Blog

A recent study in the UK questions the value management consultants have created for National Health Services, the UK’s publicly funded national healthcare system. The NHS is the largest single-payer healthcare system in the world … and a ripe target for efficiency programs.

The study, conducted by a team of academics across 120 English hospital trusts over a four-year period, found that spending on external management consultants was actually associated with increased inefficiency. The reason: Absent continuity or integration at a systemic level, change programs withered when consulting-oriented initiatives ended, or client executives departed.

I’m not terribly surprised by such findings. What many folks don’t realize is that successful consulting is an intricate dance requiring two cooperating partners. Such a “pas de deux” only lasts when both sides agree on the need for change, and also understand the destination is only the journey’s start, not end.

Many clients connect results to wishful criteria contained in decided-by-committee SOWs. Such documents may guide engagements from a contractual standpoint, but rarely do they demonstrate consulting’s lasting legacy.

We rate management consultants using multiple criteria that measure breadth and depth of service capabilities. Those scores result in demonstrable “client impact,” which we believe to be the only real determination of success. Ratings also help provide clarity to the three general reasons any organization hires a management consultant:

1. devise and/or validate growth strategies
2. identify and/or implement process and business efficiencies
3. initiate and/or facilitate change

Note “and/or” remains integral in every scenario. Clients will often claim they know the desired outcome — growth or savings — and employ consultants as tacticians for #3. Those clients focusing on #1 and #2 hire consultants to ask questions for which the answers are unclear.

In all three situations, consultants’ advice must be married to clients’ commitment on acting. Absent such dedication from the client, any consultants’ output will be viewed as so much theory, which leads to increased skepticism as to consulting’s value.

Reminds me of my dad’s observation of critics: those who point out shortcomings rarely acknowledge there are three fingers pointing back.