Why You May Be The Reason Your Consultant Is Failing
How hard is it to find consultants in this day and age? Well, itâs not difficult at all. Thanks to online consulting marketplaces, you connect with hundreds of top consultants with a few clicks.
But are things as easy as they seem? Is it true that you can just visit a freelance platform, hire a consultant, and have your problems solved? Well, not quite - and itâs not always the consultantâs fault.
Thereâs no doubt that in rare circumstances, a consultant might be a little inexperienced to handle the job. And you may think, why consultants fail? But sometimes, companies knowingly or unknowingly do things that might result in the failure of their engagement with the consultant. Letâs understand what these issues are.
1. You and Your Team Arenât on the Same Page
If your team is not really sure that your decision to hire a consultant will actually work, your whole engagement with the consultant might have an unproductive start. After all, itâs your company and your representatives will be responsible for reviewing or approving some (if not all) of the consultantâs tasks. Itâs crucial that everyone on the team is on board with the idea of hiring a consultant in the first place. And itâs up to you to convince everyone in your company - from senior executives to interns - that your decision to hire a consultant will be a win-win situation for everyone.
For any of your consulting projects to succeed, you need to know exactly why you want to hire a consultant. Is it because you want to fill a skill gap? Is it because you want to hire temporary support for a short-term project? Whatever the reason might be, itâs very important for you and your whole team to be on the same page. Everyone in the company should see an advantage in bringing a consultant on board. In fact, you should explain every department the benefits of working with a consultant in detail. For example, you can tell your employees that their workload will decrease if a consultant comes in and streamlines the operations process.
2. Youâre Not Letting Your Consultant Collect the Much-Needed Information
It might seem very strange to share confidential business information with a consultant that you just met a few days ago. However, consulting projects always begin with data collection - thatâs just the way it is. A consultant canât analyze your problem efficiently if thereâs some important information thatâs missing. If the analysis is not top-notch, the recommendations wonât be either. And if the recommendations are not the best they can be, your engagement with the consultant might not be fruitful. Do you see the chain reaction that a lack of relevant information can start? Letâs consider an example to emphasize this point.
Suppose you hire a consultant to increase the sales of your companyâs services. Now the consultant wants to invite some of your clients and conduct a focus group discussion to collect some key information. However, youâre reluctant to let an outsider get close to your clients and you reject this strategy. Because of this, the consultant has no choice but to make assumptions and fly blind. As a result of this, the recommendations might be based on suppositions instead of reality. Thatâs why itâs really important that you let your consultant know what they ask for. If youâre concerned about your companyâs confidential information getting leaked, you can always make your consultant sign an NDA and/or a non-compete agreement.
3. Lack of Commitment From Senior Executives
Consulting projects are not just run by consultants. Without the support of senior executives, a consultant might feel powerless in an organization. There could be a lot of reasons behind this. Sometimes, disagreements and politics at a senior level can hinder a consultantâs progress. Maybe because some executives are still not okay with the fact that an outsider is telling them what to do. Some senior decision-makers might feel undermined when an external consultant is solving their internal problem.
However, sometimes, the senior executives might be making a consultantâs job difficult unknowingly. Seniors might be too busy to respond to the consultantâs emails on time, and sometimes, they might need to reschedule meetings due to urgent business tasks. All this could unintentionally cause consulting projects to delay. Fear of change can also be an issue. In an ideal world, a consultant would just give their recommendations to a company and expect them to accept it without question. In reality, however, there are going to be questions and doubts. Not saying it shouldnât happen, but too much hesitation to implement a consultantâs advice might result in a failed engagement and you may think the consultant failed you.
4. Groupthink
In simple terms, groupthink is a phenomenon in which a group of people would rather do what other members of the group âthinkâ is right. Instead of logically evaluating a situation and acting accordingly. When you hire a consultant, theyâre going to tell you what changes need to occur. This is when things might get a bit complicated. For example, if a consultant recommends that your packagingâs colors might need to be changed a bit because theyâre very similar to a competitorâs, then groupthink and resistance might surface. You might hear things like: âHow can we change our brand colors?â or âThis is ridiculousâ.
Even though a consultant has two decades of experience and is confident theyâre making the right decision, groupthink might stop you from doing whatâs actually right. The groupthink mentality is very skeptical of outsiders - thatâs the main feature of this phenomenon. And unfortunately, a consultant is an outsider whoâs temporarily hired to fix a problem. Now, this constant battle between groupthink and logical decisions will eventually take its toll on the project. It can only be prevented if the internal team is open to new ideas and doesnât feel threatened by outside opinion.
5. Lack of Collaboration
Teams that work within their department and donât collaborate with others might end up being ineffective. When a consultant is involved in your business, they might need to work with employees from various departments. And if everyone is operating within their own little bubble and not sharing relevant information with each other, things might get a bit awkward for a consultant. However, thereâs a solution to this. If the CEO, or another senior executive, conducts a big team meeting and invites all the departments, itâll be easy for everyone to share whatâs going on within their department and stay on top of all the relevant information. Luckily, this is easy to do in SMEs because the teams are relatively smaller and meetings are easily manageable.
Conclusion
For a consulting project to succeed, the consultant and the company must work hand in hand. Oftentimes, when an engagement with a consultant fails, the blame is usually passed on to the consultant. However, as you saw in this article, even the company has some accountability to ensure that a consultant can put their best forward and help the business achieve its desired results. As mentioned earlier, itâs easy to find consultants these days, but itâs the execution that might prove to be difficult.
