There’s No Consulting Degree. Here’s What That Means For You.

We probably shouldn’t admit this. But transparency matters to us, so here it is.

There’s no degree for becoming a consultant. No certification, no standardized training, nothing official. The real lessons come from experience: the many clients, the variety of organizations, and the situations you couldn’t have prepared for.

That experience comes with a set of truths about our profession that we don’t want to be a mystery anymore. So today, we’re sharing what organizations need to know before hiring a consultant.

When it works (and when it doesn’t)

Hiring a consultant can be a great idea. It can also be a terrible one.

• It works when you need something fairly specific done and your team doesn’t have the bandwidth or expertise to do it. You don’t have to create a new role or overload someone who’s already stretched thin, and the work gets done by someone who does this deeply and specifically. That’s a genuine win-win.
• It doesn’t work when a consultant is handed a contract, pointed toward a room, and left alone. Things get murky fast. We don’t have the history to know the ins and outs of your organization, and while we do our best to learn, that’s no substitute for an internal partner who holds the vision and mission and can tell us what you really need.

You cannot just bring a consultant in and say go. That doesn’t work. With an internal partner, the work lands and can be truly impactful. Without one, we’re navigating in the dark.

Tell us everything

Please. We’re begging you.

We understand the impulse. Organizations want to put their best foot forward, and we’re all constantly trying to look like the Most Put Together Organization On the Planet. But hear us when we say this: we know there are things going on. It’s just a matter of how long until we figure out what.

We have never worked with a perfect organization, because they don’t exist. So, for example:

• Has that director role had six different people in it this year?
• Does one department quietly do all the work for another because no one believes they’re capable?
• Is everyone still making their own Word documents because the very expensive platform you just implemented doesn’t actually work?

Whatever it is, just tell us.

The full picture isn’t a liability. It’s the map. The more we understand the real organization (not the polished version), the faster we can actually help.

Trust the process

Yes, this is a cliché. We know. But there’s a reason you hired someone with outside experience in the first place, and part of what that buys you is a fresh perspective on a problem you may be too close to see clearly.

A good consulting engagement always includes discovery: time for you to get to know the consultant, and for the consultant to get to know you and the real organization. During that time, it’s not uncommon for the original problem statement and proposed solution to shift.

That’s not failure. That’s a sign the real problem is being addressed. Trust that the solution you came to the relationship with might not be the best one.

The best consulting relationships build toward their own conclusion. The goal was never to make you dependent. It was to strengthen what already exists inside your organization, and then get out of the way. That’s the kind of consulting worth investing in.

This post is adapted from Episode 11 of The Strategic Pause, our podcast on leadership, learning, and the work of making organizations better.

Until next time,
Katrina, Jill, and The ThinkDev Team