| | By Mick James
When people first
begin to consider a
career as a consultant,
the thought process
generally goes something
like this: "I know
everything there is to
know about X...I can
probably use my network
of contacts to generate
leads and find
projects...I'll do it."
It's only much later
that they realise they
have overlooked whether
they have – or can
acquire – the skills
necessary to actually be
a consultant. Given that
the only other
professions that people
wade into with such gay
abandon are property
developer and
restaurateur, there
could be a rich vein of
reality TV to be mined
here. Fortunately help
is at hand, not in the
shape of Sarah Beeny or
Gordon Ramsay, but
rather Calvert Markham,
whose Practical
Management Consultancy
has become something of
a pillar of the
industry. Incredibly,
the book is now in its
fifth edition in a
publishing history that
spans 20 years.
Such longevity is
extraordinary in a
profession that is still
considered to be
‘emerging’ by some and
which has undergone such
massive upheavals.
"When the book first
came out there weren't | |
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| | any female consultants
and our highest
technology was the
pocket calculator," says
Markham. "You used to
have to travel round
with a case load of
office supplies, and we
were all wondering
whether the accountants
could ever be real
players in consultancy."
But while both the
business of consultancy
and the environment it
operates in have changed
radically, this has, in
a way, brought into
sharper focus what
remains unchanged about
being a consultant.
"The issue for a
consultant is being an
outsider who is trying
to accelerate the
performance of the
client," he says. "That
has its own peculiar
challenges."
In fact, apart from a
rewrite for the fourth
edition that introduced
a more process-oriented
structure, most of the
book's content would at
least strike a chord
with owners of the
original edition. But as
Markham points out "twas
ever thus" – when he was
doing a supervisor's
course at PA Consulting
in the early 1980s, the
firm was still using
some of the handouts
developed by its founder
Ernest Butten 40 years
earlier.
"This was
particularly the case in
terms of the care of the | |
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| | individual – the lonely
individual – which is a
big part of being a
consultant," he says.
"The issues of people
dealing with people are
perennial."
One major change in
the landscape has been a
greater intermingling of
the worlds of
consultancy and
management. This doesn't
mean, however, that
consultants will ever
lose their status as
outsiders and occasional
whipping boys.
As Markham says:
"Rearrange the letters
of the word 'consultant'
and you get
'scapegoat'." But
consultants are
increasingly dealing
with people who not only
have considerable
experience and knowledge
of consultancy – either
through MBA education,
employing consultants or
a spell in the industry
– but who are facing
similar issues in their
own lives.
This convergence has
led to change in
Markham's own business,
and its eventual
rebranding from
Consultancy Skills
Training (CST) to
Elevation Learning.
"The problem with the
CST name was that while
it describes what we do,
it might exclude the
one-third or more of our
trainees who wouldn't be
described as consultants
in the classic sense," | |
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| | says Markham. "We hope
to embrace all our
existing clients but
also embrace all the
other folk who operate
in a quasi-consulting
capacity."
Management and
consultancy used to be
distinguishable by the
fact that one dealt with
continuity and the other
with discontinuity. Now,
managers look back on
the management of
continuity with the sort
of nostalgia reserved
for bowler hats, typing
pools and final salary
pension schemes.
"A lot of continuity
is now embodied in
systems," says Markham.
"Managers increasingly
have to manage
discontinuity through
the medium of projects
which they cannot
execute through power
alone – they have to do
it through consensus, by
influence rather than
mandate."
This change is
creating a new set of
issues for both
consultants and clients
– with an overlap of
skills, the make-or-buy
decision is not so clear
cut.
"Is consultancy
leading edge or are
consultants merely the
transmitters of best
practice?" asks Markham.
"The question of when
one should use
consultants becomes more
one of knowledge capital
and the appreciation of | |
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| | that asset, because part
of that goes to the
consultancy and not your
own people."
This doesn't imply a
diminution of the role
of the consultant. On
the contrary, the more
people focus on what is
‘core’ the more they
seem to outsource. And
Markham asserts that
there will always be a
role for the "outsider
focus" that a consultant
brings, even if they are
an internal consultant
from another part of the
organisation. But adding
value to that
perspective – to bring
us neatly back to
Markham's book – will
always requires
practical consultancy
skills, not just knowing
what needs to be done
but how to do it.
"Execution itself is
what is so important,"
he says. "Otherwise it's
a bit like having the
script of King Lear – it
doesn't mean you're
going to perform it
well."
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