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Moving in-house is a popular career choice for many strategy consultants, but it is not without its challenges.
This guide walks through seven quick wins that can help new in-house strategists maximise their chances of success in their new role, including insight from Quentin Toulemonde, who recently spoke to Richard for Movemenn’s Life after Consulting series.

Consulting to in-house

Many consultants look to in-house strategy positions once they leave consulting. The skills they have developed are invaluable to companies from start-ups to corporate giants.

Nevertheless, it can be a challenge to bridge the gap between consulting and in-house. This guide contains seven quick wins to help maximise your chance of success, with insight from Quentin Toulemonde, former BCG consultant and now People Analytics Insights, Strategy & Program Delivery Manager at Philip Morris, who recently spoke to Richard on the Life after Consulting series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIHUiEbk6xk&t=13s

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7 quick wins

Understand your market

Strategy consultants are able to look at a wide range of businesses and understand how they compete in their market. When moving in-house, your first responsibility is to be a specialist on this front for your new organisation. 

Know your competitors, your customer base, your strengths and weaknesses, inside out. Ultimately, the business’s success relies on how well you understand the ecosystem it’s operating in.

Understand your business

On a similar note, it’s key to develop a very detailed understanding of your organisation. Hiring you, rather than engaging an external consultancy, was a strategic decision in the first place, and one of the reasons behind it will have been the belief that an in-house strategist can develop a closer understanding of the business and the team than an external consultant ever could.

Delivering on this expectation quickly will help develop your understanding of how the business is positioned to compete in its market, as well as strengthening your relationships with your new stakeholders.

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Bridge gaps

Consulting involves a blend of quantitative, qualitative, and business skills which you’ll have developed as a consultant. Your new colleagues in a corporate will, for the most part, have spent their careers in narrower, more specialised roles.

As such, one of your unique abilities is to act as a link between different divisions, or between leadership and the rest of the business. Quentin told Life after Consulting: “My value-add is being able to hear business people talk about problems which are unstructured and fuzzy, break them down, and rephrase them into really digestible bits that can then be answered through data.”

Develop you EQ

Everyone will know you’re smart leaving a company like Bain, McKinsey or BCG. What will make the difference in the long run is your EQ.

As a consultant, you’ll only ever interact directly with a handful of stakeholders in your client’s organisation, and you may not speak to them again once the project is complete. You are emotionally distanced from the employees that implement your recommendations.

When working in-house, these people are your colleagues. You will have a long-term relationship with them, to which mutual respect and trust are key. Your recommendations now come from you as a person, not from a deck of slides packaged in McKinsey or BCG logos. Its authority, in other words, stems directly from you.

Remain humble, be willing to learn, and as Quentin said, “don’t be a jerk.”

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Take ownership

“At BCG, I was used to talking in days, even hours,” says Quentin. In-house, it’s more like weeks or months. 

As above, external consultants move on once a project is complete and recommendations made. The long, sometimes strained process of implementation is someone else’s job. 

Now that you’re in-house, that someone is you. Be prepared to take ownership of your initiatives over a longer time scale. This requires determination and patience, but the satisfaction at the end of that makes it worthwhile.

Clarify your objectives

Often when corporates build in-house strategy teams, or start hiring ex-consultants, there can be a tendency for the remit to be vague. 

Be especially clear on the boundaries of your role. The business might see you, with your consulting skill set, as a general problem-solver, who can troubleshoot issues throughout the business. There’s nothing wrong with that, and lots of former consultants may enjoy this kind of position – but take care to ensure that breadth doesn’t compromise on depth, or your ability to deliver on core objectives.

Anyone who has worked in consulting will be used to defining the objectives that their clients are seeking very precisely. Adopt the same approach with your stakeholders in your new business.

Show your working

All the quick wins above relate to the specific skills that a strategy consultant can bring to their organisation when moving in-house. The most successful bring the organisation along with them by sharing these insights and perspectives, actively working to upskill or educate their new colleagues in their way of thinking.

Developing a strategic mindset throughout the organisation will make it easier for you to define future strategy, as well as to implement new initiatives. Take advantage of company learning programs such as ‘brown bag lunches’ to explain the business strategy to your new colleagues.

