Alumni Profile: Ed Hearle

Ed Hearle

Why did you join Booz Allen? I had been working at the U.S. Department of Commerce and was attracted to Booz Allen because I liked their blend of strong analytics, personal salesmanship, client interaction, and — in particular — their absence of bureaucracy.

What was your first assignment? I joined a team working with the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Safety Bureau to develop a plan for how much manpower would be required to implement, what in 1967 were, new highway safety regulations.

At the time, highway deaths were skyrocketing, and we developed the methodology to implement these new regulations on a grassroots, state-by-state basis. It was important, cutting-edge work.

It sounds like a great beginning. It was exciting and in precisely the area that fascinated me — helping the government work better. I found I really took to the unpredictable exhilaration of consulting — that is working in topics that interested me but never knowing what I'd be doing three or six months down the road.

That unpredictability was an aspect of consulting that I always relished — never knowing which clients would want what and when. The consulting life proved to be a constant learning curve, the feeling of forever going to school and expanding knowledge and its use.

Who thrives at Booz Allen? People who can blend two key dimensions — rendering advice and then doing so in such a way that it impels action. It isn't enough to persuade clients intellectually if you fail to propel them to do what, in your judgment, is the right thing for them.

Client service requires a foot in both the real world of Booz Allen and in the world of research. To do your job well, you can't stop at the boundary of elegant thought without getting into the occasionally muddy swamps of action.

That's why building long-term relationships with your clients is so important. There are times that advancing your client's interests means telling them they're headed in the wrong direction. But with enough history of service, which provides both mutual respect and a depth of understanding, you can surmount these bumps in the road.

Any other "survival" techniques you can pass on? Being an effective consultant means living in the shadows — that is letting your client get the credit when things go well. To assert that we were decisive in a client's success, even if it's true, is arrogant.

Consultants interested in the personal limelight don't last at Booz Allen; good consultants turn the attention to their clients. A sign that President Reagan used to keep on his desk said it best: "There's No End to What You Can Do If You Don't Worry About Who Gets the Credit."

So where's the reward? Provided you have a fascination with intellectual content and analytics — and a real interest in helping others benefit from your knowledge — the work itself is the reward.

A lot has changed in the 90+ years Booz Allen has been in business. What about the firm has endured? The essence of the business is a constant — listening, thinking, writing, and talking about client challenges. There have been great advances in technology, of course, and we have developed some fancier analytical techniques in the marketplace, but they are just tools for what has always been about helping clients succeed.

I believe that if Ed Booz, Jim Allen, or Carl Hamilton, or all three of them, were to walk into a Booz Allen office today, they'd recognize the place in a heartbeat. They'd be right at home, even without knowing how to operate the computers and cell phones.

Speaking of the founding partners, do any of the three resonate have a particular legacy to your mind? I think the legacy of Jim Allen continues to loom large at Booz Allen. Jim Allen, whom I was privileged to know, had a zeal for high standards and excellence that has always percolated through the organization. One of my former partners used to calm the nerves of staff before a client meeting by saying, "Don't worry ... whenever a Booz Allen person walks into a room, the average intelligence shoots up." There has always been an aspiration for excellence at Booz Allen that is hard to top.

What's the best thing a client has ever told you? I was summarizing an organizational plan we had helped develop for the US Catholic Conference when I noticed that I was starting to lose the principal client. But he was gracious, and allowed me to finish my presentation before looking at me in a very kindly way and saying, "Mr. Hearle, the last time we tried that idea was in the 14th century."

I should have been quicker on my feet — and said something along the lines of, "Well, at least every 700 years or so, Your Eminence, we ought to give it a shot, don't you think?" But his comment so completely blew me away that I can't remember how I responded. Some putdown!

By the way, the client relationship, passed on to me by an older partner, continued to flourish.

Looking back, what would you have done differently? Not a lot, because I always felt that Booz Allen gave me entrée to working with exceptional colleagues and clients. And I always felt that the firm was a vehicle for my own professional journey. There was and still is a level of freedom at the firm that you just can't find elsewhere.

Any final thoughts? Booz Allen people need to be knowledgeable in a broad band of skills that clients need and they need to have a zeal about wanting to help clients succeed. There has to be real joy in the search for solutions that advance the client's interests.

story posted June 2004