{"id":569,"date":"2011-05-20T08:49:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-20T08:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/blogs\/paul\/post\/The-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication.aspx"},"modified":"2011-05-20T08:49:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-20T08:49:00","slug":"the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication\/","title":{"rendered":"The most important consulting skill is&#8230; effective communication"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">I think many people imagine that technical acumen and razor-sharp problem solving skills are the most important skills to be a successful consultant. I would strongly disagree. While these two skills are *absolutely* essential for success, I think they are less important than <u>the ability to effectively communicate with your clients<\/u>. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Effective communication is a skill that doesn&#39;t come naturally to most people &#8211; it has to be nurtured, practiced, and perfected. I could break down &quot;communication&quot; into a variety of sub-classes: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Presenting to a large audience <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">E.g. a conference session, or a large group of IT staff <\/font>\n\t\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Presenting to a small audience <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">E.g. a class, or a targeted set of IT staff <\/font>\n\t\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">1-&lt;5&nbsp;discussions with technologists (devs, DBAs, IT directors\/managers) <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">1-&lt;5 discussions with executives (VPs, CXOs) <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">1-1 discussions with technologists <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">1-1 discussions with executives <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Whitepapers <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Design, analysis, or&nbsp;strategy reports <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Status emails or general email conversation<\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Business solicitations <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Each of these requires a different approach. Before any kind of client presentation, meeting, or phone call, or when crafting a report or email, I ask myself the following questions: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Who is my audience? <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">What am I trying to convey to them? <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Is my message appropriate for the audience? (e.g. I wouldn&#39;t necessarily be discussing business implications of growth choices for the entire company&#39;s data tier with a developer, nor would I necessarily be discussing index tuning strategies for specific tables with a CIO.) <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">What politics and inter-personal\/departmental relationships do I need to be aware of? <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">What would the ramifications be if my presentation\/call\/report\/email was described or forwarded to another person\/part of the company? (e.g. am I being asked to deliver some metrics\/advice that would be unwelcome &#8211; but needed &#8211; in another department?) <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Is my communication in the overall client&#39;s best interests? <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Am I sure I have all the pertinent facts and details to be able to give my opinion credibly and correctly? <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Am I 100% sure of the technical content of my communication? <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Is my tone correct? (e.g. sometimes one needs to take the tone that &#39;you hired me because of my experience and knowledge, and in this case, respectfully, person X is incorrect&#39;&nbsp;&#8211; but it needs to be done professionally.) <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">And of course everything needs to be concise, bullet-points instead of waffle-y paragraphs where needed, spel chcked, also grammer must be write actually two. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">There&#39;s no excuse for incorrectness in written communications &#8211; many people have the opinion that sloppy communications indicates a predilection for sloppiness in other areas. I also subscribe to this view. Don&#39;t get me wrong &#8211; it&#39;s fine to have mistakes in tweets and the odd email &#8211; but <em>consistent<\/em> errors in emails, blogs and other professional communications doesn&#39;t look good. Seeing these things makes me cringe. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">But so far I&#39;ve only mentioned the consultant communicating with the client. The client&#39;s communication with the consultant is <u>way<\/u> more important. You have to be an &#39;active listener&#39;, where you&#39;re not just passively listening to the client but you&#39;re taking it in, processing it, making sure it makes sense, asking questions for clarification and so on. If you can&#39;t work out what you&#39;re being asked to do for the client then you&#39;re in trouble. It could be that the client isn&#39;t very good at explaining, in which case you need to restate what you think you&#39;ve been asked to do so everyone&#39;s on the same page. Every few new clients we find we&#39;re following other consultants who didn&#39;t do what the client wanted because of communications issues, not necessarily&nbsp;technical deficiencies. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">I am overwhelmingly pleased that I grew up into a manager and senior contributor in a fast-moving product group at Microsoft &#8211; there was no choice there but to communicate effectively (in all the various forms I listed in the first set of bullets above) &#8211; or be left behind &#8211; it was that simple. Trial-by-fire is a great way to learn. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">If you don&#39;t have an opportunity like that, there are plenty of ways to practice &#8211; user groups, blogging, and&nbsp;whitepapers &#8211; and just making yourself be a better communicator wherever you work. And you might consider having a partner or colleague review certain key communications &#8211; Kimberly and I do that for each other all the time (like this blog post, for example).<\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Effective communication is&nbsp;an indispensable skill that I don&#39;t think enough emphasis is placed on in the tech community.<\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font size=\"2\">What do you think?<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I think many people imagine that technical acumen and razor-sharp problem solving skills are the most important skills to be a successful consultant. I would strongly disagree. While these two skills are *absolutely* essential for success, I think they are less important than the ability to effectively communicate with your clients. Effective communication is a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,29,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-career","category-consulting","category-general"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The most important consulting skill is... effective communication - Paul S. Randal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The most important consulting skill is... effective communication - Paul S. Randal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I think many people imagine that technical acumen and razor-sharp problem solving skills are the most important skills to be a successful consultant. I would strongly disagree. While these two skills are *absolutely* essential for success, I think they are less important than the ability to effectively communicate with your clients. Effective communication is a [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Paul S. Randal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-05-20T08:49:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Paul Randal\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Paul Randal\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication\/\",\"name\":\"The most important consulting skill is... effective communication - Paul S. Randal\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-05-20T08:49:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#\/schema\/person\/ffcec826c18782e1e0adf173826a7fce\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The most important consulting skill is&#8230; effective communication\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/\",\"name\":\"Paul S. Randal\",\"description\":\"In Recovery...\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#\/schema\/person\/ffcec826c18782e1e0adf173826a7fce\",\"name\":\"Paul Randal\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0b6a266bba2f088f2551ef529293001bd73bf026bc1908b9866728c062beeeb6?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0b6a266bba2f088f2551ef529293001bd73bf026bc1908b9866728c062beeeb6?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Paul Randal\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/3.209.169.194\/blogs\/paul\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/author\/paul\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The most important consulting skill is... effective communication - Paul S. Randal","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The most important consulting skill is... effective communication - Paul S. Randal","og_description":"I think many people imagine that technical acumen and razor-sharp problem solving skills are the most important skills to be a successful consultant. I would strongly disagree. While these two skills are *absolutely* essential for success, I think they are less important than the ability to effectively communicate with your clients. Effective communication is a [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication\/","og_site_name":"Paul S. Randal","article_published_time":"2011-05-20T08:49:00+00:00","author":"Paul Randal","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Paul Randal","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication\/","url":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication\/","name":"The most important consulting skill is... effective communication - Paul S. Randal","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-05-20T08:49:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#\/schema\/person\/ffcec826c18782e1e0adf173826a7fce"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-most-important-consulting-skill-is-effective-communication\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The most important consulting skill is&#8230; effective communication"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/","name":"Paul S. Randal","description":"In Recovery...","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#\/schema\/person\/ffcec826c18782e1e0adf173826a7fce","name":"Paul Randal","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0b6a266bba2f088f2551ef529293001bd73bf026bc1908b9866728c062beeeb6?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0b6a266bba2f088f2551ef529293001bd73bf026bc1908b9866728c062beeeb6?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Paul Randal"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/3.209.169.194\/blogs\/paul"],"url":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/author\/paul\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}