The perfect fit

If you are looking to make the switch from consulting to an in-house strategy role, join Movemeon to discover the perfect place to start your new career.

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About the author: Dan McEvoy is a freelance writer and editor, with extensive experience in finance, technology, HR, recruitment, and marketing content.

If Movemeon co-founder Richard Rosser’s recent poll is anything to go by, plenty of our LinkedIn network has already started using generative AI.
Following the poll, Rich sat down with AI expert Adam Cox to discuss the implications of the technology. Off the back of that call, we’ve put together this mini playbook on how strategists can use the technology.

If you prefer to see the whole discussion in video format, click below to watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmq9zp2AHR8

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The end of management consulting?

Depending on who you speak to, generative AI either “spells the end of management consulting as we know it,” or is a total game-changer.

Just like AI, we can’t predict the future. It’s impossible to say whether the alarmists are correct, or whether future generations will look back on the current era in the same way we now view, say, the rise of the computer, the electronic calculator, or the Jacquard loom, which so terrified and incensed the original Luddites.

We can, however, offer insight into how strategists that want to adopt this technology might be able to benefit from it. With the help of Adam Cox, AI expert and Chief Strategy Officer of cybersecurity firm Reflare, that’s exactly what we’ve set out to do.

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The strategist’s AI playbook

Uptake

Movemeon co-founder Richard Rosser recently conducted a poll on LinkedIn asking his network, most of whom work in fields related to strategy consulting, the extent to which they are currently using generative AI. 28% of respondents said they currently use it regularly; 42% replied that they were just starting to use it; 19% said that they hadn’t yet but that it was on their to do list; while 10% said they hadn’t used it, and didn’t intend to. 

Most strategists are already using AI in some form, and that the overwhelming majority intend to. How are they going about it? 

Automate the mundane

Cox sees “strategy with a small ‘S’” as the main use to which AI is currently being deployed. This entails mundane tasks like “generic research, building out the paragraphs that are in an executive pre-reads before strategy away days, [and generating] filler content” for decks and presentations.”

Inspire the big picture

There are also use cases for strategy “with a big ‘S.’” These, say Cox, involve sparking ideation, through the use of query statements to explore the ramifications of different hypothetical scenarios.

“It’s producing a full whiteboard for everyone in the team to sit around and then riff off,” says Cox. Along with scenario planning, this is the main type of task that Ai is currently assisting. 

Drive deeper insights

However, strategists may barely be scratching the surface of what generative AI is capable of, even in its current, early form. Yuval Atsmon, a senior partner leading the McKinsey Center for Strategy Innovation, told McKinsey’s Inside the Strategy Room podcast that he believes executives are “missing opportunities to use AI in the building blocks of strategy.”

As well as simple analytics, this could include diagnostic interpretation of business metrics to understand root causes, and even predictive intelligence to anticipate future events – though Atsmon cautions that predictive AI is “difficult” and “risky.”

Challenge the trend

It could also, Atsmon suggests, be used to challenge decision-making biases. He suggests an example scenario where all participants in a strategy session agree unquestioningly with the CEO’s suggestion.

“AI could inform the room, ‘We might have a sunflower bias here,’ which could trigger more conversation and remind the CEO that it’s in their own interest to encourage some devil’s advocacy.”

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Augment your skill set

Cox feels that the ultimate winners from AI will be those individuals who incorporate a solid knowledge of the technology into a versatile skill set to become a high value-add employee. 

“You need to know the difference between being a good employee and a great employee,” he said. “I believe this is one of the main components that will separate the winners from the losers.”

Know the limits

AI is currently limited. Cox is at pains to stress throughout our chat that wise strategists don’t lift its output wholesale, and that they instead use it as a starting point to generate content they then refine themselves. 

Similarly, as Atsmon points out, it shouldn’t be relied on to predict the future, or to generate strategies in full. 

Beyond the limitations of the technology, there could be a case for businesses to moderate their adoption of AI for the sake of optics. While using AI to drive transformative business efficiencies may look great to institutional investors, the displacement of white collar jobs could turn middle class customers against companies known to be pursuing it aggressively. 

