Business Consultants
I remain convinced the most important cartoon any corporate leader or participant can read is Dilbert. Dilbert is a daily dose of management brilliance.Over the past decades, I’ve found myself on some sort of board of a company. It might be a hospital, a large multispecialty group or some other big organization. Initially, I flatter myself as someone who is trying to “make a difference.” I am so dumb! It never goes well. One of the most fearsome things you will hear is “We’ve hired a consultant.” This can mean all sorts of things. None of them are good:
- The company is probably in trouble. If you didn’t know that, you soon will….and it won’t get any better!
- The company leaders want to do something unpopular and they need other people to take the heat.
- Yes, the company is floundering and needs someone to tell them how to fix it. This usually fails and costs lots of money to learn about the common sense things you already knew. The company will still be floundering when the consultants leave.
- The company may be taking on a huge project that is really complicated and a really bad idea. Rest assured, the project will bleed lots of money and be dead in two or three years.
- The consultant will attach to your company like a leech and suck out lots of money. Nothing will be accomplished.
- Meetings will now involve strangers in really expensive suits and haircuts.
- The level of “admin-speak” will grow super heavy. Admin-speak usually involves executives saying things like “synergies, outside the box, strategize, granular, leverage, bandwidth, unpacking, deep dive,” etc. Such talk is harmful to your brain.
As hospitals and clinics are taken over by big entities, the “consultant” changes. Instead of an outside firm, the parent firm sends over a couple of “expert” executives from the home office who kick things around, causing misery and accomplishing little. It is difficult running a big organization. I find that even running my small medical practice is a continuous challenge. If you have a successful organization, smile, but rest assured it will look less successful in a few years when the one competent person running the place leaves and the remaining numbskulls take over.
Twice our hospital hired a consultant for big bucks… who told them…. what I met with them 3 years before and recommended, it was ignored and they did not have to pay me anything.
The current level of hospital administrators is very lucky. They went into it when salaries were a fraction, then raised them by mass effect, so they cant say the compensation is needed to attract talent. They hire consultants for two reasons, one they cant make decisions and two if the consultant idea is successful they take credit, if it is not, they say the consultant was no good.
Lastly every hospital has created more layers of administration to the guys at the top can pay themselves more. The boards are composed of businesses that work with the hospital and rubber stamp the pay increases.
This is a great column today! Hits so close to home, as I have wasted money on consultants in my distant past.
I was weak and stupid back then. I now have a different philosophy. You stated every element of that here. But by far my favorite quote, that I have held close to my heart over the years, which has mitigated my stupidity: ” A consultant is a person who will take your watch off your wrist and tell you what time it is.” You go, Dr. Mussey! This column is a keeper.