The Tao of unbiased consultation
The dictionary definition of 'unbiased' is unprejudiced. In today's business world someone consulting someone without a catch is a paradox. Why?
When you google the words 'unbiased consultation', you get approximately 360.000 hits from a wide variety of companies telling that they are less biased that the zealous neighbor company, who of course tell just the same thing. If there would not be an issue with being biased, why there would be so many websites advertising that they are the unbiased ones? The problem is that there's money involved.
As we all well know, money is the root of all evil and causes people and companies alike to behave oddly in order to try to make more money. I can't actually tell when the change happened, from "consultation for the good of customer" to "keeping the customer in the house as long as possible by making ourselves invaluable" but I bet it was somewhere between the IT bubble starting to grow and it's bursting. When there's a new, massive industry emerging with a small amount of people knowing anything gives consulting a nice incentive to maximize profits in the short run, and what the hell - "let's make ourselves so important to them that we'll have nice profits also in the long run!"
So, at first it was all about making money but then more consulting companies started to emerge, merge and spread like a vile disease on every corner of the planet. This naturally creates competition and the customers started actually to realize that they were being milked, causing more schism towards the consulting industry. There are several reasons for people not to like consultants, the biggest reason is that most consultants do not have enough knowledge and experience in the topic they should teach others, I will not even mention the lack of fresh ideas, creativity or even common sense.
When the consulting companies started to feel the wind at the top, they made the consultants sales people (What drives sales people? That's right, money!) by giving them quotas, cutting their salary to a small base with a possible bonus and making them responsible for new client acquisition. Now this would all be nice and dandy IF the consultants were sales process consultants or business developement consultants, but we're speaking of people specialized in coding, databases and other not-so-flamboyant specialities. Ask yourselves that would these people rather a.) Pick up the phone and start cold-calling new clients or b.) Make the most difficult and problematic database front-end only gods and this guy know how to use - just to make sure this guy doesn't have to think of changing jobs in the next few years?
I thought you would agree. Talk about unbiased consultants.
So, when I had a seminar in E-Commerce and IT Project management in my MBA program, I brought out the idea of true unbiased consultation.
"Provide a solution for the customer, with the customer as if this is the last thing you would do in your life - so that anybody could pick up from your tracks and continue the work."
This utopistic idea requires a lot from the consultant: Comprehensive and coherent documentation to make sure the customer and the next guy understand what was the situation, what was planned to be changed and what was changed. A true consultant should make sure that the changes make the effect they were planned to. One important thing related to importance of the consultation is the consultant realizing his/her own skills and limitations - and most importantly understanding that the possible customer might not actually need the service.
A true, unbiased consultant maintains the position as consultant by providing a good and beneficial service to the customer.
When you google the words 'unbiased consultation', you get approximately 360.000 hits from a wide variety of companies telling that they are less biased that the zealous neighbor company, who of course tell just the same thing. If there would not be an issue with being biased, why there would be so many websites advertising that they are the unbiased ones? The problem is that there's money involved.
As we all well know, money is the root of all evil and causes people and companies alike to behave oddly in order to try to make more money. I can't actually tell when the change happened, from "consultation for the good of customer" to "keeping the customer in the house as long as possible by making ourselves invaluable" but I bet it was somewhere between the IT bubble starting to grow and it's bursting. When there's a new, massive industry emerging with a small amount of people knowing anything gives consulting a nice incentive to maximize profits in the short run, and what the hell - "let's make ourselves so important to them that we'll have nice profits also in the long run!"
So, at first it was all about making money but then more consulting companies started to emerge, merge and spread like a vile disease on every corner of the planet. This naturally creates competition and the customers started actually to realize that they were being milked, causing more schism towards the consulting industry. There are several reasons for people not to like consultants, the biggest reason is that most consultants do not have enough knowledge and experience in the topic they should teach others, I will not even mention the lack of fresh ideas, creativity or even common sense.
When the consulting companies started to feel the wind at the top, they made the consultants sales people (What drives sales people? That's right, money!) by giving them quotas, cutting their salary to a small base with a possible bonus and making them responsible for new client acquisition. Now this would all be nice and dandy IF the consultants were sales process consultants or business developement consultants, but we're speaking of people specialized in coding, databases and other not-so-flamboyant specialities. Ask yourselves that would these people rather a.) Pick up the phone and start cold-calling new clients or b.) Make the most difficult and problematic database front-end only gods and this guy know how to use - just to make sure this guy doesn't have to think of changing jobs in the next few years?
I thought you would agree. Talk about unbiased consultants.
So, when I had a seminar in E-Commerce and IT Project management in my MBA program, I brought out the idea of true unbiased consultation.
"Provide a solution for the customer, with the customer as if this is the last thing you would do in your life - so that anybody could pick up from your tracks and continue the work."
This utopistic idea requires a lot from the consultant: Comprehensive and coherent documentation to make sure the customer and the next guy understand what was the situation, what was planned to be changed and what was changed. A true consultant should make sure that the changes make the effect they were planned to. One important thing related to importance of the consultation is the consultant realizing his/her own skills and limitations - and most importantly understanding that the possible customer might not actually need the service.
A true, unbiased consultant maintains the position as consultant by providing a good and beneficial service to the customer.
posted by Unknown at 11:58 am
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