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

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, the situations you couldn’t have prepared for. And with that experience comes a set of truths about the profession that we don’t want to be a mystery anymore. So today, we’re sharing them.

Hiring a consultant can be a great idea — and it can be a terrible idea. When you need something fairly specific done and your team doesn’t have the bandwidth or expertise to do it, a consultant is a perfect solution. You don’t have to create a new role or overload someone internal who is already stretched thin, and you get the work done by someone who does this deeply and specifically. When that’s the situation, it’s a genuine win-win.

“You cannot just bring a consultant in and say go. That doesn’t work.”

But when a consultant is handed a contract, pointed toward a room, and left alone — things get murky fast. Consultants don’t have the history to know the ins and outs of your organization. And while we do our best to learn, that is no substitute for an internal partner who holds the vision and mission and can communicate your specific needs to us. When that partnership exists, the work lands. Whatever you’ve hired the consultant to do can be truly impactful. Without it, we’re navigating in the dark.

Please. We’re begging you. We understand the impulse — organizations want to put their best foot forward, and we’re all constantly trying to present ourselves as 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. 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 creating their own Word documents because the very expensive platform you just implemented doesn’t actually work? Whatever it is — just tell us.

Yes, this is a cliché. We know. But there’s a reason you hired someone with external 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 initial problem statement and proposed solution to shift. That’s not failure. That’s a sign that the real problem is being addressed.

“Trust that the solution you came to the relationship with might not be the best one.”

— Katrina Kennedy & Jill Parish

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.