The Consulting Bible
I’m asked weekly, “Which of your books should I read?” My response is that it depends: Value Based Fees if you need help on fees, Million Dollar Proposals for better proposals, and so on through over 40 books.
However, if you must read just two, I’d recommend Million Dollar Consulting (McGraw-Hill), on the shelves for over 20 years in four editions, which must say something about its worth and applicability, and The Consulting Bible (Wiley), my more recent comprehensive book on consulting. They are available on Amazon.com, on my site, in bookstores, and on the publishers’ sites.
Here is the opening from the latter:
One day, somewhere in the mid-Pleistocene Epoch, after the last glacial period, a man was trying to create a stronger point on his stone spearhead, so that he could better hunt and slay the peccaries that fed his clan, and protect himself from dire wolves that fed on his clan. He did this in the only way he knew how, which he learned watching his father—he laboriously abraded the sides of the point on a larger rock.
On this day, however, a stranger happened by who might have been seeking more interesting surroundings, or was exiled from his clan, or, one could readily assume, simply was lost. Observing the work on the spearhead, the stranger demonstrated that the point had to be ground on a harder rock, not a softer one, and indicated how to choose them. Not just any rock would do. And, indeed, his method worked and the hunter fashioned a sharper spearhead more quickly. The stranger was offered thanks, provided with food, and bestowed with a lion’s tooth. He then went on his way once again, well fed, and with a talisman.
Consulting had been born.
© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.
