What workable solutions are there for conflicts which reduce personal and team effectiveness?
Asked by big_boi
NB: In the workplace - (office environment)

Best Answer:
Team players A consultant is someone who takes the watch off your wrist then tells you the time, comes in to solve a problem then stays around long enough to become part of it, is called in at the last moment and paid vast amounts of money to assign blame. Jokes aside, it can be tricky to define exactly what consultants do. To the uninitiated, consultants can appear to be trying to be all things to all men – and women – when consulting firms actually come in lots of different shapes and sizes. But if you like the idea of working in consultancy and are trying to decide where to focus your efforts, it is useful to know that most consulting firms fall into one of three main groups. The first comprises management and strategic consulting specialists, such as McKinsey and Co or OC&C, which offer purely management consulting across a wide range of industries. The second group contains more diversified organisations, such as Accenture, Deloitte, and IBM, which offer services such as IT consulting in addition to more general management consulting. Third, there are organisations that focus their efforts in particular sectors, such as First Manhattan (financial services) and Gleeds (building and construction), or restrict their consulting to specific areas such as business process outsourcing. All of these organisations employ finance professionals in various capacities, so there are lots of opportunities for ambitious ACCAs. ‘Some years are boom years and others are not, but the consulting industry has grown consistently over the past decade,’ says Fiona Czemiawska, a researcher with the Management Consulting Association. ‘Financial services is one of the big growth areas at the moment,’ she says, and there are lots of opportunities for ambitious accountants – but only if you have the necessary specialist expertise. Do you want to grow? ‘A lot of the growth in consulting has been driven by increased regulation,’ explains Czemiawska, ‘so you need to know your way around issues such as Basel II and IFRS.’ Technology-driven change is also significant. ‘Many finance institutions are facing big operational and strategic challenges in areas such as e-commerce,’ adds Czemiawska, so finance professionals with expertise in this area are also in high demand. Other areas showing significant growth include financial shared service centres, technology shared service centres, outsourcing (locally and across international borders), and public–private partnerships. ‘Governments across the world are all trying to get as much as they can for the public money they spend, so there is a lot going on in this area,’ says Courteney Collins, a board member with Gleeds international consultancy. Although Gleeds services the building and construction industries, it has a VAT division and so tax specialists are much sought after, particularly if they can offer more than just finance skills. ‘Accountants tend to be well respected because of their finance qualification,’ says Collins. And if they can supplement this professional knowledge with experience of working in business, or a particular industry, or boast language skills, then this can help ease the transition into consulting. Your training as an accountant is also a mark of quality, according to Rob Hortop, an accountant who is now a principal consultant with the finance transformation group at PA Consulting Group. ‘I think people respect the profession,’ he says. When Hortop talks to clients about finance change programmes, they often ask whether he is an accountant. ‘They want to be sure that I understand their position and really know what I’m doing,’ he explains, ‘while they simply assume I have the necessary consulting skills.’ Hortop worked in consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers not long after qualifying, and then spent four years working in industry before re-entering consulting at PA. Although he says the organisations are ‘not hugely dissimilar’, the way he feels about working as a consultant has certainly changed. ‘After a few years of building experiences I was able to integrate more easily and add value right away,’ he says. If you want to be able to do this too, grab any opportunity you can to work in project roles, or take on temporary secondments. ‘You need to get as much experience as you can,’ he says. Work on systems implementations, learn how to train and coach people, lead workshops, and so on, he suggests, so that you can really add value to an organisation. Do you want to be challenged? Being a consultant is about more than having the right experience, qualifications, and skills – firms are looking for some very particular qualities in their employees. ‘Everything about being an accounting consultant is challenging,’ says Homayoun Hatami, an associate principal with McKinsey, ‘so you have to think carefully about whether it is right for you, and if you are right for it.’ In common with many other consulting firms, McKinsey forms teams based on the needs of the client and the project in hand, so those involved need to be effective communicators who can rapidly read both people and a situation. It isn’t unusual for consultants to work closely with people for the duration of a project, but never see them again afterwards: McKinsey, for example, has a global presence with 84 offices and an international client base. ‘On one occasion in Brussels, I met the other members of the team three or four hours before we went to meet the client,’ says Hatami. None of them had ever met before and had travelled to Belgium from the US, Norway, and the Czech Republic, but as he adds: ‘The client had the impression that we had been a team all of our lives.’ Although travel is not compulsory, it is an important part of the job. ‘The best answers are found when you work with the client,’ says Hatami, ‘and that means spending day in day out with them, wherever they are.’ Do you want autonomy? Above a certain level you tend to have a very packed agenda and work a lot. ‘Most of my friends work as hard as I do,’ says Hatami. How hard you work will definitely be a factor in your success, but it will be largely up to you. If you are at your most comfortable when someone else is setting the agenda, consulting could be your worst nightmare. ‘You need to be self-motivated and self-sufficient,’ suggests Tom Bangermann, a vice president with the Hackett Group, a consultancy specialising in the finance function. ‘You need to be relatively independent and capable of organising yourself,’ he says, ‘and when you are given a task you should just go away and get on with it.’ According to Bangermann, Hackett gives even its junior staff a high degree of autonomy but they are expected to use it constructively. ‘You are given the freedom to make decisions and you need to use it,’ he explains, adding: ‘If you want to work as part of a five-person team on a clearly defined boxed-in activity, then this is not the place for you.’ Hatami’s experience also reflects this. ‘McKinsey has no fixed organisational structure, so I don’t report to anybody,’ he explains, a situation he found difficult as a new employee. ‘I was used to having a boss and being told what to do most of the time,’ but as a consultant he had to find his own way. ‘I was waiting for people to tell me what to do, but I needed to take charge of myself and find what was interesting to me,’ he says, adding: ‘I had to make a significant contribution. I couldn’t just ride the wave.’ As a consultant, Hatami has nowhere to hide. ‘I miss those days when I used to be able to go to the office and say: “You know what, I just don’t feel like it today,”’ something he could occasionally do with his previous employers. As a consultant, this never happens. ‘There is a culture of performance,’ confirms Hortop. ‘You are accountable for all your hours and you have to make every minute count.’
http://www.accaglobal.com/students/publications/student_accountant/archive/2007/73/2883053
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