| | By Mick James
A recent
correspondent wonders
whether the exodus of
consultants from the
profession is due purely
to work/life balance
issues or possibly a
deeper malaise. Looking
back on his years
consulting to the
financial sector – he is
now a clergyman – he
wondered if many
consultants did not
suffer from a
subconscious feeling
that their work was at
some level “pointless”.
After all, years of
consulting into the
financial services
sector has done very
little to preserve it
from the current forced
restructuring.
By coincidence, that
weekend I’d been
discussing family trees
and was struck by how
many of our forebears
were artisans, tradesmen
or worked in family
businesses. Despite our
Oxbridge degrees and
such, it looked, from
today’s perspective, a
much more solid and
comforting existence.
That’s why, one of the
parents said, the middle
classes place so much
emphasis on education –
it’s the main thing they
can pass on.
Unfortunately,
acquiring a “good
education” places
enormous strain on both
parents and children,
not just financially but
ethically. In my day it
was possible to attain a
pretty good education
for pretty much nothing
and those few precious
years were the
opportunity for us
deracinated middle-class
types to pretty much
invent ourselves from
whole cloth and to work
out what we wanted to
“be” when we grew up.
I’ll cross that
bridge when I come to
it, but I note that for
today’s graduates the
financial sacrifices and
debts are just too great
for one’s journey
through the education
system to be merely a
voyage of
self-discovery. So a
“good” education becomes
merely a ticket to a
“good” job, with
goodness defined in
purely financial terms.
Small wonder then that
consultancy and banking
elbowed their way to the
top of graduates’ lists | |
|
| | of professions of
choice. Great jobs to be
sure, but surely not for
everybody?
Unfortunately, over
the years one begins to
feel a bit of a fool for
not having parlayed
one's brains and
qualifications into the
biggest pile of cash.
And then – should one
have any cash – one is
made to feel even more
of a fool for not
parlaying it into even
more cash. This brought
us to the weird
situation where while
run-of-the-mill
financial products
barely outperformed
inflation, the wealthy
demanded, almost as of
right, double-digit
returns, preferably tax
free. So the financial
services industry became
ever more skewed towards
riskier and more complex
schemes and more and
more of us became drawn
towards the casino.
Inevitably,
consultants were drawn
into this arena in huge
numbers even if only to
create the supporting
infrastructure and to
deal with the
consequences of
demutualisation,
deregulation and endless
consolidation. But I’m
sure many will be very
proud of the projects
they have done. While
some consultants might
feel a sense of despair
at all this hard work
having been thrown away,
many others will be
pragmatic enough to see
the opportunities
involved in resolving
the current mess.
Where we go from an
ethical point of view is
a more difficult
question. Given what’s
been happening, can
consultants simply
position themselves as
“blunt instruments” and
create whatever outcomes
their clients ask for?
Or is there a wider
responsibility?
Of course, management
consultants are not
strangers to codes of
ethics, as we’ve seen in
this column many times.
But codes of ethics in
professional services
are largely predicated
on protecting the client
from the consultant, or
dealing with
straightforwardly
unethical demands.
There’s very little that
can help with the sort | |
|
| | of systemic failure
we’ve seen here.
My correspondent
laments the lack of
guiding values in the
sector and refers with
admiration to the sort
of solid, Victorian
values that underpinned
some of the enterprises
set up by, for example,
Quakers or Methodists. I
suspect nowadays it
would be hard to gain a
consensus around a set
of religiously-derived
values. However,
sustainability is a
concept that sits well
with many audiences
these days – although I
do baulk a bit when it
takes on a
pseudo-religious air.
Nevertheless, more
and more of the
consultants I speak to
are putting a commitment
to “sustainable change”
at the head of their
list of values, and it
seems to strike a chord
with many clients. Not
that that’s much use if
the clients are not
biting, but there must
be an opportunity now,
with so much of the
financial services
industry under
government control. The
temptation will be, I am
sure, to simply offload
the stakes to the
highest bidder and use
the cash to repair the
nation’s balance sheet.
At which I’m sure many
consultants will sigh
“here we go again” and
pitch into yet another
pile of integration
work.
An alternative would
be to work with
consultants who promote
“sustainability” above
all things to evolve new
financial models that
answer people’s
financial needs, just as
our forebears created
the building and
friendly societies in
days gone by. How
attractive all those
stolid old institutions
seem now with their
promises to be permanent
and prudent and
equitable. What the
modern equivalents might
look like, I’m not sure,
nor would I hold out too
much hope for this
outcome. But the need is
there – if I had a child
looking for a meaningful
future career, I
wouldn’t necessarily
steer him or her away
from financial sector
consultancy. | |
| |
Previous Page 
