Hands or Brains? How to Hire for Strategy, Strategically
Summary
Hiring a consultant is no different from hiring talent: you need to look both for hard and soft skills if you want a successful and fruitful relationship. The most commonly used selection criteria, visual impact of the portfolio, same-industry experience, results achieved and price competitiveness don’t necessarily help to make a better selection. This presentation contains samples of the three key skills to look for, how they were critical in project success, and how to look for these skills in a consultancy.
Key Insights
-
•
Hiring for known problems calls for 'hands,' while unknown problems require 'brains' with strategic skills.
-
•
Evaluating agencies by portfolio visuals emphasizes output, not problem-solving effectiveness.
-
•
Industry-specific experience is less important than demonstrated expertise across diverse challenges.
-
•
Higher price does not guarantee better strategic capabilities; agencies also optimize their margins.
-
•
Partnership mindset leads to value creation by challenging client assumptions rather than just delivering services.
-
•
Successful strategy projects must produce solutions adopted company-wide, not just isolated deliverables.
-
•
Facilitating cross-department collaboration, especially with technical teams, is key to project success.
-
•
Flexibility means aligning on goals despite differing methodologies or tools, not simply adapting processes.
-
•
Listening to how agencies navigate organizational context reveals leadership beyond technical execution.
-
•
Proposals often better reveal strategic thinking and innovation than interviews alone.
Notable Quotes
"If you care about the solution, you’re much better off hiring hands."
"A vendor provides a service, but a partner delivers value."
"Knowing the difference between hands and brains is key to managing expectations."
"Choosing an agency based on portfolio visuals is focusing on output, not on how effective the solution was."
"The biggest challenge of a project is building a solution that’s going to be adopted company-wide."
"Flexibility is not about using the same methodologies; it’s about moving together towards the same goal."
"Big picture thinkers move past obstacles and create unexpected paths and new solutions."
"You find the right fit when someone challenges your assumptions and provides a different perspective."
"Success is about not sacrificing quality, not about mere integration."
"Listening for leadership is about understanding how they navigate a project beyond the solution."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Slides are hitting a brick wall; video clips make findings much more interactive and engaging for stakeholders."
Taylor Jennings Joe Nelson Alex KnollRepository Retrospective: Learnings from Introducing a Central Place for UX Research
March 9, 2022
"Expectation describes how things ought to be and reinforces the distinction between the present and what is not yet here."
Nicole AleongFuture Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology
March 26, 2024
"Disruptive innovation is about changing customer behavior, not shipping features."
Jeff GothelfInnovation Studios: the Engines of Enterprise Experimentation
May 14, 2015
"By designing products through the lens of edge cases like disabilities first, they often become better products for everyone."
Saara Kamppari-MillerDesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility
May 26, 2022
"There’s a lot of pressure on ops people and managers to make everything perfect all the time for staff."
Tess DixonC'mon Get Happy
September 29, 2021
"Mastery is achievable, whether you have 10,000 hours or not—it’s about building that portfolio and case studies."
Liam ThurstonWhy Your Design Team Is Quitting, And How To Fix It
June 10, 2022
"People care about titles way too much. I had a guy whose business card said star-bellied sneak—love that."
Ian SwinsonDesigning and Driving UX Careers
June 8, 2016
"At DTA, distributed teams and lack of local diversity meant everyone was out in the field a lot to get diverse input."
Leisa ReicheltOpening Keynote: Operating in Context
November 7, 2018
"Getting to know someone as a person first—the vibe check—is the first step to successful UX research collaboration."
Rachael Greene Alison DavisBuilding a Design Ops Practice that Really Works (Most of the Time)
October 2, 2025
