A New Year, a new website…
It’s now over 16 years since I left consultancy after 19 years with A.T. Kearney to go back to a “real job”, setting up IndeGo Consulting as a vehicle to allow me to pursue some new ventures (primarily the IndeGo Car Company, described elsewhere on this website) and earn some income in the meantime. Since then, I’ve done a couple real jobs, had some amazing experiences and worked with many great people. I have also found my way back to consultancy in my ‘day job’ with ICDP, ironically still advancing many of the same concepts that we described in that original IndeGo project.
However, ICDP was always supposed to be only part of a portfolio career, and I have neglected the IndeGo Consulting business in recent years. A break from the day to day demands is always a good time to reflect and do what my son calls some ‘life admin’, so in my case that includes building a new website and promoting my services in areas that do not conflict with my ICDP role. That still leaves a lot of scope - over the years I have worked in most parts of the automotive industry either in consultancy or senior management roles, as well as a range of other sectors. Buidling and managing successful consulting businesses also teaches you a lot about how to run services businesses in general - the challenges of balancing time and resources between business development and project delivery, developing the people who represent the future of the business, but mentoring those whose career will be better developed somewhere else.
As I reflect on who I am now, compared to the young man with a plan in my twenties or the high-flying consulting Vice-President by the time I turned forty, experience and maturity bring some valuable attributes to a senior consultant, board adviser or non-executive. I find that I look at the bigger picture rather than only the data. The latter remains important as there is no room today to simply work on ‘gut feel’ but whilst sometimes numbers tell their own story, usually you are still left with a ‘so what?’. Data without insight can highlight problems and opportunities - it is what you do next that matters.