business consulting, solutions and chickenshit

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Q: One thing that has always puzzled me about management courses and books is, if they know how to do it, how come the trainers and authors aren’t managing big time?

A: Those who can, do. Those who can’t teach. The really chicken-shit become consultants.

<source: some online discussion>

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Well. That question and answer was certainly harsh. Uhm. Well. Uh oh. I have met the enemy and it is I as in I am, apparently, really chickenshit.

And I don’t like it.

Oddly, despite the fact I do some business management consulting, I tend to agree with this statement. I imagine that doesn’t bode well for me as a consultant.

Regardless. Consulting is odd.

Businesses ask for advice and tend to ignore 70% <or enough of a portion that makes the advice less than effective> of the advice.

Business pay gobs of money to well-known supposed ‘elite’ consultants, who tend to simply rehash the same tripe over and over, and offer the same systems & ‘benchmarked’ processes and ideas of ‘what makes others’ great tripe.

Businesses ignore any advice if it is too contrarian under the guise of ‘impracticality’ and yet most times a business needs a consultant to point out the impractical is necessary for success.

Businesses tend to go to the safest consultants <the most well-known> and receive the safest <most expected> advice … and yet most businesses really need to be reaching out to the lesser known consultants with the more radical thinking.

Anyway.

brainstorming sillinessMe & this consulting thing.

I am fortunate in that I have been in a business for the majority of my career where I have glanced off <and dived into> almost every industry & category known to mankind. I have pretty much seen the worst & the best of any department and discipline and thinking within any industry.

I have learned a shitload, with a shitload left to learn, and still learning as much shit as I can.

I have learned there is no formula, best practices are typically less than best and past experience is never about parallelisms, but rather analogous.

I have learned that each successful solution is actually pieces & parts of a variety of processes, solutions, ideas and applications.

I have learned to be a consultant <to my dismay>. I have also learned I will never be an ‘elite’ consultant.

Because elite <or well-known> tend to have formulas and systems and specific plans of action.

Because these same well known elite consultants peddle ‘here is what made others great’ and shove the square peg of ‘best’ knowledge in even if the company is a round hole company.

Why do they do it? I imagine those things make the buyer <the business> more comfortable in what they will get from the seller <the consultant>.

However. Here is the problem businesses are running into <and why most management business consulting can be sometimes fairly categorized as chickenshit>. The elite are, well, not so darn elite in forecasting or designing solutions. As The Economist suggested when examining this consulting issue:\

“No one can be consulting questionssure if forecasts are the best available, or if they can be improved, or how. We can’t even be sure forecasts guiding our decisions are more insightful than what we would hear from oracles examining goat guts. Worse still, we often don’t know that we don’t know.”

Examining goat guts aside <be aware I do not do so if I am hired>, studies have shown that the average expert did only slightly better than random guessing. Even more disconcerting is the fact that the stated ‘elite experts’, the ones with the most inflated views of their own success average, tend to attract the most attention and most business. Uh oh. And these are the ones who pulled down the solutions success average.

And the more self effacing experts, by the way, the ones who have the better actual averages, the ones we should actually pay attention to don’t get on anyone’s radar screens and get hired less often.

Well. That’s disappointing. And there is a relatively obvious reason why.

The truth <thru the same research as noted above> is that the truly good forecaster & creator of solutions, the ones who are good at identifying the best solutions, tend to show that they are better able to incorporate what the elite consultants scoff at as ‘luck’ (luck residing in the less than obvious factors or the ‘outliers’ which inevitably reside in every business).

In actuality it is the ability to identify and accommodate the randomness associated with the situation and incorporating it into your thinking and ultimate solution that makes the best the best.

Ok. To be clear.

What that means is that most situations seeking a real solution have some randomness that needs to be identified, embraced and utilized.

breakdown beautySystems or processes tend to throw out these random factors as ‘outliers’ and they get ignored.

