Consulting and the Management Myth: More Conversation with Matthew Stewart
Last week, I talked to The Management Myth author Matthew Stewart about the aspects of MBA education he finds both useful and troubling. This week, we'll turn our attention to an area of business where many MBA graduates end up, consulting.
Stewart spent 10 years in the consulting industry, and unlike many of his MBA credentialed co-workers, had a doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University. Much of The Management Myth recounts, in often hilarious and cringe-worthy detail, his consulting experiences.
Consulting can lead to dysfunction
While Stewart still believes that bringing in outsiders to check on performance is a good idea, at least in theory, he says that consulting is often highly dysfunctional:
The core of the consulting business is going in and essentially making yourself indispensible by eating the brain of the organization, meaning that the consultants go in and assume key functions in the organization. That's ultimately very problematic and not helpful in the long term. Companies should be developing their own people.As an example of this, Stewart shared his own story of helping a bank in Mexico with risk management:
Our initial work was good and helpful. We worked very hard to look at problems as objectively as we could. In the first few months, we probably did some good. And then in the manner typical of many consulting projects, it became less functional, maybe a little dysfunctional. Our objective was, as always, to bill them at a maximum rate, so we tried to figure out ways to stay around as long as possible, rather than helping the clients get on their feet.Consultants don't bite the hand that feeds
An additional problem Stewart sees with consulting is that people at the top of organizations are essentially hiring consultants to critique them. "If you're working for somebody and trying to check on them, it never works. You're just saying what they want you to say at the end of the day. Whoever pays the consultant gets pretty much what they want to hear," he says.
How consulting can make itself useful
Stewart believes that ideally, consultants should be used to check on one part of an organization by another. "In the ideal scenario," he says, "consultants work for a board, and they're helping the board check on certain aspects of management. Their work is made public and transparent."
What are your thoughts on consultants? Does your organization use them, and if so, to what effect?