Reflections on our first month at Oxbow Partners
April 18, 2024
We joined Oxbow Partners at the beginning of February and are a couple of months into our roles as consultants. Chatting at an after-work event, we reflected on the experiences we’ve had since joining. We sit next to each other in the office but work in separate teams on different projects. Other than the training we did together, our work has been disparate. Nonetheless, we identified some common lessons that we have learnt from our first couple of months as management consultants.
- Unstructured problems require structured thinking
During university, we took concise exam questions for granted. Much of a consultant’s job involves distilling client concerns into specific business problems to solve. Our training introduced us to several frameworks for approaching consulting tasks. The Pyramid Principle, the SCQA framework and the MECE concept all serve as useful tools for analysing consulting problems. But above all, we have noticed that being an effective consultant requires a different approach to that which worked at university.
A consultant’s first step is to define the problem boundaries. Many of our clients are global organisations with tens of thousands of employees, so clearly defining the target scope is crucial for delivering impact rather than merely providing analysis. Whilst projects are collaborative by nature, it is also important to establish the scope of our individual workstreams (see section 2). Next, we collect insights from diverse perspectives and aim to form data-driven hypotheses on the problems. Only then, after diagnosing and categorising the core issues, can we progress towards potential solutions.
- Demonstrating curiosity and proactivity is hugely valuable
Although we operate in organised teams with clear management responsibilities, we should take ownership of our professional development. Over time, senior colleagues will naturally give us more independence to complete tasks as our capabilities grow. However, it is important to be proactive in assuming responsibility for project deliverables and in developing our skills. We identify three steps to achieve this.
- Get up to speed on the content, quickly: as a junior team member, you should look to become an expert on the content of the project, down to the smallest detail. This enables you to make positive contributions in meetings by answering detail-specific questions and allowing senior team members to focus on the bigger picture.
- Develop a reputation as a safe pair of hands: if you establish a track record of accuracy, colleagues will quickly trust you to complete increasingly complex tasks. This creates a positive loop of excellent execution which leads to more trust and therefore more responsibility.
- Ask for and learn from feedback: no one starts their career in consulting with all the necessary skills and expertise to excel. Formal assessments are provided throughout the year and at the end of every project here, but it is critical to ask colleagues for regular task-specific feedback. For example, feedback on a meeting tracker one of us made in Excel quickly got me up to speed with OP’s formatting protocols, and the next day’s effort was better. A proactive approach ensured output of a higher standard.
- The people you work with matter, a lot.
This one speaks for itself, but it cannot be overstated. We both joined Oxbow Partners because of the people we met during the interview process, my (Will) internship here, and corporate events. Whilst other firms we interned at also had bright teams, Oxbow Partners stands out for its commitment to being hard on facts but soft on people. There’s a relaxed competence in the office that neither of us has experienced elsewhere. In daily meetings, our perspectives are valued.
On the social side, it’s no different. We were assigned work ‘buddies’ upon joining, but there is no formality to the firm hierarchy. You are just as likely to spend after work drinks chatting with a partner about their upcoming family holiday as you are chatting to a fellow newcomer about your experience since joining. We’re a close-knit team, and everyone supports each other.
Overall, our time at Oxbow Partners has been fantastic. It’s a place that fosters collaboration, champions ideas, and provides space for personal growth. We’re both looking forward to what’s ahead in the coming months.
About the authors
William Austen is a Consultant at Oxbow Partners. He holds a first class degree in Environmental Policy and Economics from the London School of Economics. Harry Schlote is a Consultant at Oxbow Partners. He holds a first class degree in Design Engineering from Imperial College London.