Cox compares this effect to what groups like Extinction Rebellion have done to energy companies. “It’s the same sort of thing. [People will think] ‘DoI really want to deal with that company [if they’re using AI]?’”

Even without conscious boycotting, en masse displacement could restrict the cohort’s spending power.

This is a moment

Regardless, the technology has reached an inflection point which makes it impossible to ignore.

“Those who aren’t taking this seriously, it’s at their own peril,” said Cox. “This is a moment, mark my words.”

About the author: Dan McEvoy is a freelance writer and editor, with extensive experience in finance, technology, HR, recruitment, and marketing content.

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Adam was a Strategy Consultant at Accenture in UK before he moved to Australia to work as a Freelance Consultant. We recently placed him in a freelance role with our client, one of Australia’s most responsible operators of hotels, alcohol and gaming facilities.

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Please tell us a little about your career so far?

I graduated in Economics and worked at Javelin Group (acquired by Accenture) in London for 3 years, working in Retail Strategy for Supermarkets, fashion and homeware brands across projects of commercial and operational due diligence, growth strategy, cost optimisation and international expansion. Most notable experience was working ‘undercover’ as a quick commerce delivery rider to better understand the commercial viability of the business model.

What motivated your move to Australia on a working holiday visa? How did you go about securing the visa and is there an option to extend your stay beyond the initial visa period?

For a while I’ve wanted to live in a warm climate and enjoy the benefits that brings - beach lifestyle, outdoor sports, evening cocktails outside etc. And working at home over Covid years made me feel like a change of scenery and adventure.  A working holiday visa was the quickest, simplest and low commitment way to get working rights in Australia. I heard it was a strong job market so I trusted I’d be able to find a job, and if I wanted to stay longer term, get sponsored. I moved alone so didn’t feel the need to have anything secured beforehand and worst case scenario I’m only one flight away from home.

What advice would you give to other consultants who are interested in doing a short stint in Australia? Are there any particular opportunities or challenges they should be aware of?

Just do it! It’s a great quality of life over here, and if it’s something you’ve always fancied doing you’ll probably regret it in the future if you don’t. I don’t think you have much to lose. The new UK-Oz trade deal is coming into law soon which will give you a 3 year working holiday visa straight away.

Culturally it’s similar to the UK, there are lots of expats and you’ll fit in quickly. Only advice would be to get the ball rolling with your network to let people know you’ll be moving out. Arrange a coffee with them when you are here. I feel the skills required are relatively similar to those in the UK, so brush up your CV and be ready to hit the ground running when you arrive. Main challenge is that if you come on a working holiday visa, not all companies are willing to sponsor, so be open minded about what role/company you will be in.

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How have you found working in Australia compared to Europe? Are there any notable differences in the work culture or expectations?

People say the work culture is a little more relaxed, with a better work life balance, and I’d say from my experience that’s generally true. Hard to ask employees to work long evenings when it’s 30 degrees and their friends are at the beach! Work output and softwares used seem similar. Language between colleagues is more informal which I like. Hard to compare directly as I think some of the differences are a result of contract vs perm rather than UK vs Oz. On contract much more focus on output and employers are not really bothered with what time and where you do the work, which makes it really flexible - a big plus.

A few words about your experience with Movemeon? How Movemeon differs from other platforms/agencies/channels and how they helped you secure a new freelance position?

Movemeon was great as you have a success team member who understands what you’re looking for and keeps you updated with relevant opportunities. They have a wide variety of roles on the platform and it’s constantly updated. You can sign-up for email alerts, or join various application pools for contracts during certain times of the year. The process moved very quickly when I found a suitable role. I interviewed the day after applying, got the role offered a few days later and started as soon as I was back from holiday!

Find out how other Movemeon candidates experienced and managed the change from consulting to industry in further interviews we published on our blog.

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Srećko worked as a consultant at McKinsey for several years before founding his own company. With Movemeon he talks about this experience and also gives valuable tips from a venture partner's perspective, for consultants who are also thinking about starting their own company.

