More than just training: Developing consultants effectively

In management consulting in particular, it quickly becomes clear that the most important asset is the employees. Only if they have all the necessary professional, methodological and personal skills can customer projects be successfully processed and sales generated.

Until now, the focus has been on professional and methodological training. However, especially in consulting, the high time and content-related pressure of expectations has a considerable impact on employees’ performance and mental stress.

As a result, the need for targeted further training opportunities for productivity, resilience and long-term performance of consultants is constantly increasing. Traditional time management and communication training is no longer sufficient to support the necessary personal development of consultants and help them deal with stress in the long term.

Christian Markgraf developed a deep understanding of the mental and organizational challenges that consultants face on a daily basis from his intensive experience in the consulting industry – characterized by a fast pace, complex customer requirements and constant pressure of expectations. It became clear to him that professional and methodological excellence are not enough if personal clarity, self-control and mental stability are not developed just as systematically.

With this in mind, he founded the mentoring and coaching program THRIVE as a Consultant, which supports consultants in strengthening their performance in a targeted manner – with more clarity, self-determination and inner stability. The aim is to combine top performance with personal balance – without giving up one’s own career ambitions.

Today, Christian Markgraf works not only with individual consultants, but also with HR managers at leading management consultancies to develop and implement customized training measures for consultants at all levels of experience. At the same time, he continues to work as an independent consultant, contributing his expertise to ongoing transformation and strategy projects.

A medium-sized management consultancy had a structured training program focusing on professional development, methodological training and soft skills training. However, it proved to be a challenge, especially for experienced consultants, to offer truly relevant training courses that met the specific requirements of the industry.

The consultants were under great pressure to manage several projects simultaneously without losing their personal balance. In addition to professional excellence, the company therefore wanted to specifically promote self-management and goal orientation in order to prevent overload and burnout. The decisive factor was to help the consultants to actively manage their personal and mental development – with the necessary support from their superiors.

Consultants in particular, who were working on several projects at the same time, felt a constant pressure of expectations and found it difficult to relax. The soft skills training was therefore tailored specifically to their needs instead of relying on generic standard solutions from external providers. The company placed importance on a practical program that went beyond general resilience topics and offered concrete solutions for everyday consulting work.

To ensure this, the management consultancy specifically looked for a coach who knows the consulting world from his own experience and understands the specific challenges of the industry.

In order to identify the greatest levers for greater productivity, clarity and self-management, a targeted selection of relevant topics was made in close cooperation with the HR department. The aim was to define training content that would meet the consultants’ specific challenges and offer sustainable added value for their day-to-day work. A small group of consultants was then selected to participate in the program.

The program itself was based on the coach’s mentoring approach and was designed as a multi-stage series of workshops with interactive live sessions and self-study phases. The focus was on direct applicability and practical approaches in order to integrate what was learned directly into everyday working life and achieve tangible improvements. For optimal preparation, the participants were given access to a video-on-demand platform on which they could flexibly learn the theoretical basics.

Practical, interactive, and directly applicable

The live sessions combined targeted impulses with reflection exercises and individual transfer tasks, which were worked on between the modules. This mixture of knowledge transfer and independent application ensured that the content was not only understood, but also firmly anchored.

At the end of the programme, there were noticeable improvements in the working methods and self-organization of the participating consultants.

A key result was increased productivity: the consultants gained more clarity about their priorities and optimized their time management. They identified individual methods and tools that sustainably increased their efficiency and developed strategies to minimize distractions and actively counteract procrastination.

In addition to the pure increase in efficiency, the program also led to less stress and more focus. The participants learned to recognize their individual stressors at an early stage and proactively counteract them. Particularly when working on several projects at the same time, they were able to increase their effectiveness through improved structure and self-organization without feeling overwhelmed.

A decisive factor for long-term success was the development of strong self-management. The consultants gained a clear understanding of their role and success factors, which enabled them to continuously improve their performance. With this new awareness, they established sustainable routines and actively shaped their professional development.

The program resulted in key findings that go far beyond traditional productivity techniques.

A decisive factor for sustainable performance in the consulting environment is an understanding of personal mental success factors. These are an often underestimated lever for remaining efficient, focused and resilient in the long term.

Another key learning: practice beats theory. Reflection, targeted implementation and individual feedback are the key to real and, above all, sustainable change. Standardized training programs with generally applicable tips are often ineffective – instead, tailored approaches based on individual challenges have proven to be much more effective.

It also showed that less is more: instead of training a multitude of methods and tools, a few targeted strategies proved to be more sustainable. It is not important to master as many productivity techniques as possible, but to find the right ones for yourself and apply them consistently.

Resilience also plays a crucial role. Productivity alone is not enough to be successful in the long term – you need mental strength to deal with high demands, uncertainties and pressure with confidence.

After all, small groups have been shown to have a big impact. Working intensively in a small team promotes exchange, creates trust and enables sustainable change in behavior and self-management.

Speed and precision. We know that time is often the decisive factor for the success of a project. That’s why we provide you with tailor-made profiles of independent consultants, freelance experts and interim managers within 36 hours – hand-picked and tailored to your specific requirements.

Expertise and international network on-demand. Thanks to our global network of highly qualified consultants with a deep understanding of the industry and a proven track record, we can find exactly the right experts to understand your challenges and tackle them in a targeted manner. This diversity of international experience enables us to staff even complex projects with the necessary cultural and technical expertise – always available and precisely tailored to your requirements. Christian Markgraf is a perfect example of this: a consultant with in-depth experience in optimizing further training opportunities to increase the personal well-being of employees while also increasing the effectiveness of the company.

Project-based staffing with flexible, hybrid team structures. Instead of relying on permanent teams, consultingheads offers the opportunity to deploy experts from a broad network as required. By combining internal and external resources, we create customized solutions that optimally staff each project phase. This flexibility ensures that precisely the expertise required for the success of a program is integrated – without the restrictions of rigid team structures.

Results-oriented instead of overhead-driven. With consultingheads, companies get access to first-class consulting without the high overheads of traditional consulting firms. Our business model is designed to ensure maximum efficiency – so that your budgets flow directly into implementation and not into costly overhead structures.

Value on personal fit. We not only look at the technical aspects, but also attach particular importance to the personality and working methods of our experts. After all, the success of a project depends largely on how well the team works together.

Results that convince. Just as the optimization of the training program in this case study led to a sustainable increase in employee well-being and resilience, we also attach great importance to solutions that deliver immediately measurable results – without detours and with maximum efficiency.