A FALSE TRAIL

Much has been written about the downside of hiring management consultants. One of the most sobering statements is the assertion that" the Cranfield School of Management studied 170 companies who had used management consultants, and it discovered just 36 per cent of them were happy with the outcome – while two thirds judged them to be useless or harmful". For many people working in organisations with experience of the big consulting firms, these statistics have more than a ring of truth about them.

Of course management consultants are an easy target; along with bankers, bureaucrats, civil servants, council workers and politicians. Doubtless, like any other quarter of human endeavour, scratch around and one will uncover sharp practice in management consultancy.

That is not however our point of contention with the big firm approach. Rather it is the assembly-line mentality that views transformational projects as something that can be bought in/or supplied (depending on your internal/external perspective). Grafting the plan of someone external, onto an organisation (to which they have at best a secondary loyalty and will not be around long enough to experience the consequences and learn from them) is manifestly nonsensical. The only practical alternative is to develop the consultancy expertise to innovate value from within.

Big Firm Recommendations (Please note the Health Warning!)

We can share the "advice" of big firm consultancies freely. We urge you not to take it!

  • Extensive Cost Reduction Programme.
  • No wage increases and "incentives" cuts.
  • Layoffs for "business reasons".
  • Replace full-time employees with short-term contractors/ part-time workers.
  • Outsource to "cheaper" parts of the world.
  • Stricter receivables management.
  • Lengthen payment terms to suppliers.
  • Investment freeze (R&D, Sales and Marketing, People Development, Hiring etc).

Back

CAUTION

  • “Body-shopping consultants” that enact “change” on the organisation.
  • Heavy investment in fees.
  • Senior sales/junior delivery.
  • Expertise resting with the consulting firm.
  • A singular proprietary approach.
  • Cult of the Big Firm Consulting Brand.
  • Exploitation of fear of presiding over failure.
  • Collateral damage to the organisational culture (learned helplessness).

"A consultant is a person who takes your money and annoys your employees while tirelessly searching for the best way to extend the consulting contract."

"Consultants eventually leave, which makes them excellent scapegoats for major management blunders."

Scott Adams, US cartoonist and humourist, Source: The Dilbert Principle (1996)