Ah. Therein lies the difference between good and bad consultants.

Randomness is incorporated by the elite non-elite.

Randomness is ignored by the non elite elite.

I say this not because I am elite by any stretch of the imagination.

I say this because most consultants suck <or are chickenshit>.

They suck at offering good solutions.

They suck historically in making a true difference.

The only place they don’t suck is blowing their own horn and, well, offering up solutions that sound good, but are never put into practice <because they aren’t actually good>.

I have all the respect in the world for Accenture & McKinsey consultants. Smart smart business people. But a substantial part of my career <which I assume taught me how to be a consultant> was translating their research and insights into usable actionable behaviors & actions.

Some thoughts.

–    Plans are good (up to a point)

Well. They are good as long as you don’t ignore everything else going on around you. Because inevitably a great plan is defined by what it ends up looking like in hindsight <the rear view mirror> and the attitude and emotion which actually made it happen. A management consultant should always offer a plan, it offers a direction to go and some shit you may need to do to get there. But it shouldn’t be made up of ‘what made someone else successful’ <or anything from the book ‘Good to Great’>.

How to judge a good plan? It cannot be implemented by another company. It contains the outlier aspects of what makes the company, well, the company. Please note I am discussing management and business organization thinking because there are certainly operational aspects that can be benchmarked. A good plan for you should look like a good plan for you (not someone else).

–   “next man up” or “next woman up”eccentric person

 Consulting is difficult because inevitably you cannot control everything … but … well … shit … that’s an excuse. Because frankly even the best business leader in the world doesn’t control everything. You stimulate energy and provide direction and empower people with ability.

Great plans inevitably revolve around those who have believe.

Yeah … yeah … yeah … I buy the importance of team and the fact that one person can actually trigger belief (which enables shit to happen), but let’s not forget that often one person can actually make it ‘not happen’, i.e., can kill belief.

I think many consultants ignore identifying those with a desire to believe <as well as those who do not believ>.

Sometimes it is helpful to identify the next man/woman up. They are a powerful group. Current leaders tend to be steeped in some existing attitude and behaviors. The next person up is typically the one who seeks some change <and is willing to accept some new attitudes & behavior>. Just as with leaders, the next person up is always not the best in ability, but they may be the next person up with belief. Belief is a powerful energy source.

I mention those two thoughts as impetus to return to the original opening thought.

Those who can … do. Consultants are mostly chickenshit because they, well, cannot do — and know they cannot do, so they simply try to enable the ‘doing’. With an entire quiver of tricks and inspirational tools they set out to create the necessary ‘doing plan’.

Good intent.

Still chicken shit.

The best ‘consultants’ are those who are in positions to do. They are currently people in the organization.

And that is what I miss by playing at being a consultant.

I fooled myself into believing I was a ‘consultant’ because I could do what consultants do. But the truth is that almost anyone who is worth a shit in a leadership position already in a business, and can keep an open mind, and be willing to change <and … yes … I fully understand I just outlined the value of management consultants> is in a much better position to think of the consultant-like ideas as well as actually do the consultant like actions IN an organization.

And that is what I miss. Being able to ‘do.’

Don’t get me wrong. I love the thinking. I love the assessing the organization and identifying change agents and changes to improve, but I also love the implementation. And I would love not being in the chickenshit category.

It’s possible there is some happy balance, but it sometimes seems impossible to see when looking at the consulting world.

I mean, truthfully, how do you successfully ‘sell yourself’ as an effective consultant if you are saying “hey … every solution is unique … I can’t use what consulting deductionsupposedly worked for someone else because … well … you are different.”

That sounds less safe than what the other guys are peddling.

So the experts who reapply from ‘those who have been successful’ will always be chosen over the expert who says ‘I will bring out the best in your company … make it the best it can be … from what it is.’

Well.

That’s chickenshit.

Ponder that the next time you hire a consultant.

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Written by Bruce