From Consultant to Operator: What Changes

Lessons from transitioning between advising organizations and running them

After a decade of advising organizations on transformation, I moved to the other side of the table. The title was similar. The work was entirely different.

In consulting, I analyzed problems, developed recommendations, and presented solutions. I left before implementation. The organization did the hard work of making change happen.

In operations, I own the outcome. Analysis matters, but only as a precursor to action. Recommendations aren’t the deliverable - results are.

The transition required unlearning almost as much as learning.

The Consulting Model

In consulting, value is delivered through:

Analysis - Understanding problems through data and investigation. What’s happening? Why? What patterns exist?

Recommendations - Proposing solutions based on experience and methodology. What should they do? How? In what sequence?

Presentation - Communicating findings persuasively to decision-makers. Clear logic. Compelling narrative. Actionable conclusions.

Transition - Handing off implementation to the organization. Here’s the plan. Here’s the playbook. Good luck.

The consultant’s job ends when the recommendation is accepted. What happens next is someone else’s problem.

This model produces sharp analysis and clear recommendations. It also creates blind spots about implementation reality.

The Operator Model

In operations, value is delivered through:

Execution - Making things happen, not recommending they happen. Progress is measured in results, not insights.

Ownership - Living with consequences of decisions, good and bad. You can’t walk away from problems you created.

Relationship Building - Long-term trust, not project-based rapport. You’ll see these people tomorrow and next year.

Trade-off Management - Choosing between imperfect options with real stakes. There’s no recommendation without ownership.

The operator’s job begins where the consultant’s ends. The hard part is everything after the decision.

What Transfers

Some consulting skills translate directly:

Structured Problem-Solving

Breaking complex problems into manageable components. Forming hypotheses. Testing them systematically. This skill remains valuable.

The difference: you can’t take months to analyze. You need to move faster with less certainty.

Data Analysis

Understanding what data reveals and conceals. Building analyses that inform decisions. Identifying patterns and anomalies.

The difference: operational data is messier, more real-time, and less structured than the curated datasets consultants often receive.

Communication

Clear, concise explanation of complex topics. Tailoring message to audience. Making the complex accessible.

The difference: you’re not presenting to a client who hired you. You’re communicating with colleagues who may disagree, reports who need direction, and bosses who need updates.

Pattern Recognition

Experience across organizations helps identify what might work. You’ve seen similar situations before.

The difference: patterns from other organizations may not apply here. Context matters more than you expected.

What Doesn’t Transfer

Other consulting habits must be unlearned:

Recommendation Without Ownership

In consulting, you propose and the client decides. If they implement poorly, that’s their fault.

In operations, you propose and you decide. If implementation fails, you own it. There’s no walking away.

Selective Attention

Consultants focus on their engagement scope. Problems outside scope are outside concern.

Operators deal with whatever arrives. The day’s agenda gets disrupted by crises. Scope is whatever needs attention.

Fresh Perspective Luxury

Consultants benefit from seeing organizations with new eyes. The outsider notices things insiders miss.

Operators must understand context. Why things are this way. What was tried before. Who has what history.

The things consultants find frustrating (“why does this take so long?”) often exist for reasons that make sense once you understand the organization.

Client Relationship Dynamics

Consultants are invited guests. They bring expertise. They have limited time. There’s inherent authority in the external advisor role.

Operators are permanent residents. They must navigate complex, ongoing relationships. Their authority comes from position and trust, not mystique.

The Hardest Adjustments

Speed of Impact

Consulting engagements are weeks or months. Analysis, recommendation, done.

Operational change is years. The reorganization takes a year to implement and two years to stabilize. Progress feels glacially slow by consulting standards.

This requires patience that consulting doesn’t develop. Results happen on operational timelines, not project timelines.

Political Navigation

Consultants can be somewhat apolitical. They’re temporary. They’re outsiders. They can say difficult things because they’ll be gone soon.

Operators must navigate permanent organizational dynamics. Relationships matter. History matters. Today’s battle affects tomorrow’s collaboration.

This requires diplomatic skills that consulting can actually atrophy. Consultants get to be direct in ways that operators often can’t.

Resource Constraints

Consultants have whatever team the engagement funds. Staff are selected for capability. Capacity matches workload.

Operators have whoever they have. Skills may not match needs. Capacity may not match workload. You can’t staff up for a project.

This requires working with the team you have, not the team you’d choose.

Living with Decisions

Bad consulting recommendations become case studies. “Here’s what we learned from that engagement.”

Bad operational decisions become lived experience. You see the consequences every day. You manage through them. You own the outcomes.

This requires resilience and accountability that consultants don’t develop the same way.

What I Wish I’d Known

Implementation is where reality lives. The quality of the recommendation matters less than I thought. The quality of implementation matters more. Average strategy well-executed beats brilliant strategy poorly-executed.

Relationships matter more than analysis. You can be analytically correct and still fail if you can’t bring people along. Getting to the right answer is less important than getting people to act on it.

Pace yourself. Consulting intensity isn’t sustainable in operational roles. Engagements have end dates. Operational roles don’t. You can sprint a project. You can’t sprint a career.

Context is everything. Why things are the way they are often matters more than what they are. The history explains the present. Understanding it prevents repeated mistakes.

Humility helps. The people who’ve been there longer know things you don’t. The organization knows things consultants can’t know from the outside. Listen before advising. You’ll learn how much the outside view missed.

The Value of Both Perspectives

Having operated, I’m a better advisor to those considering consulting recommendations. I know what’s hard about implementation. I know what consultants typically miss.

Having consulted, I’m a better operator. I bring structured approaches, analytical rigor, and pattern recognition from many organizations.

The ideal might be careers that include both - advising and operating at different stages. Each develops capabilities the other doesn’t.

The transition from consultant to operator is less about learning new skills and more about learning new ways of using familiar skills. The toolkit overlaps. The application differs. The stakes feel different when you own the outcome.

The best analysts aren’t always the best operators, and vice versa. The skills overlap but aren’t identical. Knowing which context you’re in matters as much as knowing the skills themselves.