[jpdoctor]

1/2 of a nice article.

Anyone here hire management consultants? Here are the issues that I've found:

1. Sometimes they are hired to solve a problem. For this case, they do not have to live with the mistakes that they made which arise after they're gone.

2. Sometimes they're hired for political cover. When they recommend tough medicine, the existing management team thinks they have confirmation about tough decisions, or worse, lessened guilt. Run, do not walk, from such teams.

I'm trying to think of a third reason why they get hired, and can't come up with one.

[swombat]

Worth pointing out I was talking about managers, not management consultants, which are a whole different kettle of fish.

[jpdoctor]

Was your background not management consulting?

[swombat]

Sure, so? That doesn't mean that I'm conflating the two terms.

[jpdoctor]

Do you think your background is interwoven in the article content and recommendations?

[swombat]

Of course it is. I was lucky to have several managers that I would call "good", and even a couple of "great" ones, so that before I jumped into the startup world I got to see what a "good" manager does for a project. Those were sometimes Accenture people, sometimes people who worked to the client. The fact that they worked for a consultancy was irrelevant, but the fact that they were managers was obviously relevant.

How could my background not be "interwoven" in the article content and recommendations? Are you suggesting I should make things up instead of basing them on experience?

[jpdoctor]

> Are you suggesting I should make things up instead of basing them on experience?

No. I am saying, now explicitly, that the shortcomings of the article are directly related to 1 & 2 in my original comment.