Learning to love consultants

October 26, 2009 by matthewtaylor
Filed under: The RSA 

Among the Fellows who hang out at the Society’s HQ there was one group whose social value I used to question. Now I am beginning to understand their worth.   

Learning lessons in middle age is a double edged sword. On the one hand, it is a bit humiliating to have to accept that one has been so wrong for so long. On the other, it’s kind of exhilarating not only still to be able to learn, but to see things in a different light.

The executive team at the RSA is trying to accomplish a step change to the clarity of the Society’s mission, the impact of its work and the culture of the organisation, including, crucially, the Fellowship. We have made good progress in many areas and the feedback we get from Fellows, partners and observers is very encouraging, but, as I suspect always happens in genuine change processes, there is no escaping the really knotty problems. This involves everyone in the top team having to accept their own strengths and weaknesses and explore the ways we need to challenge ourselves if the team really is to provide transformative leadership.

I am confident we will achieve our ambitions for the RSA (which I summarise as becoming ‘the kind of organisation the 21st century needs’) but it isn’t an easy process. Having spent twenty five working years working in organisations (fifteen in quite senior positions) only now do I feel I am getting fully to grips with the essence of change management, strategic leadership and cultural change. But, if and when we succeed, I suspect I won’t have the energy or inclination to take on such a process again. So what do I do with what I have learnt?

I have always been a bit suspicious of people who set themselves up as consultants claiming to be able to help organisations through change processes. I guess I couldn’t help thinking ‘if you’re so good how come you aren’t playing a strategic role in a major organisation rather than persuading other people to hire your services?’ I am sure there are a lot of consultants out there for whom that is a fair and difficult question but I now see another aspect.

Going through a major organisational change process is a bit like going through a life stage; you come out of it wiser and – hopefully – better, but that certainly doesn’t mean you’d want to go through it again. But you might want to use your expertise to help others about to embark on the same stage.  Of course, motivation is only half the story. Consultants have to be effective thinkers and communicators and their knowledge and insights need to be broad based. (As it happens, the people we are working with at the RSA are great.) But I suspect that whether or not the Society achieves the scale of change I hope for, I will emerge from the process as a kind of managerial Ancient Mariner wanting to stop everyone I meet to share my lonely adventure in leadership.

The best consultants – I now see – are driven not just by the desire to earn an honest crust, and have some control over their working life, but have a visceral appetite to share the deep learning that can only come from being in the middle of profound change.

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Comments

11 Comments on Learning to love consultants

  1. jestyn on Mon, 26th Oct 2009 12:54 pm

    2. Please spill the beans – who are you working with?

    (finding people who DO know what they are doing in this sphere can be hard…)

  2. Liam Murray on Mon, 26th Oct 2009 2:11 pm

    3. It’s one of those fields where the gap between the very good and the very poor is rather wide; and numerically speaking they’re heavily skewed towards the latter. But yes, when they’re good they’re of tremendous value.

    And apols for risking turning this thread into one for ‘consultant’ jokes or quips but my favourite?

    “A consultant is someone who comes into your organisation, borrows your watch, tells you the time and then sends you a bill….”

  3. ronald young on Mon, 26th Oct 2009 5:16 pm

    4. I have been a quasi-consultant for 19 years – in central europe and central asia – and have tried to open up a critical discussion about this role on my website (above). I am free-lance and appalled by the cowboy companies who are allowed, for example, by the European Commission to bid for contracts in the development field.
    You are right to suspect contemporary consultants in the UK – I’m sure you are familiar with David Craig’s devastating books.
    But there was an honourable tradition in Britain in the 1970s – for example the Tavistock Institute (with links to people such as Bion, Emery and Trist) which helped some of us in Strathclyde Region shape policies and structures to start dealing with the conditions of multiple deprivation.
    Tavistock, of course, was not a for-profit organsiation!
    For more, see my current blog – http://nomadron.blogspot.com/

  4. Michael on Mon, 26th Oct 2009 5:59 pm

    5. No doubt some consultants are better than others, but I think it mostly depends on the client. The best consultant in the world can’t help a client who can’t absorb the discomfort of breaking mindsets, patterns, and behaviours of the past.

    This is why organisations which need outside help the most, often don’t change, and end up complaining about their consultants. And the orgs which don’t need much help anyway, often improve even more.

  5. carl allen on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 12:23 am

    6. It is a bit like SWOT and TOWS.

    Some consultants start with filling out the form with your strengths and weaknesses.

    Others start by asking about what might be the threats and opportunities.

  6. matthewtaylor on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 10:13 am

    7. Or even better make you face up the the lack of clarity in your account of your misssion!

  7. matthewtaylor on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 10:15 am

    8. Fair point Michael. But I think even really good organisations have from time to time to be brave enough to embark on challenging processes of change. In fact, the more comfortable you are the harder it can be to choose to change.

  8. matthewtaylor on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 10:16 am

    9. The great thing about blogging is how some casual comments it can open you up to a new area of debate. Thanks, Ronald, this is fascinating.

  9. matthewtaylor on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 10:18 am

    10. Thanks Liam I agree. But I thought that was THE consultant joke. Mind you there’s bound to be at least three web sites for consultant jokes. I must look them up -when I retire!

  10. matthewtaylor on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 10:19 am

    11. Jane Wentworth Associates is working with us on branding and this has opened up some much bigger issues about strategic capacity and working. So we are also wroking with someoine coaching our team to up its game.

  11. Matthew Kalman on Wed, 28th Oct 2009 11:43 am

    12. No More Consultants!

    FYI…

    Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell have a nice little new book just out called ‘No More Consultants – We Know More Than We Think’ – which might appeal to those who don’t want to fork out for consultants but want to find the answers themselves from within their organisations.

    It’s cover is a nice pic of the watch that the consultant took from you, in order to tell you the time! ;-)

    It basically explains a group performance self-assessment tool which encourages knowledge-sharing, via a nice little ‘River Diagram’.

    Chris and Geoff previoiusly wrote one of the most practical books on how to do Knowledge Management in organisations – I guess this particular group self-assessment tool has proven itself to be the most enduringly useful thing that was included in that previous book (some bits of which are now superceded by Web 2.0 developments).

    I might ask Chris if this is the case, some time…

    The River Diagram group thingy has been used in the NHS, IDeA, Orange, National School of Government etc etc

    I hope I get to try it out in my organisation some day…

    Matt

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