You have been a Consultant yourself and left McKinsey in 2019. What skill that you learned in consulting have you found most powerful outside consulting?

It’s funny because it’s one I didn’t realise during my consulting days. It is what I call “blissful ignorance”: the idea that you can go into a meeting knowing 0 about a specific topic but by asking the right questions and structuring the problem get to the gist. Obviously, you need the brainpower, but for me it's more the confidence in one’s abilities than it is about problem solving per se.

What's your top tip for people considering leaving consulting and what do they most need to be aware of?

It’s being wary of what kind of colleagues give you energy. Consulting is very different from other jobs in that regard. You don’t need to manage people who are insanely motivated and keep pushing all the time - you guide them. However, 70% of work in other jobs is actually not only leading, but also motivating others. I have met many who got into leadership positions and then realized: Hey, I actually don’t enjoy this. They rather enjoy small, intimate settings that focus on outputs, not people management. 

"...when I returned my key card, I remember feeling like somebody ripped out a part of my soul. But 2 days later I just realised  - nothing has changed."

What's the biggest shock / surprise on leaving consulting?

The realisation that my life keeps on, and that all my friends are still there. Consulting is such a big part of one’s life that it almost becomes a part of your identity. It sounds stupid, but when I returned my key card, I remember feeling like somebody ripped out a part of my soul. But 2 days later I just realised  - nothing has changed. And many new doors have opened for me. 

You now work in the Venture space and have a lot of interactions with founders. How many of those would you say have a Consulting background?

Certainly a high number. Many of the best founders I have interacted with are former consultants, but it’s often those who experienced failure, or who worked for a start-up after consulting life, who turn to become amazing entrepreneurs. I usually recommend most people to join a venture before they found their own. Trust me, life will get a lot easier.

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Why do you think so many consultants become founders? What consulting skills do you think are helping them?

Part of the reason is that people who go into consulting in the first place are often overachievers and strive for change. They then get into this big machine that teaches them many things, like problem solving, top-down communication, execution, and project management. In the end, you often get to someone who is a commercial allrounder with the right mindset and work ethic, something that is much needed in founding teams.

Can you think of any habits from consulting that might be a blocker in the start-up world?

Consultants are paid to find mistakes. It takes a big mindset shift to get past this habit of always overanalyzing, always finding flaws, always thinking why it cannot work - but instead focusing on why it can work, and just starting to do it. It is actually really tough to master “conviction” - to see the risks and drawbacks, but still have faith and pursue it even if the odds are against you. In some way, you can be too smart for your own good.

"Don’t start like a consultant would: by creating a long list of alternatives you weigh. Instead, start with what you are good at or passionate about and zoom in here."

What tips would you give a current consultant looking to found their own business?

Don’t start like a consultant would: by creating a long list of alternatives you weigh. Instead, start with what you are good at or passionate about and zoom in here. Talk to others, especially customers, about this. Whatever that is, there are many things to be build. Find complementary people when it comes to skills and character. And then just take the leap of faith. Remember, most people never pick up the phone, and most people never get started.

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Bootstrapping has always been a popular route to growing a start-up. It enables founders to retain control not only of their business’s equity, but also its strategic direction. It can be a winning approach; many large companies, including GoPro and Mailchimp, became huge successes without external funding.

Following a decade of record-low interest rates, the world economy is now far less friendly to business owners seeking capital injections into fledgling businesses. According to Crunchbase, global VC investing fell 35% in 2022. 

This doesn’t mean that start-ups are doomed to fail, though. By implementing the approaches set out here, start-up founders can set their businesses up for growth and success, without relying on external investment.

The Strategies for Success

Shake every tree

Bootstrapping hinges, first and foremost, on how much money you can supply up front yourself. However streamlined your strategy, and however lean the efficiencies you create, more starter capital will increase the length of time your start-up can survive before it generates a profit.
Many founders sell assets such as cars or property in order to inject cash into their business. Family, friends, and crowdfunders can also be non-VC sources of seed funding. You can also explore grants or loans as sources of capital. For UK-based start-ups, there are a range of funding schemes available to businesses based on their geographic location and industry.

