The Making of an Innovation Consultant

Kate Fairweather, an innovation consultant at Fahrenheit 212, was seeking a role that combined her love of creative writing, exploration, and human behavior. Following college, she found an outlet in the business world through innovation consulting. “Innovation encompasses all of that, enabling me to dip in and out of different categories, craft stories, and dig deep into the consumer psyche,” Kate said.

Tom Abraham, an engagement manager at Fahrenheit 212, went to school for engineering but realized it wasn’t his passion. “I loved the problem-solving process, and the ability to use logic and reasoning to get to an answer,” Tom said. “I searched for other opportunities to apply these skills in my career. That eventually led me to innovation, using a similar skill set but with a focus on creating new solutions.”

Curiosity is a part of the ethos at Fahrenheit 212. “Inquisitiveness is an everyday part of our culture — folks who succeed here have a natural desire to dive into the details, poke around where people previously took things for granted, and incessantly ask why,” Kate said.

In some strategy consulting firms, access to high-level clients is reserved for C-Suite staff and partners, with the project team slotting in where needed in a more ancillary role. If your goal is to connect with key clients, look for a firm that grants this access.

“At Fahrenheit, anyone on the team may be an expert in a specific topic, so the conversations are much more open,” Tom said. “I’ve presented directly to C-Suites, interviewed CEOs one-on-one, and shared our findings at quarterly Board of Directors meetings — all of which were opportunities that I would be waiting years for in other industries.”

Another benefit of this inclusive approach is a more diverse set of responsibilities for project staff. “In recent history, some of my day will be about the future of digital wellness for iGen, other parts about the vision for advice in the financial services category, or others about innovative juice concepts in Russia,” Kate said. “The variety gives me a fresh perspective on the different topics I’m tackling, and definitely keeps it interesting.”

Which brings up another point. Whether you’re new to innovation or already working in it and looking for a change, it’s important to take the time to find a good fit with the right recruitment agency or innovation consulting firm. Kate found it at Fahrenheit 212. “Fahrenheit 212 also has a big teaching culture, and a big part of my role is about mentorship and sharing my knowledge of the practice,” Kate said. “Watching people grow and flourish as innovators is one of the most rewarding parts of my job — it’s gives me energy every day.”

The best innovation consultants are radically nimble. This includes an ability to juggle multiple projects at once. “One of my favourite parts of Fahrenheit 212 is that I work on a few projects at any given time, so I spend my day thinking about different categories,” Kate said.

Agility also relates to one’s stamina. Those drawn to predictability and quick solutions may find the pure process of innovation exhausting. “Innovation is interesting work, but it can be very draining,” Tom said. “To make it in the industry, you have to love getting up every day not knowing what the answer to the question you left last night is.”

There will undoubtedly be moments that a consultant feels they don’t know how to solve a problem. For some, this could be debilitating. For the top innovation consultants, it’s a welcome challenge — dealing with ambiguity is the norm. “You have to be comfortable with the stress, able to think quickly on your feet, but most importantly, you need to be able to maintain the blend of creativity, curiosity, and strategic thinking that is required in this job, for any client in any industry,” Tom said.

Agility also means shifting to meet industry trends. For Tom, the biggest trend in innovation is consolidation. “Every consulting firm and agency wants to get into innovation, and they are buying and building their practices at an increasing pace,” Tom said.

As the industry gets more competitive, look for a firm that can differentiate itself. Some agencies move into more strategic work and some move toward execution and development. At Fahrenheit 212, “the biggest shift is our level of understanding of what innovation can do. We are getting more nuanced project briefs, working with more internal innovation teams, and seeing a faster pace of commercialization of concepts,” Tom said.

The top innovation consultants can take an idea through to commercialization and bring the right stakeholders along at key points in the process. This requires a tremendous amount of confidence. “By nature, everything in innovation starts as an unsure idea, and a big part of my role is being able to clearly articulate that thought, get others excited about it, and lobby with tenacity to push it forward,” Kate said.

A core trait of innovators is an ability to learn quickly, to gain an understanding of something that they aren’t an expert in. “More than anything, this requires soft skills — active listening, asking the right questions, determination, and drive. The hard skills come after,” Tom said.

Fahrenheit 212 looks for self-driven people. Kate and Tom seek people with traits like empathy, creativity, imagination, vision, and resourcefulness. But consulting firms also need to deliver commercial rationale and opportunity/growth to their clients — innovation must be connected to viable businesses models. Hence the need for a specific, albeit secondary, set of hard skills.

“I need to be able to analyze and understand a business quickly, to be able to speak the language of different groups within every client and to be able to quickly create consensus between these groups to move an idea forward,” Tom said. “Additionally, the ability to quickly create rough business models is always handy.”

After Kate completes her early-morning creativity sessions, she often finds herself collaborating with others on her projects. “Depending on where we are in our process, I spend the rest of my day researching, cracking consumer insights, articulating an idea and its roadmap to the future, or working with designers to bring concepts to life,” she said.

The phrase innovation doesn’t happen in a silo is worn, but true. “I don’t ideate in a vacuum, and the best ideas come from collaboration and debate with others,” Kate said. “Being able to build bigger ideas with others — sometimes setting ego aside — is critical.”

Learning how to build and maintain a diverse team — and embracing the fact that we all approach problems differently — is another core trait of top innovators, and one that’s embraced by Fahrenheit 212. “We make sure that every team has diverse thinkers, and encourage them to come up with alternatives to be debated,” Tom said. “We believe that innovation is a practice, and it can be trained. We spend a lot of time and effort making sure that we keep that diversity of thought at every level of our company.