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One of the features of the Toyota Production System – the genesis of now-pervasive lean process improvement – is that it empowered assembly workers to stop the production line. Recognizing that errors compound as they move down the line, Taiichi Ohno (the originator of this system) instituted systematic problem-solving to remove them once and for all. Once implemented, this advanced problem-solving meant the line practically never stopped.

But empowering the workers sent a powerful signal. Stopping the line in a just-in-time manufacturing environment equates to stopping the company and its entire supply chain. In Ohno’s time, assembly workers in auto plants were at the bottom of the corporate ladder, so allowing them to stop the line was akin to letting the junior-most employee step on the company’s throat. Ohno bet that raising expectations on employees in exchange for this awesome power would lead to continuous improvement and innovation.

I wonder how many companies make that bet today. Times have changed. Every company wants an always-on relationship with their customers, but that also means “stopping the line” would immediately be felt by customers. Would any company stop the lattes, streaming videos, or Internet searches from flowing?

Instead, resolving defects and the all-important problem-solving that drives innovation typically gets relegated to the rework area. Back-office technicians do the fixes, and the innovation lab gurus vet the ideas submitted – or not submitted – by the front line and suppliers.

While every company today purports to trust its customers above all others and wants a customer-centric organization, the rub is that customer-centricity is hard to pull off if companies don’t trust their frontline employees. Design thinking, agile, ecosystems, corporate venturing: they all have great potential, but trust is what unleashes it.

Management consultants certainly want the best for their clients, but they don’t always believe their clients know what’s best for themselves. I hear many rationales for this, ranging from clients’ tight timeframes, or a deficit of internal resources and capabilities, to their unwillingness to see the process through to fruition.

In fact, many consultants believe their value derives not only from knowing the best strategies for their clients, but also assisting in hard-wiring clients’ operations for solutions built and supported by the consultancies themselves. While many consultants interpret this sequencing as an efficient division of labor between consultant and client, an alternative view would suggest it to be a repudiation of trust in their clients. How else to explain so many consultancies’ stampede into managed services?

I recently visited Porsche Consulting at the Porsche Experience Center in Atlanta, where this Porsche SE affiliate opened its first U.S. location in 2011. Porsche Consulting has lived this lean evolution, emerging from its parent company’s crisis in the mid-90s and subsequent lean transformation. Its consulting offerings now span the entire value chain from R&D to sales and are expanding into digital and innovation. At the same time, its client-base extends beyond automotive to other manufacturing sectors as well as services such as healthcare.

Porsche Consulting positions its offering as “strategy support” – a phrase likely to elicit a sardonic smile from many a consultant. While the consulting unit uses its sister companies’ strategies and operations to inspire its clients, Porsche Consulting insists its clients develop and implement their own strategies. That requires deliberate investments in building clients’ capabilities and explicit processes for how to develop and roll out strategies. But more importantly, this approach requires trusting not only its clients at all levels, but also its own consultants.

Management consulting is midstride in shifting its value proposition from delivering advice to outcomes. Many consultants believe getting outcomes necessitates taking more control over projects and client operations. Porsche, on the other hand, is representative of a countervailing trend conceived to effect outcomes by letting go. This approach is an outgrowth of Porsche’s direct experience: not only from running its own business but also as a consumer of consulting services with firsthand insight into what drives outcomes.

Ironically, few consultants or clients can say with any certainty how much value they get from consulting, especially when accounting for the opportunity and disruption costs inherent to an interventionist service. Still, consultants seem to be increasing their demand for more power, and clients demur under the promise of better and faster results.

Perhaps that’s why we read so much pontificating on the future validity of management consulting. No one can agree as to who is driving the car!