{"id":539,"date":"2020-02-28T16:44:51","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T16:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com\/blog\/?p=539"},"modified":"2020-02-28T16:44:53","modified_gmt":"2020-02-28T16:44:53","slug":"consulting-101-dealing-with-the-age-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com\/blog\/2020\/02\/28\/consulting-101-dealing-with-the-age-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Consulting 101 – Dealing with the age gap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dealing with the age gap<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The earlier you are reading this in your career, the larger\nthe age gap you may encounter between those that have hired you to consult\nthem. This can create some awkward situations and conversations. There will be\na difference in thought process and opinions just based on the generational\ndifferences alone. Always remember to be respectful and humble to the wisdom of\nothers. Even though there might be situations where you may or do know best,\nunderstanding and appreciating others will only benefit you in the long run. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many times, you will be implementing some form of new technology\nto help replace or assist older manual processes and tools. These newer\ntechnologies may be foreign to the people you are working with, in the same way\nlearning their existing process is foreign to you. Remember to exercise\npatience when explaining and training and use some of the skills you learned on\nhow to teach others effectively. A little empathy will go a long way. Many of\nthese people have been doing the same task, the same way for many years and\nchange will be scary to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There will be times that fighting for respect with an age\ngap difference is a losing battle. Having to take advice and orders from\nsomeone thirty years younger may be too much for someone\u2019s ego. In these\nscenarios, it is ok to let your manager know and work with your team to take a\npossible back seat on client facing scenarios and pick up the slack somewhere else.\nFor example, you can be the one that takes notes at a meeting with the client\nand have another team member conduct the interview portion. Ideally, after some\ntime, you will be able to forge a better relationship with your client once you\nhave demonstrated your skills and value and be able to take more of a leading\nrole on the client facing side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Kid on the Block<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I was essentially younger then the pictures of Doug\u2019s grandchildren that sat on his desk. The piece of database code he was walking me through had been written before I had even entered high school. As Doug spoke, I felt pretty uncomfortable knowing I had been hired to replace items he had owned and worked on for nearly thirty years, but Doug was always kind and very happy to answer any question I had. As I reflected back, I was pretty grateful for having a subject matter expert who was eager and patient enough to explain something he had done a million times over and could do in his sleep. As the project ended and we completed a round of development that automated and replaced a lot of items that Doug normally did, something strange happened. He actually got busier. The items we had helped him with had freed up his time to do larger and more important things for the company he had helped build. Overall it was a very rewarding experience for me and it seemed it had been for him as well.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you interested in starting a career in consulting? Be\nsure do read the full book Jack of all Trades\nMaster of Some; An Introduction to Consulting<\/a> available on Amazon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dealing with the age gap The earlier you are reading this in your career, the larger the age gap you may encounter between those that have hired you to consult them. This can create some awkward situations and conversations. There will be a difference in thought process and opinions just based on the generational differences […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":603,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book","category-consulting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":541,"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions\/541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}