The skill BCG's North America boss thinks matters more in the AI era

At Boston Consulting Group, consultants of the future mightiness look a batch for illustration those of the past: generalists pinch business acumen.

The difference, said BCG seasoned Mel Wolfgang, is that the patient progressively sees its consultants processing immoderate of the method capabilities erstwhile concentrated among specialists successful areas specified arsenic IT architecture and software development.

Wolfgang sewage a amended consciousness of that displacement erstwhile he took complete arsenic North America chair successful May. He asked really galore of BCG's accepted consulting unit had accomplishment sets akin to those of its method employees.

What Wolfgang recovered amazed him.

"I've really benignant of sewage double the workforce that I thought I had, and I started to really categorize what group know," he said.

Nearly arsenic galore group pinch accepted consulting backgrounds — including, arsenic Wolfgang put it, "the English lit awesome pinch an MBA" — had developed skills that approximated those of BCG's method hires.

BCG gauged those skills done tests and employees' demonstrated method activity connected the job.

Hiring is accelerating

The findings come, Wolfgang said, arsenic the patient is accelerating its hiring of some method talent and business generalists, who person agelong populated the consulting industry.

He said he wants group who harvester technical proficiency pinch the critical-thinking skills BCG has traditionally prized.

"I'm trying to find the Venn sketch overlap of that arsenic overmuch arsenic I perchance can," Wolfgang said.

Many caller hires, he said, are arriving pinch a broader scope of method skills. In interviews, BCG will inquire whether candidates person experience utilizing AI tools specified arsenic Claude and Codex.

Wolfgang said that while those abilities are progressively helpful, "You still person to framework the problem. You still person to activity the analytics."

Plus, he said, consultants request to find whether an reply makes sense.

"The domiciled of judgement has accrued enormously, and that's an apprenticed skill," Wolfgang said.

Officers and task managers walk clip pinch inferior staffers to thief them arrive astatine the champion answers, he said. While AI tin thief make insights, Wolfgang said, "you mightiness person to do it aggregate times because what it spits retired primitively whitethorn require a batch of refinement and judgment."

Wolfgang said that astir 30% to 40% of the firm's activity is focused connected AI, including helping clients reshape their business models astir the technology.

The remaining stock of BCG's business, he said, falls nether accepted consulting — things for illustration strategy, mergers, and post-merger integrations. Yet those efforts besides mostly touch connected aspects of AI. "Pretty adjacent to 100% of our activity coming talks astir AI successful immoderate way," he said.

Training for AI

To support up pinch clients' AI needs, Wolfgang said the patient has expanded worker training beyond what it provides to caller hires aliases those entering a caller customer industry.

BCG instructs unit — from consultants to support and operations teams — connected topics specified arsenic the basics of building AI agents and determining wherever and really champion to usage them. For labor who want to spell deeper, the institution offers instruction successful much method areas, specified arsenic information engineering.

The AI fluency training, which the institution has system into a four-step ladder, involves method tasks, specified arsenic programming an AI instrumentality that employs aggregate agents.

"They besides walk a batch of clip forcing you to deliberation done the judgment," he said of the lessons.

The training requires that BCGers walk a bid of assessments. Those tests set to thief staffers who mightiness beryllium struggling, Wolfgang said.

"If you're not doing well, it adapts the questions until yet you study it," he said.

About half of the company's workers successful North America person completed the first level of AI training, Wolfgang said. About one-third person vanished the second, and astir 20% the third. The goal, he said, is to person each unit decorativeness the first level by the extremity of the twelvemonth and each 4 levels successful the adjacent mates of years.

Wolfgang, who said he precocious completed his 2nd training tier, would for illustration staffers to region betwixt steps to use what they've learned. It's akin, Wolfgang said, to passing the written trial for a driver's license.

"Now you've sewage to spell walk your driver's test, and that happens connected the casework," he said.

Ultimately, the AI instruction, connected its own, is only portion of the equation, Wolfgang said.

"The captious reasoning that a advisor has ever delivered is still successful the bull's-eye of what we request to train group to do," he said.