Old is New Until New is Old Again
People know I like to cite the past to better frame current events. Something about that old truism that failing to recall history condemns one to repeating mistakes. Maybe this comes across as your eccentric Uncle Walter, and his rants about the good ol’ days when gas cost a dollar and the only news came from another guy on TV named Walter.
The consulting industry sometimes resembles that character when using the “old days” to buttress their wisdom and experience. At the same time, applying old to new often results in consultants’ breathless proclamations on the significance of otherwise mundane occurrences. We’re inundated with messages about “innovative solutions” that “increase value,” while “maximizing efficiencies” so that companies can “focus on their core.”
Clearly the ground-breaking companies of this epoch — Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple — used the past as a basis to totally tilt the present, resulting in a future that even they didn’t expect. These companies did so by breaking down old business models and society’s expectations of what’s possible, and instilling their will on a willing population.
Modern management consulting goes back more than 100 years to Taylor-ism and stopwatches on assembly lines. Truth be told, consultants didn’t spawn Rockefeller or Carnegie, but consultants were helping Standard Oil and US Steel for decades … just like they’re helping the aforementioned groundbreakers today.
We have to be reminded that consultants are advisors, not inventors. Their value rests on being well-informed outsiders who operate with an insider’s view. And the industry will remain relevant as long as good consultants remember the past well enough to guide their clients through the present.
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