Positively negative: The Smile Strain.

What Gen Z’s approach to communication can bring to professional services firms.

Learning and Development Statistics.

Why increased diagnoses of neurodivergence are a good thing for professional services firms

Why are we so bad at relating to others when we have been practising our whole lives? 

Why communication is key within the workplace.

Mind the gap: Why a gap year doesn’t equate to a skills gap 

The Urgency Trap 

Don’t Let Tradition Hold You Back. Why Culture Needs to Change, and How You Can Be the Catalyst.

Coffee/Caffeine is no substitute for a lack of sleep (and here’s why …) 

Is every day the longest day of the year?

Why telling a story can make you successful.

Is Cricket a Consultant’s Game?  

Alumni Newsletter

Workplace Learning Statistics

Imagine a world where curiosity never sleeps. 

Do you regularly work more than 55 hours a week? Have you considered the impact that it is having on you?  

Are you addicted to being busy?

Work Pressure Vs Work Stress

Gender Confidence Gap

What is a head girl?

Working mothers and their guilt trip trap

A Squash and a Squeeze: Unexpected Business Lessons

A Career in Consulting 

Are Management Consultants and Advisors: Business Superheroes or PowerPoint Paladins? 

Why Every Day Should Be Random Acts of Kindness Day. 

From Screens to Scenes The Return of In Person Training.

Groundhog Day: The “cubicle cycle” conundrum

The Joy of Missing Out: Why Embracing JOMO Can Lead to Success 

The Pitfalls of Perspective

Rethinking the ‘Client is King’ Mentality: A Call for Cultural Revolution in Professional Services Firms

How can Christmas number ones offer insights for businesses and their strategies?

“A Consulting Carol”

Would you buy from you?

Learn more

Professional Services Awards: The Winners’ Formula

To Develop Leaders, Start with Culture and Values

Women in law and presenting a case

Top 10 learning metrics, what’s changed?

The ‘Enquiry Strategy Remote Control’ for Consultants

Proposals: How to make them a point of difference, not a point of reference 2023

The Tyranny of Time – Priorities

ChatGPT

The future of education and work

Launch of Vienna, from Openside Group

Why are there so few women at the top of Professional Service Firms?

Should early career lawyers be trained in Business Development?

The Psychology of Successful Women podcast with Shona Rowan and Openside tutor Harriet Johnson

Wellness programmes won’t have the desired impact if the real problem is that your headcount is too low 

London Marathon

Are your relationships with previous authority figures in your life, affecting your relationship with your boss? 

Internal advisors: What do your stakeholders expect from you? 

Are you struggling to develop relationships and establish credibility with senior stakeholders?

Internal Consulting – the most challenging job ever?

To lead well – what should you stop doing?

Route to Partner – Recent Key Learnings

A Sutton Trust Webinar: Consulting as a Career – or a Route to a Career?

Presentation and Storytelling – Recent Key Learnings

Moving from ‘Data-Driven to Data Informed’

Times Radio interviews Openside Tutor, Harriet Johnson, to discuss her new book

Deedbees

Hybrid and WFH options are bringing more women back into the workforce – then penalising them when they get there

Remote Working Tips

How do you sell a Consulting Career?

Managing the paradox of the poisonous performer

Chester Business School Presentation

Performance Leader podcast

Openside is growing

Consulting as a Career, or as a Springboard to a Career?

Leading Virtually in the Absence of the Artefacts of Authority – Why Authenticity is Key

The Impact of Emotion on Loyalty and Buying Decisions

What’s changed about change?

Internal Consulting Research Report: Begin as trusted insiders, grow as respected professionals

Blocked in Lockdown – 10 things we have discovered

The Openside Webinar Modules

Women in Professional Services – 20 years on

Internal Consultants – Organisational Adrenaline or Decaffeinated Consultants?

The Pelorus – November 2019

What law firms can learn from consulting firms

The Pelorus – October 2019

The Pelorus – August/September 2019

The Pelorus – July 2019

Why your organisation is not ready to train and develop your salesforce

The Pelorus – June 2019

Learning from a terrible DJ about the perils of the predetermined solution

The Pelorus – May 2019

What buyers of professional services are really looking for

The Pelorus – April 2019

The billable hour kills your firm’s values – what are the alternatives?

The Pelorus – March 2019

Tales of the Unexpected: Rethinking Differentiation

Beyond the Cusp of Disruption in Consulting

Posters from IBM’s ‘Quest for Quality’ Exhibition, 1985

Proposals: How to make them a point of difference, not a point of reference

The Professional Services Procurement Conundrum

Is it worth it? Is the ‘always-on’ culture in professional services worth the cost?

