Press & Media

Interviews 

Authors Bryan Shane and Patricia Lafferty: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A Founder

An Interview With Ben Ari

Never take client discourse personally. The client is in the driver’s seat, and they are often under undue pressure themselves. As a result they may not filter their words and sometimes discourse may be harsh. You job is to filter what is being said to get to the meat of the matter. You cannot let your emotions interfere with the requirements of the assignment.

As part of our interview series called “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A Founder”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bryan Shane and Patricia Lafferty.

Bryan Shane and Patricia Lafferty are co-authors, of THE LEADERSHIP-DRIVEN METHOD TO PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT: The How-To Book on Improving Performance Measurement In The Public And Not-For-Profit Sectors. They are also co-founders of BPC Management Consultants, a client-centered, management-consulting firm based in Ottawa, Canada.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Bryan and I met while at Graduate School and we were both at a crossroads in our lives. After graduating (and eventually getting married), he went on to head a national not-for-profit organization, and I went to work for an IT system development company as an education specialist. My work was challenging, the learning curve was straight up and there were many opportunities for growth and advancement. However, it wasn’t long before Bryan was restless and after thinking long and hard, we decided that the best course of action was for him to work for himself. He established BPC Management Consulting Ltd. Becoming an independent consultant really was an excellent fit for his skill set and personality. The work was projected oriented, challenging, and provided a wide diversity of different projects ranging from project management to business planning, performance measurement, governance and information technology. Eventually, I joined the company full time and over the years, we did most of our management consulting work in an IT environment. Working for ourselves gave us the independence to write and publish articles documenting the unique approaches we used to solve client problems. And more importantly, it provided the client with a documented success story that helped them along their own career path.