Here we go again.
Last month, Nick Cohen's article "Natural born billers" appeared in the Guardian Unlimited. In his article, Cohen reviews Rip-Off:The Scandalous Story of the Management Consulting Money Machine, which is the latest entry in a long string of books slamming professional consultants. I've lost count of how many such books are on the market.
Rip-Off is a self-published book by an anonymous, twenty year consulting veteran who alleges unspeakable behavior by management consultants. The book paints a dreadful portrait of the industry.
But the story has all of the elements of a good smear piece--money, power, and greed. So there was some piling on.
Another highly critical article in The Independent accused consultants of providing "solutions we may not need, systems that may not work, at a price we shouldn't pay, in a language we don't understand.”
One UK-based consultant decided to fire back by posing the question in his own article, "How much longer do consultants have to keep justifying their very existence?"
Uh, try forever.
Every industry has problems, and opportunistic people will write about them. It's noteworthy that the anonymous author spent twenty years in the muck before seeing the light and confessing to the world.
Face it, consultants and consulting firms are easy targets. Outside of professional sports, consulting is one of the highest paid professions, and the private firms aren't exactly forthcoming about the details of their operations.
My advice: Get over it.
As long as consultants are serving clients, there will continue to be tell-all books. No need to justify your existence. Just make sure your clients understand your value. Everything else will take care of itself.
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