Consultants make me furious

by Dennis Howlett on April 5, 2007

I’ve been advising on a large project for the last few months. I cannot discuss specifics except to say it is a large community that has been endeavouring to deliver value but has been unsuccessful. There are lots of valid reasons so this is not about bashing the client in any way, shape or form. This is about the numbnuts consultants that advise organisations needing help.

BTW – If I am allowed to name the project at some point then I surely will because it is hugely instructive about how modern technology can deliver breakthrough value. My role is to provide some high level colour and advice plus assistance in presenting the arguments for new technology.

Late in the day I was sent several past consulting and process documents. Reading through was instructive because I learned (or had confirmed) that:

  • The value a consultant delivers is in directly inverse proportion to the thickness of the consultant’s report (ours is 3 pages, theirs is XXX – our cost to the client is a fraction of the other)
  • Consultants sell lots of grand sounding words, absolutely guaranteed to get you nowhere, policies that sound great on paper but within which you can see calcification embedded and which, at the end of the day are designed to prove the consultants are great at shovelling crap and delivering nothing.

These are words lifted directly out of email between my client and I. I am nothing if not direct and I don’t pretend otherwise but I did apologise because I had effectively vented my spleen on my client and not the report recipient. Not a good idea.

My client’s response? “I agree with your conclusions.” Cripes! That stunned me.

In a world where process should be subservient to value, you’ve got to wonder whether some consulting crews operate on the “Bullshit baffles brains” principle.

Thoughts…??

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  • Charles:
    I agree - the problem is that *most* consulting I see is not based on the principles you espouse. Most is based on ensuring you sell the next engagement.

    As always, there are ways and means of expressing 'stuff.'

    And there are clients who don't want to hear the truth.
  • Wait, wait, wait a minute. Let me throw some cold water on us and remind us all of something probably most of us know and agree with.

    Content blandness is ubiquitous--in all forms of consulting. But that's not new. What's more to be noted is violations of consulting process.

    As you note, Dennis, you vented your spleen on your client, not the report recipient--and you correctly apologized for that, because you clearly know that the real value add comes from confronting the sources, not kvetching to third parties. You will add value to this client organization when you can figure a way to make your comments to the report recipient, and/or to the consultant in question--not to your client, or even to this blog.

    And your client--same thing. You don't indicate for sure, but one gets the impression that neither is he speaking to the consultant, or to the report recipient.

    So what we have here is a violation of good consulting process--a half dozen people talking about someone else, and no one confronting anyone responsible with the truth. The highest calling of consulting, I don't care what the content is, is to speak the truth to those responsible, so that responsibility can be allocated and taken.

    And while that may be the goal of good process consulting, it also ought to be a best practice in management. Talking to third parties about a problem is worse than useless--it's gossip and avoidance.

    Dennis, you clearly do get this (witness your acknowledgement), and for all I know you have in fact had that discussion, and/or perhaps urged your client to do so. And perhaps everyone else on this thread knows it too. And I'm in violation of the rule myself often enough.
    But it doesn't hurt to remind us all: consulting is nominally about content, but in fact it's more deeply about making positive change happpen. To that end, we need to help others confront issues--and the best way to do that is to role-model positive confrontation ourselves.
  • krupo
    Makes me wonder if the people you encountered may be the same as these folks? http://www.gettingdrunkinfirstclass.com/

    This does add another wrinkle into the idea that we consider the term consulting a dirty word at work.
  • sig
    Was Dogbert right?

    "con" + "insult" = consult ?

    (old one I know, just had to)
  • Vinnie - maybe we're starting to see a confluence of events that small in their own way are contributing to a 'perfect storm' where the CXOs that you talk to and the lesser mortals I talk to are waking up and smaelling the *same ideas* around cut price yet better coffee down the street?
  • often it is the brand that clients pay for. Lot easier for politics or PR to say we hired Big Name A versus Dennis or Deal Architect
  • And how do they do that plus get results Philip?

    Community...exactly as we're seeing worked out on this sensitive issue and among this nascent group.
  • Taking up Richard's point. Not everyone can know all the answers, but what I've noticed with good consultants is they go away and find the answer.

    Why don't all consultants do this? I think it often comes down to hard work. Doing something new is hard work, finding answers is hard work - doing the opposite and covering up is easy.
  • Dennis

    I agree with you, and covered some of this ground ovre at my place the other day. See http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2007/04/03/providing-tax-advice/

    The fundamental issue is listening. Most consultants are too insecure and don't know enough to expose themselves to doing that - they may not know the answers.

    Richard
  • But the real issue is that consulting is 80% clock reading, 20% value. What happens when that 20% is 90% a crock of you know what butit sounds sooooooo good?
  • alastair
    I suspect that some are capable of both dross and adding value, but you have to work hard to get them to deliver the latter.

    The role of a consultant is to elicit from you what you know and then charge you a fortune to tell it back to you?
  • I spend a goodly chunk of my life trying to get people to think of their listeners'/clients' needs. This story is repeated daily and I wish I could get myself on the bandwagon somehow. (Not really, I wouldn't be able to live with my conscience.)

    Only the other day I was approached to advise the top person in a country. It could have been a great consultancy gig. Lots of travel. Probably lots of luxury too. But I knew the outcome of the investigation without doing it.

    Someone else went in there for a week, partly to see if my conclusions could possibly be correct.

    They were.
  • So even parts of IBM need a customer understanding transplant...good to know.
  • great piece denn. of course consultants use bullshit baffles brains techniques. fwiw - i heard the same thing the other day about an IBM SOA presentation to a bank. 3 hour presentation- never once addressed the clients needs.
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