Getting results from consulting

Citation

Pennington, M. (2002), "Getting results from consulting", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 30 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/sl.2002.26130cae.002

Getting results from consulting

Getting results from consultingMalcolm Pennington

High-impact Consulting Robert H. SchafferJossey-BassNew York2002234 pagesIf you buy or sell consulting services, it will pay you to listen to what Bob Schaffer has to say. In his revised edition of High-impact Consulting he warns that billions of dollars are wasted on consulting assignments that do not have any beneficial impact on the clients' bottom lines. Brilliant consulting advice that cannot be put into practice is a major source of this waste, he observes. Schaffer believes that conventional consulting assignments often fall into an unproductive pattern: consultants provide recommendations that might solve a serious problem or enable the client to seize a valuable opportunity, but the client is unprepared to implement them. Shaffer defines this as the "implementation gap."

Schaffer describes the five "fatal flaws" of the conventional consulting projects as:

1. 1.

   The project is defined in terms of the consultant's deliverables instead of the benefit to the client. Traditional consultants usually offer a system, organization, or process that will be the result of extensive study and careful analysis by the consultant's staff. The end result is a polished report. If the client can implement the recommendations the goal will be accomplished. However, the consultant usually does not consider the client's capability to implement. As a result, most of these expensive presentations do not result in any changes in the client. The consultant has, nonetheless, delivered what was promised and the client is usually pleased by the insights offered.

2. 2.

   The project design ignores the client's readiness to carry out the recommendations. Typically, large studies may take a year or more to complete. During the study, client executives have little involvement in developing the recommendations, even if they supply most of the data. At the time of the presentation these executives have no commitment to the consultant's proposed change initiative. The client executives are usually stunned by disruption the proposed changes will cause and by the coordination necessary to implement the recommendations. Further, because they are busy with their regular day-to-day responsibilities running the business, they do not feel that they have the time for the big changes recommended. As a result, the client is unready to make changes and nothing happens.

3. 3.

   The consultant's recommendations tend to be grandiose, requiring participation from all or most departments of the client. Schaffer quotes a principal of a large consulting firm: "No consulting intervention can be successful unless it addresses all aspects of a company … its strategy, processes, technology, and people. It must focus on the complex cause-and-effect relationships throughout the system." Few clients are capable of implementing the thousands of simultaneous, interrelated changes required by such broad studies.

4. 4.

   Projects are handed off back and forth from consultant to client. When this happens, the consultant and clients are not operating like partners. In such cases, the client describes the need. The consultant prepares a proposal that is accepted. The consultant then conducts numerous interviews within the client company and elsewhere, and discusses the results within its own staff. Meanwhile the client executives continue with business as usual. When the consultant presents its insightful and well-thought-out recommendations, responsibility for implementation is handed back to the client. The consultant believes that its brilliant recommendations will lead to huge success for the client. But, in reality, since the client is ill prepared for this responsibility, successful implementation is rare.

5. 5.

   Projects make labor-intensive use of consultants, instead of leveraged use. This fifth flaw is an inevitable result of allowing the other four to go unchecked. Huge projects done entirely with consultant personnel are the most egregious examples of the problem. At the end of the project the consultants know everything, but the client managers have little involvement and therefore have limited confidence that recommendations will work as presented. Maximizing instead of minimizing the use of consultants makes these projects profitable for consultants, but overly expensive for the client company and less of a learning experience for the client's management team.

Schaffer's recommendations, which he believes will lead to a better result for both clients and consultants, are simple. Here is how they would work in one example:

1. 1.

   Define the project goals in terms of client results instead of consultant products. For example, clients should not authorize a project to study an entire global inventory and distribution system, but instead they should request a focused effort to reduce inventory at a single distribution center by a specified amount by a specific target date.

2. 2.

   Match the project scope to what the client is able to do. A global study might never have any impact. But significantly reducing the inventory at one distribution center is a goal that has a chance to be accomplished, its savings booked, and its learning celebrated.

3. 3.

   Aim for rapid success to generate momentum and retain the initial enthusiasm. When an inventory target is reached at one distribution center the client will have the confidence and the skills to extend the approach to other distribution centers.

4. 4.

   Build a partnership to achieve and learn. Since client people did most of the planning and installation of the new inventory system they will have a good experience base to extend that system and to go on to researching and installing other projects, usually with reduced help from the consultant.

5. 5.

   Leverage use of consultants by having much of the investigation and implementation done by client managers. Instead of dozens of consultants on a project, only a few are required for direction and guidance of these smaller incremental projects.

Practicing these five simple steps will help both the buyers and sellers achieve high-impact consulting. There are big payoffs for both buyers and sellers. It avoids huge fees for projects that will never have any effect on the client. It gets projects accomplished that have real impact on the client's operations. It develops a trained group within the client that can move forward with confidence to new incremental projects. (Consultants should keep in mind that managers who graduate and move up the corporate ladder from successful projects that they have been fully involved in, will have had a positive experience working with consultants instead of a negative one.)

High-impact consulting is generally the domain of smaller companies that cannot field the hordes of newly minted MBAs required for global studies. This consulting model probably accounts for the success of many small consulting firms.

You might think that high-impact consulting mode l- small projects, clients who have to steal time away from their work to participate, a high learning curve - was more suitable for incremental change, than corporate overhauls. But several years ago two associates and I used the high-impact approach to conduct a major reorganization study for a Fortune 500 company. We knew, as do most consultants, that the client managers are the real experts on the company and the industry. We got the information we needed, most of the problem analysis, and many suggestions for improvements, from within the company.

Immediately implementing the new organization the company needed would have required too much disruption. So we divided our plan into three steps. The client perceived the first step as quite doable, so it was well received. During our first presentation of the new organization design we watched managers nod and smile at intervals because our recommendations flowed logically from information that they had provided. It was their organization plan, and they knew what they had to do to install it and how to run it. Their acceptance set the stage for the next two steps.

The next two stages, both well within the capabilities of the client, were initiated over five years. Once the effective organization we had envisioned was up and running, it worked as we had hoped. Even the interim steps had created improvement, so the client managers remained enthusiastic for the full period.

High-impact consulting is a good business model for small consulting firms. However, large consulting firms that are wedded to the large project model, will have difficulty refocusing their assignments to give the client managers full ownership. But the approach Schaffer suggests can also generate new business for a large firm that is willing to try an alternative project model.

Schaffer has been pointing out the implementation gap in most consulting assignments and the need for high-impact consulting for 30 years or more. This updated book is full of useful real-life examples. Readers will note that, in the cases of successful consulting, Schaffer is kind enough to mention the names of the key people. However, when he exposes examples of failure, he is kind enough to conceal the identity of the companies involved.

I have been a consultant for decades and, as a corporate director, have selected most of the consultants who have worked for the company over the past 30 years. Even so, I learned much that is new and useful in this edition of High-impact Consulting. It is must reading for outside consultants, internal consultants, and executives who are responsible for hiring consultants.