Is Consulting a Cop Out?

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Yes. Yes it is.

 

Let me begin with a short story. At my pre-business school job, we brought some consultants in to assess our processes and a a few of our tools that we regularly use. Some dudes came into the office, asked us a bunch of questions about the processes, shadowed us for maybe 2 weeks, then left. Later during one of our team meetings, our manager had some recommendations and proposed changes that we should make. We tried some of these for a month, then fell back to what we normally did.

 

What was the point of this again?

 

This is an extreme example, but many times this is what consultants do. They’re paid a lot of money to assess situations in companies and help them make changes that will result in a benefit. By the way, when I say consultant, I’m referring to the types that provide strategy and operations advice in a number of specialties﹣but don’t necessarily help with implementation.

 

Half the time, the company doesn’t even follow through on the recommendation.

 

Coming into school, it seemed like EVERYONE wanted to do consulting. The sheer number of classmates I had recruiting for consulting was overwhelming. Personally, I was confused at all of this. Weren’t consultants the people that come in, charge a company a ridiculous amount of money, make some high level recommendation, then leave? Half the time, the company doesn’t even follow through on the recommendation. Why would you want to do that?

 

Well, here’s the thing. Half of the people who go into consulting are still trying to figure out what they actually want to do. Sound familiar? That’s because the great majority of individuals who get their MBAs go to school to figure this out. Consulting extends this time. This is the cop out.

 

There’s nothing wrong with this at all though. Consulting was never the path for me, but it’s completely understandably why it’s so popular. When you work for a top consulting firm, there’s a level of prestige that comes with it. You work with top class people. You advise prominent clients. You solve hard problems. And guess what: you make a lot of money. All of this while figuring out what you want to do. The cop out doesn’t sound too bad now does it?

 

If you would like to participate/be interviewed for the blog, contact me at nkem.nwankwo@lifeafterschool.co.