[direfungasaur]

> The simplified executive line of reasoning, why to rather trust an external entity over their own people, goes usually along these lines: "We do not take advice from our employees. We hired them for grunt work and we only expect them to follow orders. What could they possibly know that could benefit our high-level decision making. Afterall we pay them so little".

It's not always that leadership ignores line-engineers just because they consider them stupid. Even obvious recommendations get tangled into the web of politics and personal favors. Sometimes the 'obvious solution' is also a play to get more power or influence for someone you're opposed to. That factors into how the advice is taken.

Part of the fiction management sells itself is consultants can cut across those organizational boundaries and find the 'right solution'. Sometimes having an 'impartial' voice echoing what others have already said is enough to convince you it's not just someone trying to poach your turf, it's actually good advice.

Further, our tendencies towards tribalism influence this process. We tend not to think of other employees as part of the same group - they are devs, or ops, or product. That builds an 'us vs. them' mentality that's hard to break. Bringing in an outsider tends to unify the group into us (the company/team) vs. the outsider (the consultant). That psychology helps us to justify bitter medicine like our team getting more work (which will help the company).

I tend to have a negative opinion of consultants, but someone pointed this aspect of group psychology to me in the past and it resonated.

[koffiezet]

> Part of the fiction management sells itself is consultants can cut across those organizational boundaries and find the 'right solution'.

Being a consultant, and knowing multiple others, I feel that not being part of the company "tribes", really allows you to more easily cut across those organizational boundaries you mention.

How many times I've heard of 2 technical divisions complaining about each-other where the main issue is the lack of communication and simply not knowing who to talk to in the other "tribe". Consultants however are part of their own little 'consultant tribe' across company tribe boundaries, who more easily bond together and talk about stuff like that. This means this group is more diverse and has more contacts spread throughout the organization, making them ideal to cut trough the bullshit. You also have the fact that when a company was happy about a consultant, chances are that when they need someone somewhere else, they'll hire the same consultant again, dumping them in a completely different group of people.

Yes this is 100% a social problem, but it's there, and a group of outsiders will address this more efficiently.

[martin_ky]

I think you hit the nail here with "poaching someone's turf" and the "tribalism" inside a company. I didn't mean to say that leadership considers engineers stupid. They hire them and trust them with solving complex technical problems. It just bothers me, they would often rather take a vague, generic management advice from a third party, who could not care less, over well intentioned, well reasoned, concrete advice, backed by concrete evidence from an engineer (or just do not act at all). This is just my colorful imagination, but I could almost 'hear' some managers thinking while dismissing an idea without giving reason: "I am supposed to manage you, no way you are going to tell me how to do my job". I've seen such behavior and I have no other explanation for it other than ego, office politics and 'cover my ass strategy'. This creates toxic environments and not just for the people working there. Productivity, quality and I'm 100% convinced that ultimately revenue and the ability to compete suffers from this as well.