Lost the Ability to Think for Yourself?

Paying someone else to do the thinking can be a waste of money. That's the verdict of one consultant, who says managers often become 'hooked' on advice.
By Guy Clapperton

Guardian, Friday 27 October 2006

Heard the one about the consultant? Someone who comes in and tells you what you do for a living then charges £1,000 per day for the privilege? Those who cannot do, consult? We could go on.

It's easy to be dismissive or cynical about a job whose definition is so fluid - an IT consultant has little in common with a PR consultant, for example, and neither would claim to be qualified as a management consultant.

The cynicism tends to go away when you see some of the impressive results they can produce, but things don't always go so well - and some of the consultants themselves have started making noises about the money being wasted.

Alastair Clifford-Jones, chief executive of management consultancy Leadent, has identified what he calls "consultancy addiction" - the process by which clients get so hung up on having consultants around that they won't let them go.

"You just see that people are using consultants and work alongside them - you go to a meeting and next to them is a consultant," he says. "It's like losing the ability to make a decision." It wasn't just one client doing this either. "I think it's about how you treat your client. You create a dependency."

It's odd to hear this from someone whose business is pretty obviously in providing just the sort of service he appears to be running down, but he believes acknowledging this sort of addiction is in everybody's best interests. "Clearly we're a business and not a charity. We're in it to make money," he says. "If we tell people we think they can do something by themselves then they acknowledge that we've helped train them to do so, and there will still be other projects in which we can take part."

There are cases in which the client offers too much responsibility to the external people, he believes. "We had an instance recently in which we started off by taking all the decisions. It was IT-led and it was all 'this bit of kit doesn't work, what would you do', and then gradually we found out by giving them confidence that they were able to take loads of decisions - so we were able to pull out."

One of Leadent's clients, Paul Vallely, a programme manager for Anglian Water, beleives his company avoided becoming dependent on consultants. "I think we had a fairly clear view of what we wanted Leadent to do," says Vallely. "I could certainly see opportunities Leadent didn't exploit when they could have. They didn't try to perpetuate the relationship by suggesting there were reams of work still to be done."
The positive experience led Vallely to move into a change management role, which he considers to have moved him forward personally as well as professionally.

Anglian Water might not see itself as a consultant-dependent company, but every consultant, once you ask them, recognises that the syndrome exists. Simon Rawling, head of project management consultancy PIPC, puts a lot of the onus on the client's stated requirements. "The consultant should help with the business and not run it," he says. "They can put a new IT platform in, put a required change in, but not run the day to day business." People have to recognise the roles of consultants before commissioning them, he says.

"Many organisations we know tend to use consultants in lieu of staff when they have headcount freezes, for example." He confirms he's seen consultants outstay their welcome in some organisations. "They charge by the day and I've seen consultants plant themselves and embed themselves until the client feels they can't live without them." His company's answer is to continue to demonstrate value and, above all, agree an objective and exit point in advance so both sides of the partnership know where they're heading.

There are a number of strategies consultants can take to avoid getting clients "hooked", believes Clifford-Jones. "We would work with them in very much a coaching way - for example if they were presenting a business case internally we'd make sure it's they who end up presenting, not Leadent." Often people ask consultants in to build their credibility after a decision has already been made - and that's when they ask the consultant to do the presentation, so that it looks independent. "But then they're owning the presentation," says Clifford-Jones. "We also tend to rotate people, putting different people in at different points of a project because people need different skills at different times."

There is a valid place for consultants, though. Much of the problem centres around communication and the powerbase that information can offer. Professor Eddie Obeng is learning director at the Pentacle Virtual Business School. "Consultancies leave a culture of dependence because there is no knowledge transfer between themselves and the client in the implementation of a programme," he says. "They solve the problem at hand but they don't leave any theory or tools in the hands of their clients.

"In order to succeed in the long term, businesses need to be led to implement the tasks for themselves - not for somebody to chase the tasks directly."
He adds that often there is a sense of failure because of escalating costs: "Businesses have long been using the adjective "strategic" as a proxy for "loss making", a malady that has been exacerbated by the rise of expensive strategy consultants."

Consultancy isn't a bad thing, and it's probably healthy that the practitioners themselves are leading the charge against its more exploitative excesses. The thing to remember is that consultancy for its own sake, like anything in business, is unlikely to deliver a positive result. The smaller organisation can be particularly vulnerable to the brow-beating, "you need us to make this change" approach, but there can be good reasons for appointing a specialist:

• It might not be economic to hire a fulltime PR/technical wizard/other non-core specialist to the staff;
• The owner or manager might be able to make a change or decision by themselves, but his or her time might be better spent on a core task;
• Your need might be short term so you just don't need anyone who's going to hang around your premises any longer than necessary.

Whether any of this puts you at risk of dependency is open to conjecture and will depend on the sort of consultant you've hired - and frankly, whether they have any scruples or not. The thing to bear in mind is that although Leadent and others believe themselves to be proactive in weaning clients away from them when they're no longer needed, that's not the view taken by everyone. And inevitably it's the bad ones who won't tell you when you don't need them.

Test yourself - are you addicted to consultancy?

Ask yourself the following questions to find out whether you're over-using consultants:

1. Can you say for certain, or even roughly, when your consultant will be leaving the premises permanently?

2. Do you have a good reason for not taking someone on as staff to fulfil the consultant's role?

3. Do you have a defined objective for the consultancy you've employed?

4. Do you ask your consultant for advice on matters other than the task for which you hired them?

5. Do your employees refer to the consultant as the "owner" of an initiative, as distinct from the internal sponsor?

Answer "yes" to the first three questions and "no" to the last two and you're likely to be using consultants sensibly. "No" to the first three and "yes" to the last two means you're using consultants as a crutch rather than a defined part of your business. Ask them about it - if they're any good they'll probably be pleased to hear it from you rather than having to raise it themselves.

Expert advice

Getting the most from consultancy Phil Smith, consulting services director at Amaze - which offers web and IT consultancy - accepts findings from research organisation Gartner that suggest 80% of consulting spend ends in a failed project. He offers a number of pointers to a successful venture:

1. Get the right consultancy. If you need the added clout of a major brand to back a decision then opt for one of the "big four" or a global strategic consultancy. If you want an innovative and different approach then opt for one of the smaller more nimble ones.

2. Tackle the problem head on. Spend money up front to clearly identify what the problem is, and if possible don't just bundle it into a development project with poorly defined objectives and scope.

3. Opt for smaller projects, where possible. Smaller projects are more focused, more direct, and easier to handle. This enables you to work with your consultant in a more effective manor with a great deal more flexibility.

4. Make sure you have internal buy-in. Working with a consultant is never going to work unless you have the proper sponsorship for the business changes that are likely to result from the advice and/or solution.

5. Work in partnership. Focus on the outcomes you want rather than the contract. Consultants work better where they are part of the team and able to have an open and honest dialogue with key stakeholders.