Maurizio Cuna is a prominent management consultant and author of the #1 Amazon bestseller "Beyond Slides: How to become irreplaceable in consulting." With over 20 years of experience (including roles at Infosys Consulting), he focuses on the "human element" of professional services—soft skills, political savvy, and mental resilience.

On the Nature of Consulting

  1. "Consulting is not about the slides." It is about what happens when the room goes quiet and the client expects clarity. Source
  2. "Consulting is a jungle." It is fiercely competitive, intellectually demanding, and riddled with ambiguity. Source
  3. "Hard skills are the foundation, but soft skills are the elevator." Hard skills get you through the door; soft skills take you past the career cap.[1] Source
  4. "What if everything they taught you was only half the story?" Formal training focuses on tools; success depends on unspoken rules. Source
  5. "Trust-based relationships take time." You cannot rush professional intimacy. Source
  6. "It takes a long time to grow an old friend." Cuna uses this proverb to explain why client networking must start on day one. Source
  7. "Consulting is part memoir, part survival manual." Source
  8. "Deliver value before you are told what to do." Proactivity is the hallmark of an irreplaceable consultant. Source

On AI and the Future of Work

  1. "AI will have a huge premium on the human touch." As technical tasks become automated, the value of empathy and nuance increases. Source
  2. "AI is doing to consulting what the calculator did to math." It increases efficiency but doesn't replace the need for strategic judgment. Source
  3. "Don't compete with AI on speed; compete on connection." Source
  4. "AI can configure software, but it cannot navigate client politics." Source
  5. "The 'Human Premium' is the only hedge against automation." Source
  6. "Write long-form without BS." In the age of synthetic text, authentic, deep writing is a competitive advantage. Source

On Career Strategy and Growth

  1. "If you wait until you are about to make Partner to learn soft skills, it’s too late." Foundations must be laid in the first 5–7 years. Source
  2. "Becoming irreplaceable is about the human element, not polished decks." Source
  3. "Soft skills are hard to measure, which is why firms ignore them." Just because they aren't on a spreadsheet doesn't mean they aren't vital. Source
  4. "Own your career before it owns you." Stop surviving consulting and start owning it. Source
  5. "Think long-term in a culture obsessed with short-term wins." Source
  6. "Your network is your safety net." It provides work, reputation, and authority. Source
  7. "Visible authority opens doors that hard work alone cannot." Source
  8. "Don't be a 'deck monkey'." Move from execution to insight as quickly as possible. Source

On Mindset and Mental Resilience

  1. "Navigate politics without losing your head." Understand the game without becoming a pawn. Source
  2. "Deliver under pressure without missing your weekends." Efficiency is a form of self-care. Source
  3. "Develop the confidence to speak up before you feel fully formed." Waiting for "perfection" is a career killer. Source
  4. "Resistance train your mind." Use deep thinking to counter the shallow nature of modern digital work. Source
  5. "Self-awareness is the third leg of the stool." Hard skills and soft skills fail without an understanding of your internal world. Source
  6. "Consultants operate on instinct, but they rarely explain it." Success often comes from "unspoken rules." Source
  7. "Sit down with full attention." Courage in the modern world is often just the ability to focus. Source

On Client Management

  1. "Decode the unspoken rules that drive project staffing." It's rarely just about who is "best" for the job. Source
  2. "Navigate toxic clients and vague managers with a plan." Source
  3. "Clients don't buy slides; they buy confidence." Source
  4. "What matters to the client is rarely what’s in the Statement of Work." Source
  5. "Adopt a 'Merchant Mindset'." Approach consulting like a retailer: curate the experience for the customer. Source
  6. "Trust is built one single moment at a time." Source
  7. "Empathy is a diagnostic tool." Source

Practical Learnings & "Rules"

