In every industry there’s typically some kind of received wisdom that sounds like good rational advice but simply doesn’t hold up when faced with reality. The trick is to look for advice that is “not even wrong” - advice that is correct in a certain sense but fundamentally unhelpful when applied to reality.

More than just trust however, ambiguous work requires a specific kind of energy. Consulting is about changing clients. You’re often an outsider, brought in to catalyze some kind of change that the client has been unable to change on their own.

• 20% Beefs

20% beefs are like proof of experience - you can’t properly beef with an established way of thinking without first deeply understanding the orthodoxy. And I think this is the root of the power of 20% beefs - they demonstrate taste, point of view and experience all in one.

The problem with a carefully crafted positioning is that it typically makes the wrong part efficient - it makes it easier for clients to hire you for well defined work. It allows greater legibility, trust and expertise around work which is well defined.

Developing a point of view is a long journey, and it’s not easy. But it’s a more forgiving path than specializing.

• The Industry/Reality Gap

Looking at successful examples of 20% beef we see that there’s a common theme of analyzing the gap between theory and industry. The unique vantage point that the consultant has is the vantage point across multiple clients - sometimes across multiple industries too.

Instead, especially in the early days of consulting, you’re chasing the greatest possible surface area of distinct clients in an attempt to better understand the interplay of what you’re good at, what people will pay for and who you want to be.

The problem is that good specialization is exceptionally hard. And mediocre specialization has two core problems:

1. It attracts less senior, more tightly defined work that traps you in a mode of repeatable execution work


2. It puts you in a well defined box that grinds against your identity

You can separate most work into two buckets: well-defined and ambiguous .

• Well defined work is the kind of recognizable work where the client has clarity around both the problem and solution.


• Ambiguous work on the other hand is where either the problem or solution are not fully formed.