>> Hi. My name is Sam Bernstein and I'm a management consultant and partner with ###, Inc.,
and our corporate headquarters are in Princeton, New Jersey.
Q: What do you guys do in your company?
>> We're an organization as a management consulting firm
that basically works with companies and clients on operational efficiencies.
And what I really mean by that is we focus on productivity improvements,
quality enhancements, and cost reductions.
And we render those services with a mixture of consulting and training services
that we've done for over five decades.
We came in the business in 1958 and we worked generically across all kinds of organizations,
manufacturing, service, healthcare, so on and so forth.
Q: Can you take us through a typical day in your job?
>> Yeah, but typical is kind of an interesting question,
because I don't know if there is a typical day or two days repeat themselves.
I have responsibilities in sales, in marketing, in delivery and in combination of those services
sometimes I'm actually onsite with a client,
walking through their facility, coaching them, supporting them on opportunities for improvement,
in areas where they can enhance their business performance.
Other times I may be standing up in a classroom environment
and doing some direct delivery of our products and our services.
We work from the boardroom all the way to the shop floor
and we deliver services around strategy formulation, operational improvement efficiencies
and successful implementations all the way through training
on programs like problem solving and decision making and project management.
So the day is never quite typical because you may be rendering a service,
you may be onsite doing some observation, doing some analysis,
and in some instances, I'm actually out making presentations from the marketing standpoint
at business conferences or actually doing some direct delivery and training to clients.
Q: Do you get to travel a lot with your job?
>> Yeah, travel is probably 80% plus in my job. And it varies.
My role and responsibilities primarily keep my travels in North America,
but we are a global, international consulting and training firm,
so sometimes there are some requirements that are actually international in nature.
Q: What are your hours like on a typical week?
>> You know, when you do the math, I guess there's 168 hours in a week and I'd be misleading
if I said I worked 168 hours in a week but it's definitely not an 8 hour a day job.
You know, in today's society, everything is real time
and everybody wants something immediately or actually they wanted it yesterday.
So I mean quite honestly it's generally a 12-14 hour day
and for me one of the keys, especially when you're in the management/consulting business,
is A) your accessibility and B) your responsiveness,
so I really have a cardinal rule with all my clients,
that if they need me, they can either call me, they can email me,
they can text me, and if I'm on top of my game, I'm back to those people in no later than 24 hours.
And quite frankly I try to pride myself in being back to people within 4 to 6 to 8 hours,
and if that's really genuine in the case, you're easily working a 12-14 hour day
and by the way, I don't want to say it's 24/7, but its' a 7 day a week commitment.
I actually interface and get a lot of business transactional things done on Saturdays and Sundays,
which doesn't mean I'm working as long on a Saturday and Sunday as I am on a Monday through Friday.
But you know what? I'm accessible and I'm in touch with my clients.
Q: Which is important. What do you love about your job?
>> Well, I came from the college of health and human development at Penn State.
And that major is all about working, interfacing, and helping others, working with people.
And as a consultant, what you're really doing is you're coaching others,
so what I love about my job is the ability to work directly with others
and feel like I'm adding value and making an impact in creating hopefully
a significant difference on their performance going forward.
So for me the ideal or favorite part of my job is the ability to work with others and help.
Q: What about some of the challenges that you face?
>> I think in today's global economy there's a lot of challenges.
One that I don't think is often times talked about,
but there's a tremendous amount of social pressure on people in general.
You know, we all live a fast paced life.
There's tremendous pressure not only in people's work but in their personal lives.
So when you're trying to coach and help others on their performance improvement within the workplace,
although you hone in and look at the business and the culture that they're a part of,
you also have to consider the human side and understand that these people have personal things going on,
whether they're financial, whether they're emotional, you know, even in my situation,
you know, you have older parents or in-laws, their health is deteriorating.
You know, you're not thinking about that when you're in the workplace.
But by golly that person you're working with may be worrying about
their father or mother or their in-law in a nursing home or whatever,
so I think one of the real challenges is really being able to communicate effectively with people
and being focused on what business issues are at that immediate moment,
while at the same time there's a lot of noise and what I call task interference
throughout the culture and environment that we live in every day in society.
Q: Right. That's a lot to manage.
So you really have to be a multitasker and know what's the priority.
>> Well, you know what?
You've got to juggle a lot of balls, but in turn,
you have to understand the people you're working with are being asked to juggle a lot of balls
and with the downturn of the economy since 2008-2009,
every organization, as you know, is being asked to do more with less.
