Fortunately for managers and corporate leaders, there is an abundance of help available to them in the form of management consultants, and they appear to be taking advantage of that help in record numbers.

      With consulting on the increase, the obvious question is whether companies receive value for services rendered. Results are mixed. Unquestionably, the ideas generated and promoted by consultants helped America to become the most productive and efficient economy on earth. The impetus for business process redesign, for identifying and developing core competencies, for time-based competition, benchmarking, logistics, supply chain, project management, and other approaches to increasing efficiencies, improving quality, increasing speed, and generating innovation—all originated with consultants.

      Yet, there is a mounting suspicion and skepticism about the value consultants can deliver. And more, some of these complaints have found their way into lawsuits for fraud, incompetence and neglect. This generation of consultants has been conditioned to focus on the highly lucrative parts of consulting at the expense of truly understanding what it takes to be good at the work of the profession. There should at least be a balance between the need to be successful for one's self and the need to be successful for one's client.

      We studied a number of organizations and projects, and were most surprised by what clients described as the greatest benefit of hiring consultants. We presumed we would hear stories of great results and transformed organizations. Indeed, some did tell very positive stories. But the predominant reason cited regarding why clients were glad the consultants had been there, all centered around the relationship formed with the client. Getting results and having the talent to get the results were expected. Consumers of consulting services viewed the results and the required talents to achieve them as very important, but the defining characteristics that separated consultants who merely did a good job from the consultants the company definately wanted to have back, focussed on the experiences that resulted from the relationship established with clients. Here are the kinds of things clients said:

      “I could think out loud—test my own hypotheses and assumptions with a safe sounding board.”
      “My consultant helped me understand and more precisely define the problems in my organization, and helped me accept that there was more to the problem than just the symptoms I initially wanted to address.”
      “I know more now than I did when we started. I'm more capable.”

      Additionally, those consultant experiences that led clients to conclude “we would never have them back again” were less about unachieved results and more about negative relationships. Let us be clear, though—consultants who failed to perform as expected were usually dismissed or written off as a loss (as they should be).