Flawless Consulting, 4th Edition

CHAPTER 1A Consultant by Any Other Name …

ANY FORM OF HUMOR has some truth in it. The truth in the prevailing skepticism about consultants is that the traditional consultant, internal or external, has tended to act solely as an agent of management: assuming the manager's role in either performing highly technical activities that a manager cannot do or performing unpopular activities such as reducing costs and people that a manager does not want to do. The most dramatic examples of consultants' taking the place of managers is when they identify people who will be let go or functions that will be eliminated. It goes by the term restructuring. The intent of this book is to give you options in responding with impact beyond your impact on the real pressures that are driving managers to the point of outsourcing what is very difficult. This is the value proposition of both internal and external consulting.

When you are asked directions and you tell someone to get off the bus two stops before you do, you are acting as a consultant. Every time you give advice to someone who is faced with a choice, you are consulting. When you don't have direct control over people and yet want them to listen to you and heed your advice, you are face‐to‐face with the consultant's dilemma. For some of you, this may be your full‐time predicament. Some of you may face it only occasionally, functioning part ...