It's so ironic - many leaders are waking up to the profound change that faces all organizations because they are reading material produced by McKinsey (Thanks Jon) and other traditional consulting firms that are in fact the bastions of the top down world. They are the exemplars of the idea of the solution and the cleverness all residing in the mind of the lead consultant. They are the Phalanx of the consulting world. They are all about "Driving Change" (Thanks Johnnie)
They have the brand and they have clever people but they do not live the new world.
They know nothing of it except what they can think of. You think I jest? So here is the acid test. Who in McKinsey or Accenture, Bain etc do we read, link to or meet in conference? None of them is a player in this new world. Who of us that do play here would dream of working for an organization such as them?
I am hopeful that their time is drawing to a close and that we will see a new type of agency for change - the network of free agents.
At the heart of their problem is their own culture. The "Major Consulting Culture" is profoundly Heroic and hence is opposite from what is required now. The senior partner can see your problem and has the solution in his back pocket. His legions of henchmen will scurry around and intervene in your organization and make all your best people feel inadequate and helpless. In the end you will pay him a huge fee and in most cases not have a result. Why? Because the intervention had nothing to do with you or your own people. Then they come back and get rehired because your people were not good enough to master their wisdom. Sound familiar?
In the complex world that has arisen after the web has collapsed time and space and given away power to the consumer - the top-down packaged solution cannot work.
If we live in a networked world, then we have to use the ways of that world. In the natural world, new forms only arise in one way - they use the principles of "Emergence".
So with this as the context, in the new modality of Consulting, we have to start with a new set of precepts.
The key first step is to acknowledge that we cannot know the solution at the outset. The new first step is to pose the best questions. The process that drives emergence is "Iteration". Iteration is another word for conversation. The role of the consultant is to "Host the Conversation". (Thanks Chris via Johnnie) To do this, the consultant has to create the conditions for a Trusted Space and encourage the conversation between all the participants in sufficient density to allow patterns to emerge.
Only consultants who live this life themselves can do this work authentically and only authentic work can deliver.
Organizations that accept this, can achieve great things quite quickly and at a much lower cost. Consultants that are like this can have a great experience and be paid well.
In the next week I am going to put flesh on these bones by looking in detail at the process that I and a few Free Agent Friends have used in the last 3 years. It's real my friends.
We can replace the big firms just as Skype will give the telcos a run for their money.
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