  1. "The 39 Exercises Rule." Cuna emphasizes that insight without practice is useless; his book provides 39 exercises to build habits. Source
  2. "Refinement over Volume." One high-impact conversation is worth ten average status reports. Source
  3. "The room goes quiet rule." Prepare specifically for the moment when a client asks, "So, what do we actually do?" Source
  4. "Mental manual labor is dead." Shift from processing data to interpreting it. Source
  5. "Learn to read the 'subtle cues' of the boardroom." Source
  6. "Habits matter more than hacks." Source
  7. "Politics is just human dynamics." Stop fearing it; start studying it. Source
  8. "Your 'BS Detector' is your most valuable tool." Source
  9. "Standard onboarding decks don't teach you how to survive." Source
  10. "Every problem only needs to be solved once." (Leveraging composability in thinking). Source
  11. "Gall’s Law applies to consulting." Simple systems that work are better than complex ones designed from scratch. Source
  12. "The human connection touch will have a huge premium." Source
  13. "Soft skills take decades to perfect—unless you start now." Source
  14. "Stand out or blend in—there is no middle ground in consulting." Source

On the Future of Human Intellect (The AI Era)

  1. "The tragedy is not that AI will take our jobs; it’s that we will hand them over, one shortcut at a time." True professional decay happens when we stop struggling with ideas. Source
  2. "Thinking is becoming a rare, respected, and rewarded craft again." As "synthetic intelligence" floods the market with average work, deep human thought becomes a luxury good.[1] Source
  3. "We need fewer but heavier prompts." A call for consultants to stop using AI for volume and start using it for depth and leverage. Source
  4. "AI can give you the 'what,' but only a human can explain the 'why' to a skeptical Board." Source
  5. "Resistance train your mind." Just as muscles need weight, the mind needs "difficult" tasks (like long-form writing and complex logic) to stay sharp in a world of automated ease. Source
  6. "The world will be run by those who still know how to struggle with ideas." Source

On "Ancient Roman" Foundations & Strategy

  1. "Apply Gall’s Law to your solutions: A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked." Don't design "The Grand Transformation" from scratch; evolve it. Source
  2. "Consulting is part philosophical essay, part survival manual." It requires both a high-level worldview and the grit to handle a Monday morning crisis. Source
  3. "Laying good foundations is the best fortress." Cuna often references the idea that reputation and trust are more protective than any legal contract or slide deck. Source
  4. "Every problem only needs to be solved once." Build "thinking blocks" (composability) so you aren't reinventing the wheel on every project. Source

On Career Longevity (The "Kitchen Confidential" Approach)

  1. "One day' must become 'now'." Cuna wrote Beyond Slides after realizing that waiting for the "perfect time" to share knowledge is a trap. Source
  2. "Consulting is an opaque industry; transparency is your greatest differentiator." Being "brutally honest" with clients creates a bond that "corporate-speak" destroys. Source
  3. "Internalize the 39 Rules." His book is structured around 39 specific exercises because "information without practice is just entertainment." Source
  4. "The 'Deck Monkey' trap is comfortable, but it's a dead end." If your only value is producing pages, you are easily replaceable by a cheaper resource or an algorithm. Source
  5. "Own the room before you own the title." Authority is taken, not given by a promotion. Source

On Client Psychology & Subtlety

  1. "The Merchant Mindset: Curate the experience, don't just sell the service." Think of your client as a customer who needs to feel looked after, not just a manager who needs a report. Source
  2. "Decode the unspoken rules of project staffing." High-value projects are rarely assigned based on the HR database; they are assigned based on "perceived readiness." Source
  3. "A consultant is part-detective, part-diplomat." You must find the truth and then present it in a way that doesn't get you fired. Source
  4. "Confidence is built in the silence." When a client stops talking and looks at you, your ability to remain calm and offer a clear path is what makes you irreplaceable. Source
  5. "Your 'BS Detector' is a billable asset." Clients pay for someone to tell them what isn't going to work. Source

On Work-Life Integration

  1. "Deliver under pressure without missing your weekends." This isn't just about speed; it's about setting boundaries through high-impact work. Source
  2. "Standard onboarding decks are designed to help the firm, not you." You must create your own "Survival Manual" to navigate the specific politics of your office. Source
  3. "Trust-based relationships are your only true security in a volatile market." Source
  4. "Hard skills are the foundation; soft skills are the elevator." Source
  5. "Become the person people want to solve problems with, not just the person who has the answers." Source

Core Frameworks to Explore:

  • The "Human Premium": The theory that as technical costs go to zero, the value of judgment, empathy, and "human-ness" goes to infinity.
  • Resistance Thinking: The practice of intentionally choosing "hard" intellectual paths to prevent professional atrophy.
  • Composability in Consulting: Treating your knowledge like software modules that can be reconfigured for different clients, rather than starting from scratch every time.

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