Business Exposed146
foot-binding in China, female circumcision, etc.), which not
coincidentally have been adopted from epidemiology.
As I have said before, a virus – like the u – survives by spreading
to a new host, preferably before the old one dies. Often, there
are some creatures (e.g., rats) that facilitate the spread among
the creatures of another species (e.g., humans). That’s much of
what management consultants do, even knowingly: picking up
practices in one industry or country and recommending and
applying them in others. Just like viruses or bacteria, some of
these practices are not very helpful, to say the least (although, as
explained, the harmful effects may only manifest themselves in
the long run); others may have been useful in the original setting
(e.g., industry) but completely inappropriate in the new one.
TQM, ISO 9000, six sigma and so on, all come with a herd
of specialist consultants that help you implement it, and get
infected too. Unintentionally – again, just like the poor pigeons
in London’s Trafalgar Square – management consultants promote
the spread and persistence of the harmful practice. According to
former Mayor Livingstone, they’re best banned and starved to
death.
Management consultants – happy slapping
Now, before I move on, let me also say something in defense
of the management consultant, because it appears that it has
gradually become one of those professions which are socially
acceptable to mock. It seems it has been getting increasingly
fashionable to openly dislike management consultants (but hire
them anyway)! Now, I wouldn’t say it is an entirely new fashion,
but the loathing of the pin-striped mercenaries seems to be
reaching new and unprecedented heights of late.
A short while ago, I was talking to three members of the top team
of a British company (which will remain blissfully anonymous)
who showed me the three main conclusions of their team’s
recent “strategy retreat” and, believe it or not, one of the three
was “no more consultants!”
1476
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Myths in management
Now, what have these poor people done to deserve such a bad
reputation anyway, eh?! Well . . .
It is an unprotected profession and every idiot can call himself a
management consultant (and many do – I guess the remainder
become professors). Yet, the reputable rms also seem to provoke
their fair share of grunting, ground-spitting, and a wide array of
hand gestures. Is it pure envy? Surely there must be some of that;
seeing them walking hand-in-hand with the CEO on the way to
an expensive restaurant for a PowerPoint presentation between
the fth and sixth course while overtly charging a couple
thousand bucks might do that to you.
Yet, there must be something more. Perhaps it is the fact that the
accountability of the consultant is nil; it is not that we withhold
payment till the effects of the recommended strategy have
become apparent in ten years’ time (even if that was measurable).
Perhaps it is because everything they recommend has such a high
value of déjà vu – “Didn’t I say that at our last away-day?”
Or perhaps it is because management consultants en masse
recommended corporate diversication in the 1970s, a refocus
on core activities in the 1990s, told “old economy” rms to keep
their “new economy” activities as strictly separate entities during
the dot-com bubble but lately advised them to carefully integrate
clicks and bricks, urged IT rms to get into consulting while
currently stealthily de-merging them, etc.?
Who knows, but let’s not pretend we knew better. Surely you
have both bad and good consultants, just as you have bad and
good clients. Some (if not many . . .) executives seem to use
consultants, expecting them to say
what they wanted to hear anyway.
Consultants are undoubtedly more
useful if you are genuinely open to
hear what they have to say about
your strategy. For example, scientic
research has suggested that bringing
in an outsider’s view can seriously
‘‘
Consultants are
undoubtedly more useful if
you are genuinely open to
hear what they have to say
about your strategy.
’’
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