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Taking an external consultant’s advice is akin to learning how to tame a lion from an instructor outside the cage. It is often questionable whether the consulting programme is really serving your needs or whether it is serving the needs of the consulting firm! During our business careers, we have sat on both sides of the table: as management consultants with global consulting firms and as senior corporate officers responsible for hiring and managing outside consultants. Our experience led to these conclusions:
Company managers want to solve a problem as quickly and thoroughly as possible with the least amount of turmoil in operations. Consultants earn their fees by exaggerating problems, extending assignments, and selling new engagements, so an immediate dichotomy exists. In many cases, the quality of the advice or service rendered is dictated by the skills and integrity of the project leader, not the consulting firm’s name on the door.
Senior managers lead most consulting projects staffed with young consultants two to three years removed from college. The project manager typically reports to a Partner or an officer of the consulting firm. Consulting firms choose their leaders not only for their business skills, but for their ability to engage clients and bring new accounts in the door. It can often feel that the costs are excessive when compared to the benefits generated, especially when the experience level of the team is taken into account.
Many, if not most, consulting projects either fail to deliver the benefits identified or see those benefits quickly fall away after the programme has ended. The recommendations ̶ gathered at significant expense ̶ forgotten in a nicely bound report are tucked away in the CEO’s bookcase. Consulting projects fail because employees naturally resent and resist change in their processes and procedures. Rather than being part of a solution, they become part of the problem.
Often the solution is generated by the consulting team with limited or no input from the key stakeholders within the client organisation. This can lead to a “not invented here” syndrome and can mean that the solution is not sustained after the consulting team leave and any benefits seen are quickly eroded. Employee morale also suffers, bringing in outsiders is often interpreted as a sign of distrust by employees. Consultants on assignment can exacerbate these feelings by not really immersing themselves in the local/company culture and can appear indifferent to the opinions of the employees they meet.
Consulting interventions are typically strong in terms of bringing new technical solutions and management tools to the table, but not always effective in terms of thinking through the change management aspects such as leadership engagement, employee engagement, communication, creating urgency, overcoming resistance and linking activities to results.
Often external consultants are brought in during times of stress, when your company is going through change. Your workforce have enough to do and don't need the extra overhead involved. This causes frustration. And transferring information is tough, but to new people who don't understand your organisation, this is even more frustrating. Often you have to provide the same information a number of times, in different formats, before the outside consultants start to understand it.
A person doing a job always knows more about that work than a short-term consultant can learn in months of observation. Workers learn the nuances, shortcuts, and obstacles of their work because they face them every day. Rather than hiring a team of “outside experts,” most companies would have better results by challenging their employees to solve the problem. Delegating responsibility and trusting them to make the right decisions promotes engagement and signals respect. A bonus is that engaged employees are less likely to quit, have accidents, or shirk on the job. Your employees know your company best. Why pay a consulting firm hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn what your employees know. ForceTwelve can show you how to execute the same consulting job at a fraction of the cost that you will pay to an outside consulting firm.
The benefits of using your staff rather than over-paid consultants who are unfamiliar with your company include:
Less and limited expense
"Consulting firms flood their projects with young staffers to bill the maximum number of hours possible, often without a cap. Forcetwelve charges a fixed fee. There are no add-ons, no contingencies, just a fixed price."
Engaged, motivated employees
"Nothing says, “I appreciate you” better than acknowledging one’s value and extending trust. The employees engaged in the project “own” it and are likely to sell the change to other staff members, making the implementation of the recommendations easier."
Access to critical data
"Staff members naturally know “where the bones are buried,” the “third-rails” of operations, and the identity of gatekeepers. They know the culture of their employers. Rather than confront, they convince."
We have developed a 4-stage process that trains and develops your people to firstly analyse the different parts of your business where performance gaps exist and then implement sustainable solutions that close the gaps identified. Our support involves a combination of skills development in areas such as business analysis, implementation, project management and change management, coupled with highly leveraged support through the life of the programme – this can be face to face or remote support, or a combination of the two.
Learn in detail how we will help you implement internal consulting in your company.
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