| | By Mick James
The definition of a
recession as “two
quarters of negative
growth” has become so
commonplace that any
sign of a return to
growth, such as the
recent bumper results
for Barclays and HSBC,
is heralded as
signalling the end of
the recession. However
if you take recession as
being shorthand for “our
economic woes”, and
there are alternative
definitions, the
position is far from
clear.
Personally I’d hate
to use the banking
sector, even in the best
of times, as a barometer
of economic health. And
the times, particularly
in banking, are a little
weird, as the Germans
might put it –
unheimlich – literally
un-homey. That feeling
that things are familiar
yet strange, and that
commonplace actions may
have unforeseen and
calamitous consequences.
It’s a feeling that I
believe will stay with
us for some time, even
when, technically,
recovery is underway.
Whether you believe the
IMF’s pessimistic
forecasts or the
Treasury’s wildly
optimistic ones, the
assumption is that after
a longer or shorter
period of misery we will
return to growth and
this will be a Good
Thing. This assumption
is even encoded in the
way we talk about
growth. Slow rates are
“sluggish”, higher ones
“respectable” as if
growth is not something
we should pursue for its
own sake but to stop the
neighbours looking down
on us. Above all, we
assume that once growth
achieves its highest
accolade of “healthy” we
can all return to our
old ways and remortgage
our houses to buy
ever-bigger plasma TVs.
Consultancies are, of
course, growth junkies
and the industry’s
collective memory of the
boom years, when 20%
growth per annum was
considered a bit ho-hum,
will take a long time to
erase. For consultancies
growth is such a magical
elixir – delivering
cash, long-term equity,
personal development and
so many other goodies
that it’s impossible to
imagine life without it.
Looking though the
other end of the
telescope, it could be
argued that growth, far
from being a boon to the
industry, may in fact
have caused so many of
its more deep-seated
problems. The fact that
we have built structures
that depend on growth
may have no more
significance than the
fact that junkies
construct their lives to
revolve around their
drug of choice.
Growth has long had
its opponents, and while
I have some sympathy for | |
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“zero-growth” can become
as much of a fetish as
growth itself. The
problem with simply
stopping is to know
where exactly you draw
the line, and what to do
when technology rewrites
the rules – as it
inevitably will.
I’m more interested
in what we want growth
for – and whether those
aims can be achieved in
other ways. In
consultancy, for
instance, growth of the
practice is seen as
essential for people
development. But when
you talk to consultants,
often the people problem
they cite is the
opposite: what to do
with people who don’t
fit the careerist model,
who want to simply carry
on with what they are
good at. A partnership
model, whose ethos is
still fundamentally “up
or out”, finds this kind
of mindset hard to deal
with. But if we can’t
grow, because we’re
constrained at the top
by demand or the bottom
by supply, then we have
to revisit some of these
fundamental assumptions.
Many firms – and not
just in consultancy –
are only now waking up
to the fact that
“diversity” doesn’t just
mean that the
dysfunctional alpha
types who used to
populate your firm now
come in a wider range of
colours and physical
configurations. It means
genuinely accommodating
even radically different
aspirations and
worldviews.
Could it be that the
perceived need to be a
“professional” with a
“career” – rather than a
“tradesman” with a “job”
– is a social one, which
has not much to do with
the practice of
consultancy and a lot to
do with social pressure?
The numbers of
consultants who step
out, not to pursue
greater career heights
but to create
“lifestyle” businesses,
suggest we should
urgently challenge these
sorts of assumptions.
Consultancies that
manage to accommodate
true diversity of
aspiration in this way
may find that the
pressure for growth has
greatly subsided.
Of course, there’s no
reason why consultancies
shouldn’t pursue growth
in an economy which
isn’t itself growing.
There are still
non-consultancy users
out there, and the
industry could always
become a bit more
competitive and
dog-eat-dog. What it
can’t rely on is growth
automatically creating
opportunities – forcing
clients to change.
I’m not a zero-growth
enthusiast – where do
you stop? How do you
stop technology
continually rewriting
the rules? But I believe | |
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back on the treadmill we
need to seriously think
about where we channel
our energies.
Innovation, for
example, has become a
bit of a dirty word
recently, as technology
has begun to renege on
its promise to make our
lives easier, instead
adding layers of
unwanted features to
already bloated gadgets
and software. I was
raised on romantic
visions of the future
where increasing levels
of comfort and
prosperity were
delivered by ingenuity,
not ever-increasing
rates of extraction of
natural resources. For
some reason I can’t
quite recall, this
vision always involved
monorails but they don’t
seem to have
materialised.
We are already
embracing some of the
contradictions around
growth in our debates
about energy use and
carbon emissions – but I
think this is merely the
tip of a much broader
debate. While the power
industry has rapidly
become comfortable with
the idea of advising its
customers to use less of
its products, it’s not
(yet) a widespread
phenomenon.
The consultancy
industry is, of course,
adept at advising people
how to do “more with
less” but that’s
generally with the goal
of maximising outputs
further down the line.
Even in areas where we
are happy to reduce
consumption this is
still couched in the
language of self-denial,
sacrifice and virtue:
“put yourself on a
carbon diet” (I don’t
advise it).
We are still a long
way away from accepting
– let alone demanding –
that rather than just
drifting along on the
bandwagon of growth, we
could see our lives
continue to improve from
a purely hedonistic
viewpoint, while
nevertheless requiring
less resources, and less
effort. And do all this
without taking the
economy down with us.
That may sound like a
counsel of perfection
but I seriously doubt
people will buy “saving
the world” if what is
being sold is
unremitting pain.
Human invention
generally operates best
in a confined space –
like rats, we
demonstrate our best
qualities when cornered.
I doubt that consultants
will turn their backs on
growth en masse. But
if they find the way
barred, they might start
looking for the doors
that lead to even
greater opportunities
for both themselves and
the consultancy
industry.
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