Consulting to C-Suite

⏰ Today in 5 minutes or less:

• What executives expect in a consultant.

• Proving your value with a new team.

• Mental health awareness in the consulting community? Yes, it does matter.

• How to quickly show net growth or loss.

Navigate Between Two Roles With Michael Stutts

What does it take to thrive as a consultant and an executive?

Michael Stutts spent 10 years as a partner in BCG before taking on a senior executive role in the hospitality industry. And for him, the value you bring personally matters more than the weight of the name your consulting firm carries.

As an executive who’s been on both sides, he has a unique perspective on what consultants can bring to the table.

In this interview, we talked about his path from BCG to a Senior Executive industry, as well as some insights on his writing journey for There’s No Room Service at the Psych Ward.

Watch the full conversation here:

You’re in a unique position to talk to us about what it’s like to be an independent consultant and an executive who might hire one. But let’s start with your time at Winwood Collins LLC. How was that experience for you?

Michael: I spent 10 years at BCG with Lauren. But what I started learning toward the end – which also helped me when I became an independent consultant – is that yes, it matters what consulting firm brand is on the business card, invoice, or PowerPoint, but your personal brand becomes more important as you grow within a firm.

By the time I was at the end of my BCG tenure, I started building relationships with some executives and clients, and they really appreciated that. They said, “I’ve never heard a consultant actually tell me what they think or break down something so easily.”

And so, I transitioned out of BCG and into the independent consulting life. One of the people I worked with toward the end of my BCG tenure called me and said “Hey, I heard you’ve gone solo. Would you like to help out in some capacity?”

I found it relatively easy because I built the relationships and found the differentiating factor that people saw as valuable.

Winwood Collins LLC was dreamed up one day in Dallas. My friends and I thought that one day, we would start a very prestigious consulting firm. The name we came up with was actually from Steve Winwood and Phil Collins.

Little did we know that Winwood Collins would come to life as an actual LLC. It has billings and it still exists to this day.

My work as an independent consultant went on for about nine months the first time around. And what they say about consulting is true: you consult for a team and then you join them full-time. I worked on a handful of engagements until I landed my first executive role at the restaurant company.

That’s the story of how I found a decent life and a decent success out of it.

As an executive, what do you expect consultants to do when they’re in the role?

Michael: It could be a personal bias, but what I expect is that somebody from outside your organization can see obvious things that you don’t and isn’t afraid to speak up about it.

Here’s an analogy: if I’m looking for my keys for 30 minutes, somebody may come in and immediately find them hanging on the hook – which is the only place I hadn’t looked because I was too close to it.

I believe that you have a 6-10 week window of being a new person, where you’re not stuck in the everyday ongoing rhythm of that company. You have the value of being able to find something new for them.

I also want somebody who’s going to intentionally not blend into the culture, but just understand the culture and what it means to work cross-functionally with other people without ruffling the feathers. You need to understand that there’s an unspoken rule about maintaining your own objectiveness without angering someone by saying the wrong thing.

I also look for someone who will prove their value and show that what they do is worth the investment – whether it’s a multi-million dollar McKinsey project or a specific need within the organization. I expect to see what the proof of value is.

Did you take on consulting projects thinking you’d get hired by the client, or did that happen as a result of the work? 

Michael: It’s also important for someone to be open to joining a team at some point. I’ve done it twice now, where a consulting gig turned into a full-time position.

The first one was a completely different scope. It started as a specific time-bound project and ended with me in a board meeting. Two weeks later, I received an offer for an executive role with a completely different scope – which is something I’ve never done before.

I became the head of IT, digital media loyalty, and other related things. I’ve never done a technology job in my life. My technology knowledge consists of hitting something or unplugging and plugging it back in if it’s not working.

But I think the CEO trusted me with this role because he knew that my personal brand is an outside guy who can ask the right questions: “What does it do?”, “How much does it cost?”, and “What happens if we don’t have it?”

You can pretty much do any IT job with those 3 questions.

I’m in a CMO role right now, which started as a contract. I was almost kicking and screaming not to become a CMO but I ended up falling in love with the opportunity.

And that’s the beauty of being an independent consultant: you can test drive what you did in the consulting world, but you also have the freedom to close up shop for a while and hang out in your new executive role.

You also completed a special project: finishing the book There’s No Room Service at the Psych Ward. I think you have a real artistic talent. Is this something you’ve always had or something that emerged through the process of writing your book?

Michael: A bit of context about the book first: mental health is really important to me. But an audience that hasn’t been targeted enough is the business community, particularly people like us who strive to succeed.

My personal summary is that I tried hard and it wasn’t working for me. I was self-medicating and I wasn’t paying attention to my mental health. It all came to a crisis that I had to go away for a while. And so, I wrote a book about it. It wasn’t even meant to be a book; it was a way to clear my head after the experience.

But the book is about what I learned and what it was like being in a psychiatric hospital so I wouldn’t forget what got me there. I’ve gone back and referenced a few pages that I wrote because it was really helpful to me at the time. And now when I read it, I remember those words and thoughts.

To answer your question if I am a writer,  I don’t think so because all I did was take away what was in my brain and combine it with the way I talk: through direct communication, summaries of complex things into analogies, and Saved by the Bell references.

It’s just me in typeform but I really enjoyed it. I had a great time doing it and it made me a better executive. It helped me find my authentic self.

It’s scary to have my whole story out there unfiltered. But getting feedback from people saying my book really helped and that they needed to read something like that, makes it all worth it. I still think we need to speak more about mental health in our community.

What We Can Learn From Michael Stutts:

1. Consultants’ value is their outside-in POV. Consultants offer a fresh perspective that allows them to spot problems that internal teams might overlook. Use the first 10 weeks in your new role to show value, stay objective, and speak up without causing friction.

2. You can transition from consultant to employee and back again. Short projects can turn into executive roles, so work hard to prove your value to the client. The advantage of being an independent consultant is you can try out roles and return to consulting when it suits you.

3. Greater attention to mental health is needed in the management consultant community. The pressure to succeed often pushes management consultants into unhealthy patterns. Michael shares his personal journey in his book to help other high achievers navigate a path to mental health

Make sure to check out his book, There’s No Room Service at the Psych Ward.

Waterfall Framework: The Quick Way to Show Churn

Here's a visually simple way to show net growth or loss – the Waterfall framework.

Let me share a story about how I learned to make a waterfall chart.

My first client as a new consultant out of business school was a brand-name cellular service provider. I was sent to their midwestern headquarters, where the office was styled like an Ivy League East Coast university.

Inside the tiny closet that they placed us in, my colleagues and I toiled away on Excel.

We used the waterfall chart to show something simple: subscriber churn. 

Today, churn is a well-accepted concept. Twenty years ago, it was an innovative metric. SaaS didn’t exist yet; nobody talked about CAC or ARR.

But in that closet, this simple chart was a powerful way to show our clients that Churn was a problem that needed attention.

The first bar represented the total number of subscribers at the start of the period. The next bar showed the number of subscribers lost, followed by a bar that showed new subscribers acquired. The final bar showed the total number of subscribers at the end of the period.

The difference between the first and last bars? Churn. 

The waterfall chart made it easy to visualize that the new subscriber acquisitions weren't enough to offset the losses.

Think this framework is useful for your next project?

Feel free to download the template here.

Remember, the path to success is paved with continuous learning and embracing fresh perspectives.

Let's stay connected, share ideas, and elevate your consulting business.

Stay curious, friends.

The 2×2 is brought to you by Keenan Reid Strategies

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