| | By Mick James
My recent piece on
internal consulting
brought forth a
fascinating postbag from
internal consultants or
those who’d once had that
role – as ever the names
of the innocent
consultants have been
suppressed to protect the
guilty clients and
employers.
Certainly, “hackles
have been raised” not
least over the issue of
credibility. What comes
across pretty clearly is
that credibility comes at
a price – to the client!
“You cannot be a
prophet in your own
land,” comments JF, who
has worked both sides of
the fence. He finds that
his recommendations
nowadays carry far more
weight as an independent
than they ever did as an
internal, including with
his former employer who
commented: “We should
have listened to you the
first time around, but I
guess we weren’t paying
enough for the advice.”
Actually, I don’t
think this is just a
problem for internals.
How many people have gone
out to battle with a
business plan that stated
something like “McKinsey
quality – but not at
McKinsey prices” only to
return home baffled and
defeated?
JF also makes the
point that as long as
externals are brought in
to “fight fires” while
internals deal with
“smouldering issues” they | |
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| | PC makes a number of
interesting points, not
least that he got a
better salary from the
move because he was at
the time exactly what the
client wanted, and now
enjoys both stability and
excellent career
prospects in the client
company. Also as an
internal employee he has
gained “rights” – control
over his working life,
the ability to negotiate
everything from working
hours to the details of
assignments.
Which brings us, I
think to the crux of the
internal/external issue –
internal consultants are
embedded in
organisations, with all
that entails for good and
bad. For KC this is a
positive – internals have
the contacts and the
insider knowledge to get
the answers and to play
the political game. For
others it’s a minus –
thanks to WP for pointing
me in the direction of
Peter Block’s 1981 book
Flawless Consulting ,
whose subtitle “A guide
to getting your expertise
used” pretty much sums up
the dilemma. Block makes
the point that without a
formal contract the
“real” contract is at
best triangular
(consultant-boss-client)
or even rectangular with
the addition of the
client’s boss. I leave it
to my readers (who I know
love doing this sort of
thing) to draw up a
diagram with two-way
arrows illustrating the | |
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| | various relationships and
power flows that can
ensue.
Is there a way beyond
this dilemma? One way
forward is suggested by
MH, who notes that
manufacturing firms have
increasingly been
outsourcing in-house
consulting, forming
independent consulting
subsidiaries. These can
work both internally and
externally, but must also
compete for internal
projects against external
consultancies.
This neatly solves
both the credibility and
political dilemmas. But
it’s a long way round the
houses to defeat, as PB
puts it, the “syndromes
that
plague...organisations’
abilities to effectively
deploy their own
resources”.
It’s not just an issue
that affects internal
consultants. How many
times have groups of
employees sat around
open-mouthed as
consultants laid out
proposals that they
themselves have been
battering their heads
against concrete walls
for years trying to get
across? Some
organisations have become
so adept at ignoring
their workforce that it’s
no problem at all for
them to set up an
internal consultancy unit
and ignore that as well.
For the final word I
turn to my original
correspondent Professor
Walt Hosbeek, who raised | |
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| | this topic initially and
has worked with many
large companies to
develop internal
consulting skills. Prof
Hosbeek is currently
developing a book on a
concept with the splendid
acronym MICK –Management
Innovation and the
Competition for Knowledge
– which rests on a
complex thermodynamic
metaphor whereby
knowledge is looked at in
terms of energy.
The goal, as he says,
is to create “the
flexible company of the
future” which can
“activate this knowledge
when necessary ...and
only then!”.
It’s an interesting
concept and in many ways
the Holy Grail of modern
corporate life. It might
also spell the death of
consulting both internal
and external, as we know
it. Fortunately, and for
the foreseeable future at
least, companies are so
profligate with this
energy source that both
these arcane forms of
life can survive!
As ever thanks to my
correspondents – if you
write to me and don’t
mind being identified in
print please mark your
email “For publication”.
I’m also happy to network
correspondents together
on an “opt-in” basis.
Just let me know.
| |
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| | will always attract more
attention and kudos. In
an ideal world, the
internal consultancy
would control the
deployment of externals
but it is clear that this
is far from the case –
PB, another former
internal speaks of being
used as “cannon fodder”
for projects while
external strategy
advisers reigned supreme.
KC, another internal,
while acknowledging the
“high price equals good
advice” syndrome makes
the point that internals
have a lot to offer –
particularly the
knowledge of the firm’s
culture and “raison
d’etre” making sure the
company is not steered
down a route it doesn’t
wish to follow. KC also
makes the point that
unlike externals,
internals have to stay
the course – they can’t
ride off into the sunset
leaving someone else to
sort out the mess.
So it was interesting
to hear from PC, a
consultant who – with a
number of colleagues –
has done whatever the
reverse of riding into
the sunset is: moving
from an external project
to work with the client
(who is apparently so
huge the consultancy
could do little apart
from grin and bear it). | |
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