You remember the old consulting joke I sent you yesterday…have told that joke for years at kickoff meetings. Everybody always laughs at the punch line…The reason why that story is so good…is that all of us have worked with consultants like that. Young know-it-alls with a lot of enthusiasm, but little nuance or experience.My first experience with this type of consultant goes back to 1990…when I had my last regular job. And this guy was not a young-un, he was an experienced consultant.What I remember about ‘John’ was that he seemed to want to park his fat butt in my office and shoot the breeze with me. It always agitated me because I had stuff to do…he would literally come in and put his feet on my desk. And just talk and talk.What I also remember about this guy was - One, he always wanted to do studies - “Maybe I could do a study of this…maybe I could do a study of that”. Like we were co-conspirators or something. Jeez.Two, he taught me how to get rid of people who parked themselves in my office. (That’s another email for another day…)It is a big-firm consultant’s trick to do a study that drives more work their way…and ultimately drains your wallet. If your consultants have gone so far to put pictures of their spouse and kids in their work area - you have a problem.The consultants should get in, do the job, and get out. There is nothing wrong with the consultants finding problem areas, and then selling solutions to you. That’s different…it’s the ’studies’ that are pitched that should give you an eye tic.At that point…ask for your dog back.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 10:25 am and is filed under Business/Consulting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.