You can increase your problem-solving skills by honing your question-asking ability. Michael J. Gelb We live in the world our questions create. David Cooperrider To a man with only a hammer... To a man with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. This is especially true for the way we ask questions. I believe in the power of asking questions. However, often I find myself jumping to solution mode too quickly, before properly defining the problem and understanding the real issue that needs to be solved. I am blinded by my experience, my training and my expertise.  Don't misunderstand me! There is nothing wrong with having experience and expertise. On the contrary! But you need to know when to use it: once the issue has been properly framed by having asked the right questions.  What makes asking questions very tricky is how based on your personality and experience you are predisposed to asking certain questions, while almost always missing the

Do you feel like you are juggling too many balls in the air? Are you on target with your goals? How do you prioritize?  Prioritizing is hard. I sometimes find myself with far too many goals competing for my attention. Some of these are professional targets such as completing certain projects, finishing a report on a topic, progressing in my career, developing myself and getting ready for the next opportunity. Then I also have personal goals like working down my reading backlog, organizing a special holiday, achieving sports targets that require serious preparation, goals related to my hobbies or things that I need to get done at home such as fixing something in the house or finding a craftsman who will. I find this simple exercise very helpful. It helps me rank my priorities and to develop strategies to best achieve success. To get the most out of this article, I recommend you follow along. Grab 8 post-its and an empty sheet of p

Succeeding as a Management Consultant by Kris Safarova Rating: 8/10 The book takes the reader through a Strategy and Operations Management consulting case study explaining key steps of the engagement and the tools used at each step. The narrative follows the format of a story about an assignment at Goldy, a large mining corporation in Brazil. The story introduces key concepts such as building a financial model, developing a storyboard, building an issue tree, managing stakeholders, defining the workstream charter, etc. This summary will cover the core steps of a consulting engagement and the key tools discussed in the book, but will omit the many additional best practices, template examples, and other advices also covered. These include discussion of consulting ethics, stakeholder management, communicating change, and service strategy just to name a few.  Memorable quotes  Unless you have left money on the table without hesitation

Why 37.8 matters Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. Calvin Coolidge We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle If you've read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams you might be tempted to think 37.8 is somehow derived from the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything". Indeed 37.8 is 90% of 42, where 42 is the answer to the ultimate question according to Deep Thought, the enormous supercomputer that calculated this answer over a period of 7.5 million years. While being so closely linked to the answer to the ultimate question alone would be reason enough to treat 37.8 with special respect, the