Consultiness
Once upon a time, a business might have hired a consultant to bring in a modicum of outside expertise in some area that the business didn't have internally, and didn't need to maintain internally. Such a consultant might help you streamline the box office, set up your accounting system so that budget reports were more useful, or end-of-year tasks were simpler.
Typically, such a person might expect to have collected a variety of helpful management and industry tips that they sort of dribbled out as they worked, or maybe they left the client with a summary report at the end about what the next steps might be, or how the actual improvements the consultant just created might be used in concert with other systems, or perhaps suggestions about how the tweaks might be used to increase business overall.
Certainly some of the suggestions might have included statements of normative behaviors, and maybe a few creative and inspiring words of wisdom...maybe 80% technical know-how, and 20% pearls...
Unfortunately for me, this era seems to have ended long before I entered the workforce. My experience with consultants has been long on business-self-help, flip charts, and expertiness - and short on deliverables - concrete changes that actually saved me money or time, improved relations with my customers or staff, or increased my revenue streams. I'm always left with the feeling that if I could somehow congeal the airy, tatterdemalion ideas sprayed across 39 sticky flip-chart pages into some kind of fuel, I could burn it and make progress.
The emphasis of outside-consultant work has unfortunately shifted to the nuggets of inspiration, the over-inflated idea that some "outside opinions" are needed to kick your business out of a rut and take it to the next level. Every time I have faced an intractable management problem, I have never been short on opinions - but usually short on resources and workable, immediate (or even long-term - but concrete) solutions. The proportions have more than reversed: 100% pearls, many of which were actually offered by me, my employees, board members, etc., which the consultant mystically transmogrifies into their own suggestion with a colored marker (maybe that's the "magic" in the marker).
Before you spend any scant resources on some well-intended expertiness, decide first if using the money for, say, a high-speed ticket printer with auto-cutoff might not be more useful to your staff, patrons, and bottom line than a roll of giant paper with yet another SWOT analysis on it.
Typically, such a person might expect to have collected a variety of helpful management and industry tips that they sort of dribbled out as they worked, or maybe they left the client with a summary report at the end about what the next steps might be, or how the actual improvements the consultant just created might be used in concert with other systems, or perhaps suggestions about how the tweaks might be used to increase business overall.
Certainly some of the suggestions might have included statements of normative behaviors, and maybe a few creative and inspiring words of wisdom...maybe 80% technical know-how, and 20% pearls...
Unfortunately for me, this era seems to have ended long before I entered the workforce. My experience with consultants has been long on business-self-help, flip charts, and expertiness - and short on deliverables - concrete changes that actually saved me money or time, improved relations with my customers or staff, or increased my revenue streams. I'm always left with the feeling that if I could somehow congeal the airy, tatterdemalion ideas sprayed across 39 sticky flip-chart pages into some kind of fuel, I could burn it and make progress.
The emphasis of outside-consultant work has unfortunately shifted to the nuggets of inspiration, the over-inflated idea that some "outside opinions" are needed to kick your business out of a rut and take it to the next level. Every time I have faced an intractable management problem, I have never been short on opinions - but usually short on resources and workable, immediate (or even long-term - but concrete) solutions. The proportions have more than reversed: 100% pearls, many of which were actually offered by me, my employees, board members, etc., which the consultant mystically transmogrifies into their own suggestion with a colored marker (maybe that's the "magic" in the marker).
Before you spend any scant resources on some well-intended expertiness, decide first if using the money for, say, a high-speed ticket printer with auto-cutoff might not be more useful to your staff, patrons, and bottom line than a roll of giant paper with yet another SWOT analysis on it.
Comments
Post a Comment