The Scourge of the 'Vanilla' Consultant

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Career Development   Consulting  

Those of you who have interacted with me beyond these articles on ProjectManagement.com will likely know that I have a somewhat outgoing personality. My wife would tell you I just want to be the center of attention; but because I prefer to take a more positive perspective, I’ll simply say that I am not afraid to be myself.

That seems to have done me no harm in my career, and it’s something I couldn’t change even if I wanted to—it’s who I am. Yet it feels like I’m an outlier; most of the consultants I come across in project management go out of their way to suppress their personalities, and I think that’s the wrong approach. Project management is about leadership, influence and team building, and the best teams are not led by generic, cookie-cutter project managers with no personality. If the consultant is performing more of a true consulting role rather than acting as a simple contract PM, the need for the right personality is even more important as they need to gain buy-in for their ideas, suggestions and proposals.

The problem is that consulting, especially in the project management space, is a numbers game. There are a lot of project managers and other professionals operating on a contract basis, and their financial wellbeing and ability to support their families depends on them being able to secure regular contracts. The more …

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