“One of my grand theories is that, fundamentally, there’s only one source of innovation, and that’s pissed off people.” – Tom Peters

For this month’s issue of Management Consulting News, I talked to Tom Peters, author of In Search of Excellence (and more than a dozen other bestsellers), and one of the business world’s leading provocateurs. In his latest book, The Little BIG Things, Peters sums up 163 of his best lessons on pursuing excellence.

Read my interview with Tom Peters

For the July 2010 issue of Management Consulting News, I interviewed Dave Ulrich, who is a business professor at the University of Michigan, a partner at RBL Group, and the author of twenty-three books. In his new book, The Why of Work, Ulrich argues that to achieve extraordinary results, leaders must pay as much attention to creating meaning for employees as they do to making money.

Read my interview with Dave Ulrich.

“The greatest opportunity to build a referral-based business lies in creating a strategic partner platform.”  – John Jantsch

For this month’s issue of Management Consulting News, I talked with John Jantsch, award winning social media publisher, and the author of Duct Tape Marketing. His new book is The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself.

I asked Jantsch for some practical tips on creating a productive referral engine for your business.

Read the interview.

Walter Kiechel is the author of The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World, which recounts the rise of the big consulting firms and how they came to influence every aspect of the competitive behavior of today’s corporations.

Keichel is a former managing editor at Fortune magazine, and was also the editorial director of Harvard Business Publishing from 1998 to 2002. I asked him about the impact of the ideas of pioneering strategy consultants and academics, and what’s next in the evolution of business ideas.

Read my interview with Walter Kiechel.

In this month’s issue, we wanted to get a handle on what’s happening in the IT consulting market, so we talked to Mark Livingston, Senior Vice President of Cognizant Business Consulting.

Livingston is a long-time consultant, having done stints at AT Kearny and Deloitte before signing on to lead Cognizant’s consulting practice. We asked him about the trends he’s observing in the market, and what it takes for consultants to succeed in the current environment.

Read our interview with Mark Livingston.

We’ve also got some advice about taking on impossible clients from Robert Sutton, a review of the new book, Rework, and our monthly assessment of the global services industry.

Read this month’s issue.

In this month’s issue of Management Consulting News, we interview Jeffrey Hollender, Chairman of Seventh Generation and author of The Responsibility Revolution: How the Next Generation of Businesses Will Win. Hollender tells us why corporate responsibility has become increasingly important for business success.

You’ll also find articles on client trust, authentic communication, and why your client’s frontline staff may be underperforming. Plus, we peek into the crystal ball about consulting in 2010, and let you know about some upcoming learning events for consultants.

As always, we keep you posted on what’s happening in the professional services industry with the MCNews 12 Index report. Read why things were looking up for the Index last month.

Read this month’s issue.

The next issue of Management Consulting News will be published on April 6, 2010, and will feature an interview with Mark Livingston, Senior Vice President of Cognizant Business Consulting. We’ll ask him about the trends he’s observing in this shifting market and how you can stay on top of those trends.

“Clients benefit from naked service because they hear what they need to hear, without having to parse through what you are saying.” – Patrick Lencioni

This month, we welcome back Patrick Lencioni, best-selling author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Death by Meeting, and The Three Signs of a Miserable Job.

In his new book, Getting Naked: A Business Fable about Shedding the Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty, Lencioni tackles an issue that all consultants face: how to retain the clients you really want. We asked Lencioni about the strategies he uses to build trust and keep clients loyal.

Read my interview with Patrick Lencioni

We’re also featuring articles on boosting your creativity, how to stay at the top of your game, what we can learn from Columbus, making the most of survey research, and a report on what CEOs around the world think is coming in 2010.

Read this month’s issue.

“For creative, conceptual undertakings, the science shows that if-then motivators often don’t work and, in fact, can do harm.” – Daniel Pink

This month, our guest is Daniel Pink, author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Pink’s previous books, including A Whole New Mind and Free Agent Nation, placed him among today’s leading thinkers about the modern world of work.

For his new book, Pink examined decades of research on human motivation and reveals the mismatch between what science knows and what business does–and how that affects every aspect of life. He shows why the usual carrot and stick approach is precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today’s challenges.

Read my interview with Daniel Pink

We’re also featuring articles on reasons to start your own business, working with a difficult boss, how to jump start your business for 2010, an ebook offer, and opportunities for consultants in project management.

Read this month’s issue.

“Clever people are the ones who create disproportionate amounts of value from the resources their organizations make available to them.” - Rob Goffee

Rob Goffee is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at the London Business School. He’s also the coauthor of Clever: Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People and Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?

In this month’s issue of Management Consulting News, I asked Goffee how leaders should think about working with, retaining, and getting the most from clever people. Read my interview with Rob Goffee.

We’re also featuring articles on extreme leadership, avoiding a lengthy sales cycle, the world’s top business hotels, and executives’ big paychecks.

Read this month’s newsletter.

For this month’s issue of Management Consulting News, I talked with Lon Safko, coauthor of  The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success. I asked Safko how consultants can and should use the tools of social media to build their practices and serve clients.

Read the interview with Lon Safko

We’re also featuring a podcast on the state of hiring in the consulting industry with Executive Recruiter, Jason Sanders. In our conversation, we talked about the state of the consultant hiring market, how consultants can position themselves to make a career change, and how to find a recruiter who can help you.

Listen to the podacst with Jason Sanders

We’ve also got an update on the recent problems facing McKinsey & Company, and articles on selling skills, entrepreneurship, and marketing. As always, we’re also keeping track of what’s happening in the industry for you in our latest MCNews 12 Index report.

Read this month’s issue.