Hi!

I have a clear opinion here:

(1) Yes. Always! This is also what is expected from you on the job! There is nothing more dangerous than a young consultant on the team who doesn't properly think before talking to clients. Always moderate it in a way like "Good question. Let me take an instant to think this through and outline which aspects are important to consider here."

(2) No. Never start talking before having thought it through! As such, the question is obsolete.

Cheers, Sidi

Hello there,

1) Yes, absolutely. Much better to ask for 1-3 minutes to come up with a very concise and structured answer then trying to think on your feet and risking unstructured thoughts as a result.

If anything, asking for time will not result in penalty or bad impression on you, it will showcase your tendency on being attentive and careful on what you say.

Reasonable time to think is between 1.5 - 2 minutes.

2) It takes time, but you would better ask for time, even just 30 seconds to do this.
Refer to "Pyramid Principle" by Barbara Minto on how to communicate in a structured manner.

Mind you, it takes lots of practice to get comfortable with this as it's not a natural state of thinking for people.

Good luck!
Hope it helps.

Kind regards,
Nathan

Hello! This is the classical struggle that many of my coachees share. Here are my toughts:

1. Yes, for sure! No downside for this, worst thing that can happen is that they say no.
2. Yes, indeed, and it gets better over time. Even when thinking on your feet, there are some tips and tricks u can leverage (e.g., when doing a market entry, if they asked you what are the things you would do to start with the introduction of a new product, you can organize your toughts in a sequence way: 1. production, 2. packaging, 3. logistics, etc. and then break down all those points into specific actions: 1 > who will be our producers? will we do it ourselves or outsource that part of the value chain? etc.)

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Hello,

Here are my answers:

1. Absolutely yes, you can ask for 30 seconds every time that you have to do a brainstorming or a list of potential answers. The amount of time depends on the question, for example at the beginning of the case you can take around 2 minutes to wrte down your framework
2. You will get used to answer in a structured way practicing a lot. Of course without having time to recap is harder but when you will get the right mindset you will start to naturally think a structured way. A good way to start is to prepare and study list of things/factors that can be useful during case resolution (e.g. variable costs, plus and minus of different ways to enter a market ecc..) Whenever you will be asked abouth these topics, you have already something to say in your mind and you can think just how yo customize them to the specific case

Hope it helps,
Luca