Pursue a clear GTM strategy

Typically, successful start-ups are characterised by a clear focus on bringing their business to a point where it offers value to customers as quickly and efficiently as possible. This requires a go-to-market (GTM) strategy to act as a roadmap. 

There is no single approach to creating a GTM strategy, but most contain these core elements:

• The market need. This is the fundamental problem that your product or service sets out to solve. Dropbox, for example, was conceived when its founder forgot his USB memory stick before a four-hour bus journey he’d intended to spend working. Identifying the need or gap in the market your business addresses is paramount to success.
• The target audience. Closely related to the market need is a clear idea of who is likely to feel it; these are the people or businesses most likely to buy your offering. Building a comprehensive customer persona will inform your marketing and pricing strategy.
• Competitor analysis. In short, this means an assessment of supply and demand to ensure that no-one else has already come up with your unique idea (or a better one) to solve the problem.

Pricing and distribution. Informed by all the above, your GTM strategy will include a clear plan for how to price and sell your product. For example, will you operate an e-commerce model of selling through a website, or an inbound sales model?

Minimise spending

Build your offering with the minimum inputs possible. Approach the process with a hyper-protective mindset towards your pile of starter capital. If possible, aim for negative cash-conversion; only spend money you’ve already been paid.

Keep hiring limited to the must-have positions in the early days. It’s a cliché, but start-up founders can protect their limited resources by getting their hands dirty in all areas of the business. A small, versatile team also reduces your office and equipment costs.
Getting those key early hires right can, however, greatly improve your chances of success. Having an experienced, versatile strategist in place as Chief of Staff can free up your executive team’s bandwidth while optimising the business strategy and ensuring it is on track.

Market cost-effectively

Without existing brand awareness, marketing needs to be a top priority in order to start selling your offering. The challenge lies in developing a marketing strategy that conserves resources for spending on the product or service itself. If your offering is the best it can be, there are various means by which you can raise awareness of it for free, or close to. 

Make word of mouth your number one acquisition channel as early as possible. You may need to deploy a few carefully targeted ads to get this ball in motion, but keep this to an absolute minimum, and avoid altogether if you can.

You can also piggy-back on the reputations of more established brands using partnership marketing strategies such as cross-promotions, referrals, or product placement.

Leveraging your own network to its fullest extent is another invaluable source of leads. Whatever industry your start-up operates in, ensure you are regularly attending meetups and events to establish yourself within the community and identify possible customers early on.

Get in touch with Movemeon

If you’re ready to start growing your team, or you need that perfect Chief of Staff to help you get there, speak to Movemeon now to explore how we can support your growth.

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About the author: Dan McEvoy is a freelance writer and editor, with extensive experience in finance, technology, HR, recruitment, and marketing content.

Last time, we discussed the first of three principles that I’ve found to be essential for building a high-performing team. In this article, we’ll cover principle #2.

1. Attract and hire the right people, then set them up for success. 
2. Cultivate an inspiring culture that maximizes individual and team performance. 
3. Demonstrate servant leadership daily. 

Principle #2. Cultivate an inspiring culture that maximizes individual and team performance. 

Establish a WHY and a HOW early on.

Simon Sinek has a simple but profound model for inspirational leadership which he calls the Golden Circle and which he details in his Ted Talk. When applied to my new team, I saw the “Why” as our vision and reason for being, the “How” as our team values (the way we would conduct ourselves), and the “What” as our projects and initiatives. 

Once my key leaders were hired, I flew them out to division headquarters for several days for our first team meeting. Besides inviting my manager, our division President, and other leaders and collaborators to speak, I also scheduled time for us to brainstorm our Vision and Values. The facilitation deck included questions such as:

• What problems are you passionate about solving?
• What are your superpowers?
• How is what you’re doing making you better?
• List three specific contributions our team will make to the broader organization. 
• List why those contributions are important to our stakeholders. 
• How will others’ lives be different after they have interacted with our team? 

The brainstorming process allowed us to get to know each other, as professionals and as people. We also discussed and debated the critical needs of the organization and how we could most effectively meet those needs. Sometimes, the dialogue became quite passionate as different perspectives emerged, but this was exactly the point. The Vision and Values statement that resulted from these conversations became our north star and served us numerous times when key decisions had to be made or when the going was hard. It gave us strategic intent, an identity we were proud of, and formed the foundation of our team culture. 

