Professional Services | Consulting Skills Program | Future consulting leaders
Beyond technical expertise
Technical expertise earns consultants their credibility.
But as they progress in their careers, their value increasingly depends on what they do with that expertise: building trusted relationships, understanding client needs, influencing decisions and exercising commercial judgement.
This was the opportunity facing an Australian property and infrastructure consultancy.
The organisation wanted to invest in mid-career professionals as its next generation of consulting leaders. These were technically capable consultants with the potential to contribute more broadly across clients, projects and the business.
Rather than introduce an off-the-shelf program, the organisation wanted to develop its consulting capability in a way that reflected its own philosophy and in-house expertise.
The program also needed to work within the realities of a multidisciplinary consulting business: multiple offices, competing client commitments and limited time away from billable work.
What great consulting looks like
Before designing the program, I worked with the organisation to define the consulting capability it wanted to develop.
This resulted in the 3Cs framework based on three interconnected dimensions:
Consultancy: Partnering with clients to create long-term value.
Client Focus: Understanding client drivers and building trusted relationships.
Commerciality: Recognising the commercial implications of decisions and contributing to successful project outcomes.
At the centre was a whole-of-project mindset: understanding how technical expertise, client outcomes, and business objectives influence one another throughout the consulting process.
Aligned with the organisation's strategic priorities, the framework included seven focus areas: technical excellence, industry awareness and personal brand, trust, communication and influence, curious questioning, value-based recommendations, and commercial acumen.
It established a shared understanding of what great consulting looks like, which could inform not only the program, but also coaching, onboarding, and ongoing professional development.
Learning that translates into action
With the desired capability defined, the next challenge was helping participants put it into practice.
A consultant may understand how to approach a difficult client conversation but hesitate when the opportunity arises. A manager may want to support development but lack visibility of what participants are learning or how to coach the relevant behaviours.
This meant designing not only the participant learning experience, but also the organisational conditions that would support application at work.
I led the end-to-end design, working with internal contributors to translate the organisation's consulting expertise into a coherent development experience. This included the co-design process, learning architecture, workshop development, practical resources, and preparing internal facilitators for delivery.
Building awareness and personal relevance
The 25-week journey began with participants reflecting on their consulting strengths, development opportunities and aspirations.
Self-assessment against the 3Cs framework's focus areas established a starting point, while conversations with line managers linked development priorities to individual roles and projects. In this sense, the framework provided a common direction while allowing participants to focus on what mattered most for their development.
Exploring and practising effective consulting
A series of seven workshops introduced practical concepts and tools, supported by stories, examples and insights from experienced consultants and leaders.
A fictional residential subdivision project unfolded throughout the program, providing participants with opportunities to apply their consulting skills as the scenario evolved. Across three workshops and the program close, they practised understanding client needs, evaluating solutions, applying commercial judgement and leading client conversations.
These activities encouraged participants to move beyond technically correct answers and exercise broader consulting judgement.
Applying learning in everyday work
Between workshops, participants completed test-and-learn activities, from gathering feedback on “1%er” improvements to building trust in a key relationship and preparing for important client conversations. Regular peer Learning Circles gave participants opportunities to share their experiences, reflect on challenges, and learn from one another.
Together, these elements created a rhythm of learning, practice, application and reflection across the 25 weeks.
Building the conditions for development to succeed
The participant journey was supported by deliberate investment in the people and resources around it – the broader development system.
Reinforcing the 3Cs framework, which anchored the program in the organisation’s definition of great consulting, two other elements stood out: active involvement from experienced consultants and leaders, and practical support for applying learning in everyday work.
Sponsorship through contribution
Experienced consultants, senior leaders and designated Co-Design Leads were involved throughout the program's development and implementation.
They helped shape learning priorities, test assumptions, develop realistic scenarios, and refine activities to reflect the organisation's consulting environment, continuing into delivery through expert contributions, co-facilitation, mentoring, and participation in the final simulation.
Participants benefited from the experience of respected colleagues, while internal contributors gained first-hand experience of how their expertise could support others' development.
Connection to everyday work
Several resources and activities were developed to help line managers and participants apply and reinforce the learning.
The Consulting Skills Playbook brought together practical tools and tips across the seven focus areas of the 3Cs framework. Created as a standalone resource, it could be used during the program and subsequently for onboarding, self-directed learning, coaching conversations and career planning by all consultants, not just participants.
Manager Meetups introduced line managers to the learning and helped them identify opportunities to reinforce it through coaching, feedback and project work.
How-to-Coach guides complemented the Meetups by translating each focus area into practical coaching questions and development opportunities. Line managers also recognised the value of using these resources with all their team members, not just those participating in the program.
What changed, and what we learned
The Consulting Skills Program's emphasis on practice, application and feedback was designed to build confidence through experience, and the strongest reported participant outcome was increased confidence, reflected in both participant feedback and manager observations.
Confidence is worth tracking because it can influence whether people act on what they know, particularly in situations involving uncertainty or interpersonal risk.
The reported increase is encouraging, although sustained behaviour change and its contribution to consulting and business performance require longer-term evaluation.
The pilot also highlighted an opportunity to better enable line managers. Due to scheduling constraints, program briefings and Manager Meetups took place in parallel with the program rather than before it.
Line managers indicated they would have preferred earlier preparation so that they could better identify suitable workplace experiences and plan how to support participants' application of new skills.
For future cohorts, the intention is to begin manager enablement before the program launches, allowing line managers to plan relevant development opportunities from the outset.
Given the pilot's success, the first opportunity to test this is in three months, when the second cohort begins their consulting skills development journey.
More than a program
At the end of the 25 weeks, the organisation had more than a reusable development program. It had a defined consulting philosophy, practical resources to develop consultants across the business, and experienced internal contributors who helped design and deliver the learning.
The 3Cs framework provided a common language for engaging clients, developing consultants and supporting their career growth, while the program resources and lessons from the pilot established a foundation for future cohorts.
The first cohort was an investment in emerging consulting leaders. Just as importantly, it strengthened the organisation's ability to develop the consultants who follow.