Is Consulting Really Just About Problem Solving?

A step-by-step linear process that focuses on the dice instead of its outcomes when it is tossed

Colored Dice

Problem solving is at the center of consulting. Whatever the industry it is and however simple or complex is the context — in the end of the day it all delves down to problem solving. This essentially means that the problem solving skills should be a top-notch quality to be in consulting. Perhaps this is the reason why organizations working in the consulting space focus on imparting trainings and developing toolkits that would enable there employees for success when they are on their assignments.

There are vast resources available including tons of very good digital content on consulting from corporate entities and academia. However, I have developed my own thoughts around it based on the experiences I had consulting in various industries. For me consulting is about the mindset. No doubt, a consultant would need different toolkits to accomplish their assignments but to be successful they would require a mindset shift. To simply put it, don’t just focus on producing an outcome but the ‘correct outcome’. Just like the analogy of a dice. Generally people tend to focus on what would be the outcome when a dice is tossed. The question to ask is it the outcome X something that was…