Robert Townsend wrote a book a few years ago….
“CONSULTANTS: REAL MANAGERS DON’T NEED THEM
All a consultant says is: “I spent some time with your people; here’s what they told me and here’s what I suggest you do about it.”
A real manager spends time with his people and knows what to do or how to find out. If he isn’t always working with his people to improve the operation, he’s not a real manager.
If you need a consultant to tell you what to do or how to find out, then you’re the problem.
If all that’s true, then why are there so many busy consultants?
Because there are so many incompetent CEOs.
I don’t know why so many lawyers and accountants get to the top slot, but they do, and it’s been my experience that many of them are more comfortable with their financial reports, their budgets, their assistants-to, and their plans than are with their people.
To the extent that’s true, they’re incompetent as leaders.
This is when the consultant is called in to serve the CEO’s important function of “management by wandering around”.
In my opinion, the number and activity of consultants are a direct measure of the trouble in our board rooms. Until we flush the toilet of top management a few more times – get the incompetents (including the lawyers and accountants) out andsome operating people in – we’ll be missing the fun and profit we should expect from our working lives.”
Further Up The Organisation by Robert Townsend
