# My reflections - "EA" doesn't seem to have huge openness(?) to consulting toolkit per se. - Data science doesn't seem massively directly useful, except maybe through monitoring and evaluation (which seems to have limited absorbency). - Risk of value drift and some kind of gambler's fallacy[^1] seems really important. - Having a clear idea of how you will cash out this kind of career capital seems very important. [^1]: I was thinking more of like a St Petersburg paradox but it's not quite that. The point is that the thing is always around the corner. - Mostly management consulting, maybe others - Is there a reason to go into / be in consulting? - Earning to give - Career capital - "Sell-side" direct impactful work ('outside game') - "Buy-side" ('inside game') - What are the likelihoods of achieving those ToC? - Risk of ~~value drift~~ (come up with a concept handle) - ~~Could stop you from changing career~~ <- this is actually a result of the other causes - **Work/life balance**: Could lower your giving - either $ or time - due to workload, burnout, priorities - does that end up crowding out / displacing impact? - **Value drift**: - Corporate ambition; ways of thinking / working (overly political, etc.) - Zvi Mowshowitz content ~recently - Being somewhere longer *is* weak evidence - Veevek's reflections on social influence - => Be suspicious of cutting a deal - is this motivated reasoning? - But also balance this with it being evidence of 'it's hard to be motivated', risk aversion, 'I haven't seen any great opportunities' - Some kind of gambler's fallacy - Local maxima / minima Bradley feedback: distinguish carefully based on what the actions should be - may be different for different sources - Be specific with language - Where would concrete examples / consequences appear? - "If you were more in the cult, you'd be more willing to do cult things... And you're spending all this time outside the cult then you have a more mixed set of values which is 'therefore bad'" - Bradley: "High absorbency careers" - talk from Joey Savoie - EA might have low absorbency for consulting at the moment - Also Bridget's questions about what kind of advice you give - It wasn't clear what the value of consulting was/is | there are market inefficiencies meaning value is undertapped - It doesn't seem like there are that many ex-consultants in key roles - It doesn't seem like people are using consultants # The article Primary vs secondary markets? Primary producers vs...? Maybe more like - capital market, labour market, ... # Some observations from EAG London ## The primary market is... - Look at # of job ads posted in Slack? - Anecdotally higher/lower? - Look at # of orgs in attendance? ## The secondary market is... - Look at number of orgs by time in existence? ## The space is still a bit new and will probably rationalise somewhat - EACN (now CfI), EA Services Network, High-Impact Professionals, ... - Some distinct but also some overlapping offers - Would like to see productive competition but would also like to minimise transaction costs incurred # Theories of change ![[Contra Consulting 2024-06-16 17.47.04.excalidraw]] Broadly, I think 'impactful' means: | Thing | Description | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Doing something "in EA" (broadest definition - purpose of org *is* impact) | 'Cashing out' career capital into 'direct' impact (even if day-to-day this is more like support, e.g. operations) | | Doing consulting in EA | Direct application of career capital | | Doing something outside of EA | Using career capital to do something else, with the ToC of your impact being something else, e.g.<br>- Being 'on the other side of the table' (e.g. in government - either to be a stakeholder, or to try to improve things otherwise)<br>- Earning to give | # Definitions - Talking about "management consulting" - Bringing 'strategy' under that umbrella - sorry to any strategy consultants! - Some of this is relevant to 'services' generally, some isn't - Flag this in a table of sections and audiences? # Management consulting has XYZ to offer. Offers (what), practices (how), sectors (who) - People, performance, leadership - The catch-all for things like HR, job design (role descriptions etc.), and more - Implementation and transformation - Implementation is fairly broad, but it's often digital. Can also be - "Strategy" - Very broad - Factor in 'growth' here (marketing, 'sales' etc.) - Macro (whole-organisation) or 'micro' (specific departments) - Operating model, organisational architecture, and transformation - What is it that X does overall, how is it configured to do that, and how can that be overhauled to better align with X's mission? - Digital, data, design # Historically, it seems like this value is underutilised. ## Matching problems ## Actual need? # The market for consulting in the near-term seems bullish. # Overall, 1-2 years in consulting seems to be the sweet spot. ## We're not at peak consulting but I would be hesitant to suggest it willy nilly. ### Values drift is a real risk. ### Returns diminish pretty sharply. ### Taxonomy of career paths? - Or theories of change ![[attachments/Contra Consulting/Contra Consulting - Page 01.png]] ![[attachments/Contra Consulting/Contra Consulting - Page 02.png]] ![[attachments/Contra Consulting/Contra Consulting - Page 03.png]] ![[attachments/Contra Consulting/Contra Consulting - Page 04.png]] ![[attachments/Contra Consulting/Contra Consulting - Page 05.png]] ![[attachments/Contra Consulting/Contra Consulting - Page 06.png]] ![[attachments/Contra Consulting/Contra Consulting - Page 07.png]] ![[attachments/Contra Consulting/Contra Consulting - Page 08.png]] ![[attachments/Contra Consulting/Contra Consulting - Page 09.png]] ![[attachments/Contra Consulting/Contra Consulting - Page 10.png]]