Lean into the strengths of every team member while creating synergies.

I’m a believer that all of us can do more than what our titles indicate and that we each have untapped potential. Cultivating a culture of diversity, inclusion, and belonging requires embracing the unique strengths and potential that every member of the team brings and creating opportunities for them to grow and shine. For example, my team included leaders with titles like Director and Manager, but also Executive Assistant. In the case of the latter, instead of asking my executive assistant to focus exclusively on administrative responsibilities, I invited her to contribute in material ways to our team’s key initiatives. Of course, she demonstrated both the interest in and ability to do so. Early on, I informally retitled her to “Team Ninja / SWAT Lead” on our team’s presentation materials. It was a playful gesture but also an intentional signal to her and to others of her role and value on the team. We subsequently discussed her career trajectory and possible next roles based on her interests and strengths.  

Cultivating an inclusive culture also means respecting the individual expertise of team members. My team was unique in that we had functional areas not typically found within the same organization and I was not a deep subject matter expert in these areas. Therefore, my role as a leader was often to ask insightful questions, provide the right guidance and guardrails, remove barriers, and champion the team while leaving the details to the experts. 

Additionally, because I had a bigger picture lens on the business, I identified opportunities for collaboration within the team so that despite seemingly disparate swim lanes, the cross-pollination made the efforts of each team member stronger than they otherwise would have been. As a result, my team felt valued, supported, and connected. A point of pride that we all share is how frequently colleagues across the company commented on the outsize impact of our team compared to our relatively small headcount. 

Provide coaching and feedback with care and intentionality. Address issues quickly and fairly.

As leaders, we will all confront situations that require immediate feedback and course correction. For example, if a critical project was off-track or repeated conflict within the team was hindering morale and productivity, I have stepped in to provide redirection. These are delicate moments and I certainly have had my share of stumbles. However, by taking a caring and respectful approach that seeks to accurately understand the situation, assumes positive intent, and then provides direction so every member of the team be more successful, I’ve found that these challenging moments can become growth opportunities for the team – both individually and collectively.

Most of the time, however, we are not dealing with crises but helping our teams to perform at a higher level in their day-to-day which requires that we operate as coaches. I’ve grown significantly in this skillset over the past two years. Many leaders’ natural inclination, my own included, is to give advice based on our own experience or problem-solve when our team comes to us for help. But what I’ve found to be much more effective is taking an “inside out” approach that empowers team members by asking them to clarify what they’re trying to achieve, articulate the challenges they’re confronting, brainstorm their own solutions, and then own the path forward. A model I recommend is called GROW Coaching based on the expertise of Alan Fine, which I was introduced to by the leaders on my own team who are phenomenal coaches in their own right.

Summary

A high performing team is one in which team members are motivated to go the extra mile and where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This is only possible when there is an inspiring and healthy culture in place. Establishing a clear vision and values, maximizing on the potential of the team as individuals and as a unit, and creating a strong cadence of coaching and feedback are some key steps we can take as leaders to create a winning culture where those we lead consistently exceed expectations and deliver extraordinary impact.

Next time, we’ll discuss how demonstrating servant leadership daily is another critical factor in building a high performing team. 

Author: Li Kehl

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Mauricio only recently moved to Australia, he originally hails from Mexico and found his new opportunity on the Movemeon platform. Our team in APAC connected him with our client Axlewood Analytics where he started his new role as a Senior Strategy Consultant as part of the sustainability practice.

It's a great example of where Movemeon helped an overseas candidate to get their foot in the door in the Australian market.

Please tell us a little about your career so far. How did you find the move to Australia and finding a new role here? Any advice for other overseas candidates looking to make the move?

I've been in the strategy and consulting business for around 8 years now and I was always looking for a chance to move my career to Australia. In the beginning, looking for this change was a huge task but honestly, Movemeon helped me to tackle that fairly easy and I always had a reliable contact person throughout the entire process.

