Over the course of their careers, many consultants feel that their work is pointless.
Some realize that success in consulting means the financial success of the consulting organization in particular - and not the substantive success of the organization being advised.
Other consultants come to the conclusion that they are essentially paid to carry anonymized secrets back and forth between clients in a more or less bad way. This modern form of "snitching" is often described with euphemisms such as "best practices" or "experience in comparable situations".
Criticism of traditional consulting is also on the rise in research.
In her book "The Big Con", the internationally renowned economist Mariana Mazzucato describes in detail the conflicts of interest inherent in consulting and the damage it causes, both to the common good and to the organizations being advised.
The solutions proposed by consultants often involve the use of other consultants or the outsourcing of relevant skills to third parties. This creates a feedback loop in which more and more external parties absorb the organization's knowledge. This deprives the organization's employees of the opportunity for further development, which in turn exacerbates the skills shortage. At the same time, dependency on these external parties increases.
Despite strict compliance requirements, conflicts of interest can hardly be avoided, particularly in the case of the so-called Big 4 consultancies, which, thanks to their market power and the breadth of their portfolio, can advise in many areas and for many clients at the same time. In some cases, these were so blatant that they became tangible public scandals. This at least gives an idea of the damage potential inherent in the industry.
And what do customers say? The acute frustration over poor advice is increasingly being joined by the realization that traditional advice has become obsolete. As early as 2019, the business magazine Capital published a guest article entitled "Why management consultants are superfluous", which argued in detail that companies should no longer be blinded by the "trendy chichi of smart suits, elitist veneer and veritable verbiage" (https://www.capital.de/karriere/warum-unternehmensberater-ueberfluessig-sind). Many of the creative solution strategies found by health authority employees during the coronavirus pandemic were both more effective and cheaper than the concepts developed by expensive consultants.
But despite all the justified criticism, the actual aim of advice, namely to provide "good advice", is a noble goal.
And not only that: the need for advice is legitimate. And it is immense!
In all areas of IT, there is a lack of specialists and experts who have the confidence to provide answers and help to make good decisions and implement them. There is also a lack of structured exchange of experience between companies. Consulting can be a valid approach to understand existing situations, to expand one's own tunnel vision with an external opinion, to become familiar with a subject area in the first place and to present possible improvements and the necessary consequences.
So what can we do to offer contemporary advice for the benefit of all? What needs to happen so that "for the benefit of all" is not just an empty phrase, but actually includes everyone: Clients, consulting firms, society and the people involved on all sides?
Consulting must change radically. Consulting" must become "Unconsulting". Unconsulting pursues the goal of leading clients out of dependency. Unconsulting deals openly with conflicts of interest. Unconsulting tries to help as many organizations as possible instead of extracting as much revenue as possible from individual ones. Unconsulting focuses on interpersonal interaction and not on the final presentation. Unconsulting enables direct exchange between organizations.
Just as 20 years ago the "Agile Software Development Manifesto" gave a positive impetus to radical change out of frustration with overly bureaucratic, reality-denying, over-planned and misdocumented software projects, we also want to give a positive impetus to change in the encrusted business of expert guidance. We have compiled our principles and convictions in the "Unconsultancy Manifesto", which we are publishing today. You can find it here: www.unconsultancy.org.
This is our first impact, which we are publishing with full conviction in the spirit of #buildInPublic.
And we are equally convinced that the manifesto and the movement can become even better with your help and feedback! We are publishing the manifesto in the hope that it will contribute to more purpose, impact, fairness and transparency in consulting.
Dror-John Röcher & David Fuhr, June 2024