-Branche in den Jahren 1982-1997 und von Handlungsanweisungen fuer eine erfolgreiche Beratungstaetigkeit.
Den Wechsel zwischen seinen drei Erzaehlformen - amuesante Anekdote, praezise Analyse, konkreter Lehrsatz - beherrscht Pinault perfekt. Sollte diese Faehigkeit womoeglich seinen Erfolg als Unternehmensberater ausgemacht haben?
Fazit: Ein mit schwarzem Humor gewuerzter Blick hinter die Kulissen der Consulting-Industrie. Eine spannende Lektuere fuer jeden, der beruflich mit Beratern zu tun hat oder in dieser Branche arbeiten moechte.
Manager Magazin 05/2001, S. 260
Produkt-Info
Auflage
Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Maße
Höhe: 23.7 cm
Breite: 15.6 cm
Dicke: 1.8 cm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-471-49619-9 (9780471496199)
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Lewis Pinault spent more than a decade rising through the ranks of management consulting's most esteemed players, including the Boston Consulting Group in the U.S. and Japan, Gemini Consulting throughout Europe and Asia, and Coopers and Lybrand, where he became a Financial Institutions partner in Hong Kong, before leaving it all behind to pursue his first passion- International Space Law and Planetary Geosciences-at the University of Hawaii where he now works with both NASA and the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs.
Chp1: Consulting and Me. Chp2: The Recruiting Machine. Chp 3: Consulting Spycraft. Chp 4: The Client-Consultant Mix. Chp 5: The Hierarchy of Fear. Chp 6: Big Time Consulting. Chp 7: Business Prop Wash. Chp 8: The Clock Face Sales Interview. Chp 9: The Consultant's Office and Other Myths. Chp 10: Deferred Living. Chp 11: The Great Centurion. Chp 12: The Professions at Bay. Chp 13: Zirconium Proposals. Chp 14: Colonizing Consulting. Chp 15: Epilogue: Strangers in a Strange Land.
Tracts on Consulting Demonology
1. Consulting Company Covens
2. The Alchemy of Getting a (Good) Offer from a leading Consulting Company
3. Client Beware: Consultants' Spycraft Charms
4. Consulting Sorcery for Co-opting Client Team-mates
5. How Consultants Divine a Fracturing Engagement
6. Client Be Damned: How Consulting Companies Bedevil Each Other.
7. Strategic Intent, Core Competence, or the Incantation of Your Choice: Process Facilitation Techniques for the Cascading of Billings.
8. Red Spots and Other Runes Consultants Use to Close on Large Fees.
9. What Your Consultant's Office is Trying to Charm You to Believe and What's Really There to See.
10. Demon Hosts of the Consulting Life: Pain-Management Archetypes.
11. Rites and Rituals for Becoming a Guru in the Giant Engagement Game.
12. Client Beware: Consulting Spells for Triggering Global Professional Services Sales.
13. The Consulting Book of the Dead: How to Read and Price a Consulting Proposal.
14. Modern Magic for Surviving the Consulting Storm.