As for advice, I think what helped me was getting in touch with the Movemeon team, as good connections, expertise and professionalism are very helpful.

What excites you about the new opportunity as Senior Strategy Consultant at Axlewood Analytics?

It's a great challenge, it's helping to create this new sustainability and analytics consulting firm so it's very exciting and also it is clearly aligned with my idea of redirecting my career towards sustainability.

Axlewood Analytics is a management consulting firm for the Sustainability age. Axlewood provides Strategy and Transformation advisory in various areas of Sustainability such as Biodiversity, Circular economy, Decarbonization, Energy Transition and ESG. The business is part of 100 person CPM Group which is an independently-owned advisory and project management consultancy delivering value across the entire project lifecycle to governments, asset-owners and project owners in the infrastructure and building sectors.

Click here to view current opportunities at Axlewood on Movemeon!

How did you come across the role with Axlewood and what made you apply for it?

Melinda from the team in APAC reached me and gave me some info about the role, and the idea appealed to me very fast, so I quickly and easily applied through Movemeon.

In your opinion, how does Movemeon differ from other platforms/ agencies/ channels?

I hadn't really tried other agencies because I think they tend to be not so human but the contact with Movemeon was great! The team answered super fast and encouraged me through the application process.

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Mauricio only recently moved to Australia, he originally hails from Mexico and found his new opportunity on the Movemeon platform. Our team in APAC connected him with our client Axlewood Analytics where he started his new role as a Senior Strategy Consultant as part of the sustainability practice.

It's a great example of where Movemeon helped an overseas candidate to get their foot in the door in the Australian market.

Please tell us a little about your career so far. How did you find the move to Australia and finding a new role here? Any advice for other overseas candidates looking to make the move?

I've been in the strategy and consulting business for around 8 years now and I was always looking for a chance to move my career to Australia. In the beginning, looking for this change was a huge task but honestly, Movemeon helped me to tackle that fairly easy and I always had a reliable contact person throughout the entire process.

As for advice, I think what helped me was getting in touch with the Movemeon team, as good connections, expertise and professionalism are very helpful.

What excites you about the new opportunity as Senior Strategy Consultant at Axlewood Analytics?

It's a great challenge, it's helping to create this new sustainability and analytics consulting firm so it's very exciting and also it is clearly aligned with my idea of redirecting my career towards sustainability.

Axlewood Analytics is a management consulting firm for the Sustainability age. Axlewood provides Strategy and Transformation advisory in various areas of Sustainability such as Biodiversity, Circular economy, Decarbonization, Energy Transition and ESG. The business is part of 100 person CPM Group which is an independently-owned advisory and project management consultancy delivering value across the entire project lifecycle to governments, asset-owners and project owners in the infrastructure and building sectors.

Click here to view current opportunities at Axlewood on Movemeon!

How did you come across the role with Axlewood and what made you apply for it?

Melinda from the team in APAC reached me and gave me some info about the role, and the idea appealed to me very fast, so I quickly and easily applied through Movemeon.

In your opinion, how does Movemeon differ from other platforms/ agencies/ channels?

I hadn't really tried other agencies because I think they tend to be not so human but the contact with Movemeon was great! The team answered super fast and encouraged me through the application process.

Are you a candidate? Join Movemeon for free and get access to all opportunities!

Whether you are ready to hire through Movemeon or just looking for more information about hiring, one of our team of friendly specialists will get in touch within 24hrs.

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Find out how other Movemeon candidates experienced and managed the change from consulting to industry in further interviews we published on our blog.

In previous posts, we discussed the first and second of three principles that I’ve found to be essential for building a high-performing team. This time, we’ll cover the last one.

1. Attract and hire the right people, then set them up for success.
2. Cultivate an inspiring culture that maximizes individual and team performance.
3. Demonstrate servant leadership daily.

Principle #3. Demonstrate servant leadership daily.

A famous incident in the Gospel of Mark involves two brothers, James and John, who ask Jesus for positions of power in God’s kingdom. In response, Jesus tells his team of twelve, including the two brothers, “Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must become last.”

A leader who wants to build and sustain a high-performing team must put the team first. In practice, this can manifest in a myriad of ways. I will highlight a few from my experience.

