Using a consultant - Pain or Gain

I have been asked to write a book on guidelines using consultants. I rather start with a blog and let you comment further :)

Don’t use a consultant just because they came to your door pushing their services. They might have done their homework well, checked your background and explain you how badly you are performing or how other companies are already buying their services. Some consultants can be very convincing and their slides may be a piece of art .

Clarify your own needs. Why do you need external help? What knowledge/experience should they bring? How should they work with your organization? Define your concrete expectations both for the output and work process. Attach your expectations as part of the assignment. Link maybe part of the invoicing on meeting or exceeding your expectations.

In one person it may be almost impossible to find all the characteristics you would need from your consultant. For a large corporation this may not be an issue because in many projects they will hire a consulting team, where different type of consultants will supplement each other’s profiles.

For a start-up, as you may not afford to buy a big team, you need to select a consultant, as close as possible, corresponding to your needs. You need to supplement the consultant’s effort and competence with your own organization people when needed.

Normally the following profiles are not written in the consultant CV. You must read between the lines and check the references on how they work. These categories are not based on any scientific research but rather on my own experiences in recruiting, coaching, teaming and working together with thousands of consultants.

1.     STRATEGIC ANALYST is consultant who is inspired by facts, reports and making analytical comparisons. They know well the trends and can compare your competitive position against other companies. They have good access to Gartner Group, Forrester and other analyst’s reports. You can get  a lot of data from them supporting your new strategy.  However, you need to plan for the changes and actions by yourself.

2.     TEACHER likes to educate you with industry trends and new concepts. They have read all the books  and studies related to their area of expertize. Many times their background is largely theoretical and based on other people’s and companies’ views and experiences. As they often lack real deep practical experience, they might have difficulties in designing a company specific solution for you.

3.     ENTERTAINER loves his/her own voice. They are mostly concerned on how they look at the stage. They can really ”take the audience”. The substance of their presentation may be quite limited. They usually run their own show, concentrate on ”big laughs” and without really listening too much the audience. Participants will have an inspiring event but after the session nothing changes in the organization.

4.     GURU is next to God. At least if you ask them. They are expensive. They may have extensive background and deep understanding of certain technology, industry, business area, management or other sector of knowledge. They don’t usually listen too well. They treat you sometimes like a schoolboy and tell you immediately what you must do to become the next Google.  You can get some great insight and ideas from them. However, you need to decide whether those apply in your case.

5.     FACILITATOR concentrates on the development process. They have many tools and concepts to involve all the people in the development process. You get your organization engaged but usually your own people will come up with the substance knowledge and new ideas. Facilitator makes sure that you will segment, prioritize and select key ideas for further actions.

6.     BUSINESS INNOVATOR is forcing you to brainstorm out-of-the-box. They are usually very creative people themselves. They don’t use too many slides, just enough to catalyst your innovation process. Experienced business innovator can be of great help for your strategy and transformation sessions.

7.     TEAMBUILDER is focused on how you work as a team and how you capitalize the different competences and experience of your people. They will start with a team behaviour profile and help you to understand the different personalities in your management or other teams and how you should work as a team.

8.     CHANGE MANAGEMENT EXPERT is often a ”gray-hair” or ”no-hair” guy. They have extensive experience in planning and executing organizational changes. They have a lot of war stories. They understand organizational dynamics in making change happen. They can be great coaches for your change process.

9.     SOCIAL MEDIA WISE GUYs were born ”in internet”. They have huge number of connections. They network with the other wise guys and their shared message becomes the ultimate truth.  They often downplay the importance of normal education. They learnt everything in NET. They have created fantastic visuals and they breach about the new world without managers and other overhead. They think companies are just operating through social media where everybody will find their mission, role and responsibilities and tasks intuitively in the NET. Usually they are still young and don’t have real business background other than selling their own ”wisdom”.

Many consultant profiles are combinations of the above. However, usually there is a dominating profile and one or two supporting profiles. Therefore, it is extremely important for you to understand the added value and impact which you expect from a consultant before you sign the engagement letter.

Think , what happens the next day when the consultant will leave your building. Are you capable of utilizing the outputs and added value generated ? How the consulting work should be conducted, so that all the great ideas would lead to benefits realization?