What would a consultant say to the Corp?

So I just spent the last few hours studying for case interviews at consulting firms. A case interview contains one or more business problems that the interviewee has to analyze and recommend a solution for. The Corp has plenty of business problems, like the ones we worked through at the last Managerial Training Seminar. Taking an example from MTS, we talked about a marketing response to a new competitor in our core market. That is, Starbucks getting all up in our [Center] grill.

Corp leaders often approach their jobs like consultants. What's the situation? Student-run business. $4 mil annual sales. At this point, the new service director or officer has a pretty good idea of what the Corp is all about and can state the situation, but what are the problems? What's the complication? One of our struggles in transition is going to be communicating exactly what the top problems are, what we've done, what hasn't worked, and what they might try. When we came into our jobs, we had a list of priorities, which was helpful, but the temptation is to take a complex issue ("DPAC") and start digging around for problems. Not everything is a problem worth tackling, and the problems we can identify aren't all the problems that exist from year to year!

I doubt the Corp will be hiring a consulting firm any time soon. But we can pay more attention to keeping some sort of coherence in our focus from year to year so that more progress, meaningful progress, can be made on a few key issues (see: vendor negotiations, internal service integration).

Back to the preparations!

Wild ride.

Since I last posted in late August, it's been tiring. And it should be tiring, but always in a good way that keeps burnout at bay. Around this time every year is when Corp leaders can get just a little more tired and bounce back just a little slower. Lots of reasons why - school, jobs, senior year, rough landing from summer fun, etc. One that isn't mentioned often, but that I think plays an important role is that the ends of our terms are now a lot closer than their beginnings, and with talk of transition and handing things off to "next year's people", the conversations change tenor. We start to realize the limits of the limitless potential that comes with the first few months of the job.

For those of you reading thinking about applying for officer, remember that the potential is still limitless for you to shape the Corp and make it even better! It's just that we've now done most everything we're going to over our first nine months. The most important thing we have left to do is pick the right people to have our jobs next year and give them everything they need and want to do a great job, have an amazing and exciting year, and be proud of their year as officers.

Corp leadership jobs both demand and engender intense devotion to the company. What tires us also keeps us from going to sleep late at night and gets us up in the morning. It's often different from person to person, but I think at the core of it is just that the job is cool. It's creative, fun, and powerful, in a business sense. And while the resources at our disposal earn the Corp superlatives, one that can't be measured like our revenue or employee base is how much people care, and it's the most important one, far as I'm concerned.

Because Corpies care about having a good time, running a quality business we can be proud of, and improving themselves and the Corp, they're willing to put in the hours and put up with being put in unfamiliar situations, passing up more lucrative job opportunties, and staying self-motivated. That's a priceless resource for the Corp's leadership, but also a source of pressure to direct the company in a way that's deserving of these employees' devotion.

And once the end of that responsibility and the end of that pressure on you draws near, the conversations change from "how do we do a good job?" to "did we do a good job?". Asking the latter means confronting the mistakes, failures, and frustrations, which is one way I think burnout can creep in. Keeping that at bay for me is knowing that there are Corpies out there that are willing to take a crack at fixing what we didn't have the time, energy, skill, or creativity to get to.

So, no post in September. My apologies. Things were a little busy. And I got a little tired. But I'm damn glad to be back, damn glad to be here, and damn glad to be a Corpie.

I'll be 22 tomorrow. How did I get to be so freaking old...?