Whether you are ready to hire, looking for more information about hiring or just want some advice, one of our team of friendly specialists will get in touch within 24hrs. Click here to contact us!

Help the team to shine.

I once had a great manager who gave me high visibility projects that put my strengths on display, even when they were areas of weakness for himself. He was not afraid of being outshined by me because he was confident in his own strengths, and he wanted the best for my career. Knowing this made me even more invested in doing great work for him.

As a leader, I have taken a similar approach. When a team member was invited to facilitate a discussion at our EVP’s staff meeting with her division Presidents (a big deal!), I helped him cut through the complexity of the topic to distill the overarching thrust and connect his key messages to larger themes in the organization. The discussion was a fruitful one and his star has since risen in the organization. In other instances when my direct reports have had major presentations to senior management, I have scheduled multiple dry runs so that when they did take center stage, they spoke with passion, confidence, and clarity. After one such occasion, a senior executive told me that my team member’s presentation was the most engaging during a multi-hour meeting.

Leaders foster not only high performance but also loyalty when we invest energy behind the scenes to help our people do their best work and get recognized for it. And when it is time for our team members to move on to bigger roles (because great leaders create more leaders), they will make the transition a smooth one. Because when we’ve got our team’s back, they will have ours too.

Be human.

Life is short. Those of us who work outside the home often spend more time with our colleagues than our families. As leaders, we can create environments where work relationships are transactional, or we can create more meaningful ones where our people feel a sense of connection and belonging. I choose the latter.

Below are some tactics that have worked for me:

• Respect that work isn’t and shouldn’t be our employees’ highest priority. This may seem counterproductive in an article about high-performing teams but here’s why it’s not. When leaders have hired the right people and set them up for success (article 1) and cultivated an inspiring culture (article 2), then recognizing what matters to our employees outside of work will only strengthen their commitment and performance. My team knows that health and family always come first. If there is an issue on either front, they know they can share openly with me, and I’ll work with the rest of the team to provide cover while they’re out. In one business book, the author writes that “you can’t create value at work when you’re destroying value at home.” If we want our employees
  to create superior value at work, then we must support them in creating value in the rest of their lives.

• Model vulnerability. Performing at a high level requires leveraging strengths but also improving critical weaknesses that could undermine success. We can improve much faster if we share our goals with our manager and others on the team so they can help us. However, acknowledging weaknesses and seeking help are difficult to do unless the leader creates a psychologically safe environment. I have found that by being transparent about the things I’m working to improve (e.g., constructive feedback I’ve received, my leadership assessment scores), my team feels at greater liberty to do the same.

• Have fun and laugh frequently. Whether through surprise birthday celebrations over Zoom, quarterly team-building activities, or random injections of fun during all-hands meetings, my team has benefited so much from laughing together. Not too long after joining, a new employee sent me the following message: “GCE feels more like a family than a department. That is a direct testament to the culture you have put into place. I feel very lucky to be in your org.” You can bet your bottom dollar that a team of people who feel lucky to be there will outperform a team that doesn’t.

Go to bat for the team.

Finally, I want to highlight that as servant leaders, there are times when we must fight for our teams. This can mean making a business case for additional funding so that our teams can deliver the level of impact required by the business, even when the financial climate is challenging. Or thoughtfully explaining a team member’s chosen approach to an influential colleague who disagrees but isn’t the subject matter expert on the topic at hand. A servant leader must always take a collaborative and positive approach within larger organizational dynamics. But she must also protect her team’s focus and morale, without which exceptional results are not possible.

Summary

Servant-leadership is a critical ingredient to building and sustaining high performing teams. It can take a variety of forms, whether putting in the elbow grease to help our teams shine, creating an environment where they feel fully seen, or going to bat for them in the right way at the right time. This approach takes courage, confidence, and strength because there are sacrifices that must be made along the way. But does servant leadership create results we can be proud of? And is it worth it? YES and YES.

Thank you for reading this series on How to Build a High-Performing Team. If you’d like to continue the conversation, please find me on LinkedIn.

Author: Li Kehl

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