The Other Side of the Table

As with most consultants, I've been on the "other side of the table" as a customer or prospect of consultants. The contrast is striking.

It is so easy as the potential customer to be: I know my business better than you could every try and figure out in a few weeks time. And it so easy for the consultant to be: doesn't some temporary outside perspective help? Do you know all your options or how other organizations approached similar ambition? Are you the right person to dig deeper with your team, with yourself?

They are both right. Consultants cannot gain all the nuanced knowledge about an organization and how it came to be in its current technology state. Nor should they be given credit for the operations and successes of those organizations. That isn't their job. On the other hand, even if you think you know the right way it helps to have some outside, temporary assistance to creating the necessary momentum for change. For the cynical, the saying "more prints on the murder weapon" comes to mind.

If you think about it, leading a technology transformation inside an organization is extremely similar to consulting. First you have to earn the right to recommend. Second, your have to earn the right to implement. Then finally you are given the chance to get the right work done. That is of course if you are talking to the right people.

I've seen many well-intentioned initiatives die both as consultant and as a customer, languishing mainly because the right group wasn't involved. It could be simply not working high or low enough in the organization, or not respecting the spread of positions involved.

Both consultants and the customers should minimize any complications coming from the wrong set of stakeholders, even if it means abandoning the project early. If the team leading is wrong, there is not a consistent way to work toward a mutually successful conclusion.

Consulting is about conclusions. Little conclusions that lead to bigger, more transformative conclusions. I've talked with several people in my network that have regular consulting engagements without scope or deliverable. To me, it seems very difficult to reach conclusions that way.

Momentum. Conclusions. The right team and the right consultant to act as a powerful catalyst for change.