My professional career has been mostly traditional...
Following college I started work as a design
engineer in New England. After a couple of blizzards, I changed jobs
and location to southern California where I worked for another big
company in engineering, then manufacturing and then supply chain
management. I got my Masters degree in '82. After 20 years in
industry, I quit and joined
Product
Development Consulting, a small management consulting firm where
I worked another 20 years.
In a very untraditional move, in
2019 as many of my friends were retiring, I updated my resume and
sought a job where I could still work at home, but learn something
completely new - marketing. I aimed at working in marketing long-term
for the wine industry, but having no solid chops in marketing to
show, I
needed to learn. From May, 2019 through April, 2021 I was the Global
Marketing Leader for New Product Introduction Launch Programs at
Keysight Technologies, which is the second generation name
change
of Hewlett Packard's test equipment business. For almost two years, I
learned
marketing at a
pace that I haven't experienced since college.
How do marketing people think differently than
others? As an engineer by education and experience, I've observed
that engineers think differently by always seeing problems from the
perspective of solving them. Marketing folks see everything
differently by finding what's right or beautiful, and then
amplifying it. No matter what "ugly baby" product or
service marketers are
presented with, we dig deep to find the good in it. Not a bad way to
look at life in general. So I'm feeling proud about becoming a
professional marketer. Look out wine industry - I might head your
way someday and in some way with solid new skills.
For now, I am retired and enjoying it immensely. I
did my part for the business world for 45 years. To quote a great
song by John Lennon, "I'm just sittin here watching the wheels go
round and round". I can relate my situation to all of his lyrics:
People say I'm crazy
Doing what I'm doing
Well, they give me all kinds of warnings
To save me from ruin
When I say that I'm okay, well they look at me kinda strange
"Surely, you're not happy now, you no longer play the game"
People say I'm lazy
Dreaming my life away
Well they give me all kinds of advice
Designed to enlighten me
When I tell them that I'm doing fine watching shadows on the wall
"Don't you miss the big time boy, you're no longer on the ball?"
I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go
Ah, people asking questions
Lost in confusion
Well, I tell them there's no problem
Only solutions
Well, they shake their heads and they look at me, as if I've lost my
mind
I tell them there's no hurry, I'm just sitting here doing time
I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go
In the mid-nineties, I took an excellent series of
advanced leadership programs, dubbed "executive charm school" by
some of us, through the
Center For Creative Leadership. One aspect of their approach
that rings true for me is that successful executives must balance
four pieces of their life: self, family, profession and community.
Many miserable executives do not emphasize self or community to the
degree they do the other two.
This section of the site is focused on the
consulting profession. Mary Lou and I also have a separate
California Corporation, Mackey Group,
Inc. for future pursuits.
Consulting - It's not as easy as it sounds...
Successful
management consultants "think" differently than other professionals
and they listen more effectively to their clients' needs. They are
focused on providing value that can not be found within a client
company. There is no shortage of hacks out there to give the
profession a bad name (cartoon at right).
In 2000, I was invited to present my perspective on management consulting
to an IEEE conference in Universal City, CA. Follow
this link to
view the slideshow which may have some useful insights for others within or thinking about
entering the profession.
I have also included a page under this section
with my most recent published article or
conference presentation. Please check
"What's new" to see when it is updated.
Consulting reference materials...
There are some excellent reference books on
consulting which helped me when I was first starting out. This is a
fairly comprehensive list:
Managing the Professional Services Firm,
David H Maister (the best)
Getting to Yes, Roger Fisher & William Ury (also essential)
The Trusted Advisor, David H Maister (about building and
maintaining the consultant - client relationship)
Flawless consulting: A guide to getting your expertise used,
Peter Block (how to consultant guidebook describing ways of behaving
with clients)
Million Dollar Consulting: The Professional's Guide to Growing a
Practice, Alan Weiss (steps to developing & marketing a business)
The Secrets of Consulting: a guide to giving & getting advice
successfully, Gerald M Weinberg (His definition of consulting: art
of influencing at their request, usually they're seeking some sort
of change, a down to earth entertaining look at how to deal with
someone's request for influence and with client resistance)
The Consultant's Kit: establishing & operating your successful
consulting business, DR. Jeffrey L Lant (the basics: what is a
consultant, should you be a consultant, principles of networking,
contracts, etc)
Be Your Own Sales Manager: Strategies and tactics for managing
your accounts, your territory, Tony Alessandra, Jim Cathcart, John
Monoky (addresses how to be your own boss, take on responsibilities,
monitor your performance)
Teaching the Elephant to Dance, James Belasco (includes case
studies, premise is orgs are like elephants, slow to change)
Marketing Your Consulting and Professional Services, Richard
Conner and Jeffrey Davidson (message: focus on clients aches and
pains)
Harvard Business Review - On human relations, Harper & Row
(essays from over 30 authors addressing non-rational or human
aspects of mgt which are often overlooked, counterpoint to standard
scientific mgt tools)
How to Master the Art of Selling, Tom Hopkins, a sales trainer
(covers topics such as prospecting techniques, pointers on asking
questions of clients, etc)
Organizational Diagnosis: a workbook of theory and practice,
Marvin Weisbord (hands on approach to learning what it takes to make
an organization perform better)
Productive Workplaces: organizing and managing for dignity,
meaning and community, Marvin Weisbord (Weisbord is an OD guru -
book reviews theory and practice of change and includes case studies
and specific how to instructions for involving people in designing
new work methods, developing new strategies for Org improvement and
building cooperation)
How to Select and Manage Consultants: A guide for getting what
you pay for, Howard Stenson (a look at consulting from the other
side of the table offering practical advice on how to select and
manage consultants to help your organization, provides list of most
common fears of managers who hire consultants)
Getting Started as a Consulting Engineer, DG Sunar (a quick read
- 75 pg of the basics, focusing on important aspects of being your
own boss)
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