Management consultants: charlatans or catalysts of change

Mike Hudson Senior Partner of Compass Partnership

The management consultancy profession continues its relentless growth. Both the public and private sectors continue to make ever increasing use of consultants and the income of the firms that are members of the Management Consultancies Association now exceeds £2000 million per annum.

Consultancy in the voluntary sector has experienced similar growth. When I began working in this field in 1982 there were only a handful of people working as consultants in the sector. Today, the Association of Consultants and Trainers (ACT) has a database of nearly 1,000 people who work primarily as consultants and trainers to voluntary, arts and housing organisations and there are undoubtedly many more who spent part of their time in this field.

Growth in the demand for consultants has been driven by organisations’ need for short-term injections of specialist skills. A few years ago the first reaction to an opportunity or a problem would have been to appoint a new employee; today it is often to appoint a consultant. Increasingly activities are being divided into ‘project size’ pieces of work and out-sourced to consultants. This results in fewer long-term commitments for the organisation and more focussed use of peoples’ time.

The use of consultants is however not a panacea. Consultancy assignments do go wrong, relationships are sometimes less than ideal and the outcomes can be less valuable than anticipated.

So, if this way of working is to become even more common what needs to happen for it to be more successful in the future? In my view, both consultants and users of consultancy need take actions. Consultants need to invest substantially more time in continuous professional development and users need to become much more skilled at getting best value from consultants.

Actions required by consultants

Consultancy is a craft that requires the application of many skills including project specification, diagnosis of organisation culture, managing client-consultant relationships, understanding the nature of change, project management and implementation. Delivering top quality work is a challenging task, requiring a combination of intellectual rigour, understanding of the process of the intervention and high interpersonal skills.

Consultancy is not a regulated profession so anyone can call themselves a consultant. Consultants consequently have to take responsibility for setting themselves the highest standards. It can take three or more years for an experienced manager to acquire the skills needed to make successful consultancy interventions in a range of different circumstances. Indeed, the Institute of Management Consultants requires people wanting the Certified Management Consultant (CMC) qualification to have five years experience.

Both new and experienced consultants need to have a strong commitment to continuous professional development. They should expect to spend at least ten days per year investing in their own development. This includes both deepening their understanding of management and developing their consultancy skills. Typical activities include attending courses, reading, writing, shadowing, having a mentor and teaching.

People working in firms have the advantage of supervision, appraisal and working with colleagues to provide impetus to professional development. People working as sole traders have to have the self discipline to commit time to this critical activity.

Actions required by users

Users also play a critical role in the success of a consultancy. This begins by being really clear about the objectives, the scope and the brief for the assignment. It involves the time consuming task of finding consultants with the skills and experience needed to deliver a successful assignment. When selection is by competitive tender it involves briefing no more than three consultants to tender (ideally face to face) and seeing their presentations. They have to choose the consultants who meet the specification and, equally important, who have the personal chemistry to fit the organisation’s culture and work with people to achieve the desired results.

Users also have to be clear about who should be involved during the assignment and

ensure that staff have the time required to do the work that the organisation has to undertake. They have manage each stage of the consultancy, and ensure that all stakeholders are signed up to the diagnosis, the recommendations and to implementation.

Finally, the manager of the assignment has to expect that the brief may change as work proceeds and to manage those changes with all the stakeholders. Such changes are often a sign that the consultant is shedding new light on the issue – and starting to add real value.

For further information contact:

Mike Hudson at Compass Partnership

Email: MHudson@compassnet.co.uk

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Updated 7^th July 2000