Choosing a consultant

Let's assume you have made the decision to hire a consultant. As there are so many management consultants to choose from, what are some things you may want to consider?

1. Firstly, be very clear about what you want the consultant to do and what are the expected outcomes from their involvement. Then, ensure that the consultant has the required skills mix and experience to deliver.
2. The consultant needs a proven track record and at least 10 years senior experience in their area/s of expertise prior to becoming a consultant. It is only with this background that they will appreciate what you are experiencing and be able to work with you to develop solutions.
3. Make sure you know who the consultant/s will be before signing a contract. Often consultancy firms will send in their most senior people during the negotiation stages but then you may rarely see them again as they send in junior consultants to do the actual work.
4. Check with organisations that have used them before to find out whether they delivered value for money.
5. Ensure they are people who are good listeners and will not come in with all the 'answers'. 
6. Some consultants will have a strict 'recipe-like' approach and not be flexible with their approach and strategies. Flexibility is essential as text book style answers rarely work in practice with each organisation and situation being unique.
7. Be careful of employing consultants who just agree with you and rehash your ideas - you want someone who is a critical thinker willing to challenge and help you develop new ideas and approaches.
8. Finally, you want someone who has your organisation's best interests as their first priority - someone with integrity that will give themselves wholeheartedly to the success of your organisation.

What are the pros and cons of using a management consultant?

This was a question I used to ask when working for a government organisation that employed thousands of staff and at the same time spent millions of dollars on management consultants. Many staff used to joke, "There go the black suits again to get some more good ideas from us for their reports". Those from the larger consultancy firms all seemed to have a similar language and approach and were usually young MBAs reporting to a senior, experienced consultant who was often not available. For those of us who worked closely with the consultants, I think we came to appreciate that some of them had a lot to offer, while others added little value and were just seen as an annoyance we could do without.

So, what are the pros and cons of using management consultants?

Pros

1. Consultants can bring skills and experience that your organisation may be lacking. To employ someone full time with these skills may be quite expensive and not needed on an ongoing basis.
2. Consultants usually have experience in a number of different environments and can bring new insights and different perspectives into your organisation. They can often see things with fresh eyes and hence help the organisation address some of the critical things that may have been overlooked.
3. A consultant can bring objectivity and independence. This can be important in a number of different contexts, for example, carrying out an evidence-based evaluation of an existing program or new service.
4. Consultants can also help with skills transfer and organisational capacity building - so with time they pro-actively work themselves out of a role.
5. Consultants can challenge senior management in ways that employed staff may not be able to.

Cons

1. If they do not deliver the outcomes they were signed up for, this can be an unnecessary expense as their rates are often more expensive than the average wage of your senior staff.
2. Some come with baggage, for example, management jargon that may initially sound impressive but in the longer term can be shallow and alienating to staff.
3. Good consultants may be working on several projects at once and may not be able to give you their full attention.
4. They may have little knowledge of your organisation and limited understand of your culture and corporate history.
5. Some come knowing they are only there short term and do not give adequate consideration to issues of sustainability and longer term outcomes. Thus, you may sometimes hear from a consultant - "things didn't work out for you after we left because you didn't follow our guaranteed pathway to success."

To achieve maximum benefit, and guard against some of the cons mentioned above, it is important to engage the appropriate consultant for your situation. These will be discussed in the next blog.