Q1) What are the leadership challenges Tim Keller faces in consulting work & Project

Management ?
Ans.) Leadership is an art, Management is science. Effective project leadership involves
visioning, decision making & problem solving, empowering, influencing, communicating,
strategizing, team building etc. Project management or project consultant role is one of the
most challenging jobs in any organization, because it requires broad understanding of the
various areas that must be coordinated and requires strong interpersonal skills.
Keller joined Katzenbach partners LLC as a strategy consultant in Houston, Texas, soon after
graduating from Harvard Business School. He chooses KPL because of company’s focus on
strategy and organizational performance and because it’s relatively small size would enable
Keller to have an influence. Also, Keller’s desire was to have a role that includes leading the
group in decision-making process, flexibility, lots of interpersonal interaction, less back office
work and short-term opportunity to directly impact the direction of the firm.
A KPL project team comprised a partner, an engagement manager (EM) and several senior &
junior associate consultants. When Keller started at KPL, he was initially assigned on a project
focused on energy, but just few days later, he was staffed on a new project that involved
compiling competitive intelligence work for a telecom client. The project team included four
members, Kurtzman, who was the partner on the project, Rafael Reyes, who was relatively new
to KPL, was the EM, Matt Anderson, who was senior associate and Robert Sullo, who was
serving a senior advisor to the project and was based in London. It was decided that Sullo &
Keller would be working together on project, Sullo would be creating the competitive-
Dynamics model while Keller was to create a mirror model in MS Excel to help calibrate the
Vensim model.
Communication Gap:- Keller have communication problem with Kurtzman. They didn’t have
face-to-face talk and communicate only through Mail. Also, Kurtzman had high expectations
& demanded more from Keller. Tim Keller also have communication problem with Sullo. Sullo
like to work alone & also communicate through mail only. Keller also has problem with
Anderson as he leaves a lot of work to Keller & at the same time Keller has lack of knowledge
about the project.
Vision, Decision making & Influencing Problem:- His lack of knowledge and competency
in the mobile communications sector of the telecom industry and in consulting put him in a less
advantaged position. Keller was seen as newbie, and that influence the role or job that was
allocated to him , he felt the work provided to him was less credible to the others, had to work
doubly hard for recognition in a new environment. He also faced difficulties in making
meaningful contributions at project team meetings as perhaps others weren't receptive to a
newbie's ideas and opinions. With the kind of academic background and experience like
managing Digital Divide Data (DDD) in Cambodia he has, his ego got affected because of
little influence and decision-making role and he felt intimidated. This led him to question his
personal expectations and demanding work conditions he hoped for.

Problem Solving, Team Building & Empowering :- Keller’s personality was self-conscious,
egoistic, demanding, and high wary which made difficult for him to adjust and deal with the
type of environment he was dealing with on the project. But he has good work ethics. Keller
resolves problems and conflicts, doesn't seem to dwell on them, tackle them head on e.g. not
dwelling- able to put aside differences and work together with Anderson, also displayed a
willingness to learn and humble himself despite having his ego hurt.
Resolves problems- When project deadline approached and Sullo and Keller were still
uncooperative, Keller contacted the KPL team in New York and reached out for help requesting
KPL people team to bring in new members to work for him when Sullo wasn't willing to
cooperate. He appeared to be task-oriented and people-oriented, able to influence people to
work for him or at least in his favour, thinks with logic rather than emotion helps him to see
things from other perspectives, like with Kurtzman, enabling him to derive his expectations of
him.

Recognition & Influence Problem:- Keller work very hard for the project proposal, but when
make a meeting for the project presentation, Keller was not invited and his counterpart
teammate Anderson was invited. Kurtzman gave more importance to Anderson. He felt
recognition issues, less influence to project and question on his own credibility emerged. Keller
feared Anderson would not be able to handle questions from Kurtzman and the work done by
him would not be appreciated or recognised in the manner he wants to. This raised the dilemma
in him whether he had made the right career choice and should he continue working with the
company or not.