Nicolas Neysen: "Acting with speed means more than moving fast"

What are the main objectives of the "Management Consulting" course? How long have you been teaching it?

At SHU Luxembourg, I’m teaching this course for three years now. I give the same course at EDHEC business school, in Lille. The course has two main objectives. On the one hand, it’s about understanding how the consulting industry is structured, discovering the underlying business model, which means analyzing the mechanism through which value is created. On the other hand, the goal is to share basic consulting tools and techniques, like how to address a new issue, how to mobilize resources in an optimal way, how to design different solution scenarios, how to organize the project, etc. Most of the MBA students following this course have experience in working with consultants, or at least they see them at work in their own organization. So, it’s really interesting to discuss those situations by stepping back and taking the time to reflect on the consultant-client interaction.

What are the main practical examples you will share and use with the students?

Instead of relying on a fake case study, I prefer referring to real situations I’ve been confronted to in the past. Also, on the Internet, one can easily find requests for proposals (RFP) which often provide a good starting point to make students think about a specific issue. Last year, for instance, I used a UNESCO RFP that was describing the need for an assessment study on the impact of deforestation in Indonesia. Although students are not experts in this domain (I’m not either), we tried to build a consistent proposal on how we understood the situation, how we would typically address the challenge, making of course assumptions on the kind of data that would be required, the competences that were missing, etc. During the last session, we organize a role play. While some students pitch and defend their proposal, others play the role of the client, trying to challenge the consultants as much as possible. Students usually enjoy quite a lot that part of the course!

How would you describe "Management Consulting" and how will/does it help students in their professional life?

For me, management consulting means above all helping someone else in solving out a problem. I therefore fully agree with Prof. Edgar Schein (Humble Consulting, 2016) when he says that it’s key to be genuinely helpful, showing curiosity and humility, the two fundamental characteristics of a good consultant. Of course, this course is also about driving a project, leading a team, influencing others, facilitating a decision-making process, and many more, which actually are useful things to know for anyone in a managerial position, whether people are consultants or not doesn’t really matter from that perspective.

Can you tell us more about your professional career and expertise?

Once I had my PhD in Management, I decided to join Accenture and more specifically its strategy practice. It was for me like a second ‘business school’ I would say, learning lots of things on the field. Being in contact with clients and their challenges helped me a lot in developing skills which are probably less emphasized at the university. During 6 years, I had the chance to work in various industries with very often a dimension related to digital, a topic that has never left me as my doctoral dissertation was already in that field.

You recently authored an article on things that you learned as a consultant. You say that “acting with speed means more than moving fast”. What do you mean?

In fact, it’s the way I found to make it easy to remember those things that I believe are crucial once you start a new consulting mission. A consultant may use it as a checklist to confirm that every stakeholder of the project is aligned on a number of elements, namely: scope, planning, end goal, expectations and deliverables. If you fail in providing a clear description of what those elements represent on your project, you should better take more time to reflect on it before scheduling the kick-off.