Challenging the ‘always-on’ culture – lead from the front

What can individuals and their firms do to mitigate the ‘always-on’ culture?

The costs of the ‘always-on’ culture to individuals and firms with important caveats

Why the ‘always-on’ culture continues to dominate in professional services

Special Report: Is it worth it? Examining the ‘always-on’ culture in professional services

Reverence or Regicide?

The Paradox of the Poisonous Performer

How organisations can overcome big data’s two biggest obstacles

What do award-winning consulting firms do better than the rest?

Time’s up for the billable hour: Focusing on value is now the only option

How creative agencies can take on consulting firms at their own game – and win

Our Top 10 Most Read Articles of All Time

The Partnership Trap

The ‘Enquiry Strategy Remote Control’ for Consultants

Why are there so few women at the top of Professional Services Firms?

Underperformance all round? The Performance Management Conversation in Partner Groups

Is the definition of Partner “No more development required”?

Special Report: Mission Impossible? Managing Performance within the Partner Group

How to Improve the Management of Performance within the Partner Group

Special Report: Millennials in Professional Services – face the challenges and embrace the opportunities

The Millennials’ Skills Gap – Why, so what and what to do about it?

Defining a professional services career skill set for Millennials

Developing ‘Human Skills’ among the Millennial professional services workforce

Who are Millennials and why should professional services firms care?

Special Report: Professional Services Marketing is Dead; Long Live Professional Services Marketing

Part 1: The challenges facing marketing teams in traditional professional services firms

Part 2: The current role of marketing in professional services firms

Part 3: Redefining the role of marketing in a professional services firm

Part 4: The ‘Hidden Curriculum’ of professional services marketing

Part 5: Professional services marketing is at a crossroads

Special Report: Emotional Intelligence (EQ) in Professional Services

Special Report: Why (most) training is still useless and what leaders can do about it

Part 2: The negative perceptions of leaders’ attitudes towards training in firms

Part 3: The Broken Windows Strategy in New York

Part 4: What leaders can do about it? How to apply a Broken Windows Strategy in your firm

Define your metrics or they will define you

Learning to catch a ball and learning leadership

Rethinking Value in Consulting: What distinguishes the top performing firms from the rest?

Answer the question! Why politicians’ prevarication is unequivocally unacceptable in professional services

Why now is the time for your consulting firm to revisit its professional development strategy

MCA Member Contact

MSI Global Alliance Member Follow Up

Intuition bias: Why practice doesn’t always make perfect

Challenging your clients: Get “That’s fair enough” not “That’s far enough”

The Scourge of Procrustean Solutions in Consulting

The great differentiation paradox for law firms

Why jumping to conclusions can make things worse

Overcoming the gender leadership gap and women only development programmes

Microwave Beds, The Great British Bake Off and Behavioural Change Programmes

From ‘Agents’ to ‘Advisors’ – Differentiating your property / real estate firm

10 unique dynamics of professional services firms that hinder change efforts

Consulting Excellence: The Implications for Professional Development

Rethinking the parable of the old man, the hammer and the broken engine

The great professional services differentiation paradox

Biased views? Have you considered all the evidence?

Secrets of Great Salespeople: 50 Ways to Sell Business-To-Business

Thinking different… Why discomfort and risk are the necessary costs of effective consulting

Billable hours – why it’s time for firms to slaughter this sacred cow

Part 2: Behavioural and Cognitive Professional Development Report 2016

Behavioural and Cognitive Professional Development Report 2016

Why ‘Earned right’ is very different to ‘Entitlement’

Why Practising and Failing is Better than Failing in Practice

Can a ‘traditional’ professional services firm’s culture be compatible with the attitudes of Millennials?

The Consultant’s Achilles Heel: Saying “I understand” Too Quickly

Internal Consultants – Organisational Adrenaline or Decaffeinated Consultants?

Should you use Internal or External Consultants? What you need to consider

Why the best teams don’t need to cheat

Benchmark your business development process

The impact of a cringeworthy LinkedIn profile on you and your firm

How to differentiate your professional services firm

Moving from Products to Services – Why? So What? and How?

White-line Fever: The great affliction of professional services firms?

Managing difficult negotiations – how to develop a negotiation framework

Applying the Analytical Thinking Process – a sporting case study

How to avoid being deselected: Moments of Truth and Chance Encounters

Why we resist change and the implications on your firm’s behaviour

General Elections, Gym Memberships and Critical Client Conversations

Request for Proposal – 10 tips to maximise success when the odds are stacked against you

Be honest. Would you buy from you?

The dilemma of being a principal in consulting

How Manchester City won the Premiership in 2012

What is leadership?

Networking and cold calling: touting for business or making a contribution?