You're presenting to the client's executive team. You've spent three months analyzing their business. You have 47 slides packed with data: market share trends, customer segmentation analysis, competitor benchmarking, financial projections, operational metrics.
Slide 15. The CFO interrupts: 'This is all very interesting, but what should we actually DO?'
You freeze. You have mountains of analysis, but no clear recommendation. You say: 'Well, there are several options we could consider...' and start listing possibilities.
The CEO cuts you off: 'We hired you to tell us what to do, not to give us a menu of options. What's your recommendation?'
This is the trap. You've done the analysis, but you haven't done the synthesis. You've collected insights like puzzle pieces, but you haven't assembled them into a picture. You've answered individual questions, but you haven't connected them into a coherent story with a clear recommendation.
Junior consultants present data. Senior consultants present recommendations backed by data. The difference is synthesis: the ability to connect disparate insights, identify patterns, build a narrative, and distill everything into clear, actionable guidance.
Analysis tells you what IS. Synthesis tells you what it MEANS. Recommendations tell you what to DO.