The Blog
Long-form essays, field notes, and frameworks from the FIRMSconsulting team — published weekly.
All posts
Published weekly-
The Ultimate Guide To Consulting Skills For Advancement From Manager and Above
Consulting Skills as a Competitive Advantage Developing strong consulting skills such as the ability to communicate in a way that holds the attention of the room, the ability to solve complex problems in a structured and effective way, and the ability to build a peer-level relationship with the most senior executives of major companies. Developing…
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Life Purpose: How to Find It & Examples
If you’re trying to find your life purpose, the central motivating aims of your life, and to find better ways to manage your time and be more productive, there’s an exercise that will help you determine what motivates you. Discovering the core of what drives you, what motivates you to do things will be a…
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Don Schmincke: From MIT Planetary Physicist to Training CEOs (Strategy Skills ep. #230)
Don Schmincke: From MIT Planetary Physicist to Training CEOs (Strategy Skills ep. #230) For this episode (#230) of the Strategy Skills Podcast, we interviewed a best-selling author, Don Schmincke. Don is a former MIT and John Hopkins Institute researcher turned organizational strategic development consultant. He’s the guy CEOs bring in when many other experts fail. When CEOs asked Don to research…
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Difficult Conversations at Work: Guidance, Tips and Best Practices
Difficult Conversations at Work: Guidance, Tips and Best Practices You’ve probably seen the recent headlines about how Vishal Garg, CEO of Better.com, sparked outrage when he laid off 900 employees over a Zoom call. This story became an example of how not to have difficult conversations at work. This circumstance, framed within the grander series of…
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Retirement Planning & How to Retire Early
Retirement Planning & How to Retire Early Many people are concerned about their retirement planning but put it aside for far too long. Unfortunately, this often leads to a retirement you settle for versus a retirement you want. Retirement planning is a process you put in place to manage your finances after you leave the…
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The MasterPlan Acceleration Program
“To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest…
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When Everything Goes Wrong with Your Career Plans
There are times when everything goes wrong with your career plans. This happens often in life. It happened to me multiple times … We work with many partners and executives and they sometimes break contact for a few months. When they resurface the most common reason provided is that things went chaotically off track and…
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The Dark Side of Being a Leader
We’ve almost rounded the sun once more. Less than 2 weeks left in 2021! And I turned 40 on top of it. Feels like an end of a chapter and the beginning of the next. This year was hard. If you weren’t hard enough on yourself, I’m sure you felt judged by many people…
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Consulting Sales Rainmaker Coaching Program
“To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest…
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A strategy expert vs. a CEO
A strategy expert vs. a CEO I’m going to end today’s Strategy Insights by talking about a client and some of the challenges, successes and particularly one of the deep insights we developed for this client. This client is named Raka, and she’s of Indian origin. She has worked at a very big, elite consulting…
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Sanctions Are Like Punishing Your Spouse by Letting Them Date Other People
Sanctions Are Like Punishing Your Spouse by Letting Them Date Other People The next big theme is called, “Sanctions Are Like Punishing Your Spouse by Letting Them Date Other People.” That’s a funny sounding headline. What am I talking about? Imagine you had a spouse, and you don’t think they appreciate you for some reason,…