Q: Yup. How could somebody who would want to get into
a consulting role like yours prepare for their career field?
>> Well, one of the things I think you need to do is really hone in on having strong interpersonal skills.
And I'm not an expert when it comes to technology, but I hear nowadays sometimes when
students come out of school the way they communicate is through social media, twitter and texting
and so on and so forth, but they're not able to
sit across the table like you and I are right now
and look at each other eyeball to eyeball and have a conversation.
So one of the things I think people really need to do is really focus in on good interpersonal skills
and being able to relate with one another on a human perspective.
In addition to that, I think you need to be well rounded.
I think in some disciplines and areas, you want to be a specialist,
but generally speaking from a consultative standpoint,
although you want to hone in on a particular area or industry of expertise,
you have to be somewhat of a generalist and have an appreciation for lots of issues around business,
financial issues, safety issues, environmental issues, and also, we're no longer talking about employment
or servicing people in the United States, it's really a global economy.
It's an international marketplace,
so you really need to be somewhat worldly with your views and your understandings
and just because we know the way we function culturally within the United States
is what our comfort level may be, you also need to be pretty well in tune to the different cultures
that you're going to interface with people globally because of the diversity that we're all confronted with.
Q: Any type of college major you'd recommend?
>> Well, I think a business major is good.
I also think a liberal arts major is good.
The college of health and human development was an excellent opportunity for me at Penn State
and the reason I say that is it focused on people
and generally you might think about it in social behavior or social programming,
but if you think about what I do, rather than being a counselor
in some kind of a social or a welfare or a rehab environment,
all I'm doing is using those same skills from a consultative standpoint,
but I'm applying them to the business world.
So, you know, I think again, college of health and human development, liberal arts, business,
I think those are all appropriate majors,
particularly if you can get some good business acumen in finance, in human resources,
in operational management,
also any more now a lot of schools are coming up with some supply chain management
and lean manufacturing type disciplines and emphasis
so if you're particularly working in manufacturing or coaching performance improvement
in manufacturing or equipment type facilities, those are also pretty good majors.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about your story?
What did you do after you got your college degree?
Did you jump right into a consulting role? Or did you have previous jobs?
>> No. But it's kind of interesting, because I graduated in '78
and I spent two years at a commonwealth branch campus in Sharon, Pennsylvania,
called Penn State Chunaga# and then I came to the University part
for my junior and senior year, graduated in May of '78.
Started very quickly working in a rehab facility with my human development degree.
Found out very quickly that although I enjoyed helping and working with people,
it wasn't really financially rewarding in that kind of a social welfare organization
and in addition to that I'm the kind of person who needs positive feedback on my performance.
And in that environment I wasn't receiving a lot of that.
Now I don't now where I was in my undergrad world,
but I didn't think about that before, but I found out very quickly once I graduated about that situation.
So then I took that major and I went to work for a friend in a very small manufacturing business.
I did a little bit of everything.
I was a supervisor. I was the sales person. I processed payroll.
You know, but I did that for about a year and a half, two years, just to get some experience under my belt,
then I went to work for a large manufacturing company, called TRW.
And in that position I was there about six years and nine months,
got a lot of good hands on manufacturing experience.
Started out on the floor as a supervisor.
Went into production control management.
But the last position I took there was as employee involvement coordinator.
We were trying to bridge the gaps between labor and management.
We had an independent union and we had management and the two wouldn't talk.
And so my role was to bridge that gap.
Well there's where my degree from human development with individual and family studies
was a perfect hand and glove fit,
because I was really counseling and coaching people to come together and work,
not necessarily a family, but a family of labor and a family of management.
Started that, got introduced to this company I now work for,
called ###, Inc., who specializes in operational improvement.
And lo and behold, left TRW on good terms July 1 of '86.
Went to work for ### in about another month and a half
I'll celebrate 25 years with this company, which is somewhat unique in today's world.
With people changing jobs, but what I'll just close with that, I think it's pretty ironic.
I actually took that job at age 30 and now I've been here 25 years.
Most people don't start a consulting job that young.
They may work longer in the public sector, and then gravitate to a consulting job later in life.
I was fortunate that I had about 7 years of experience under my belt
and then moved to the consulting world and I've had the luxury to be with the firm for 25 years
and I've had the pleasure to meet an awful lot of people to work in a lot of different companies,
to hopefully add value and help people, but in the same token,
I've learned a tremendous amount in return by just helping other people.
Q: Right. Great advice.
Well thank you so much for sitting down and talking with us.
>> My pleasure. Thank you.