Do you need to hire an outside consultant?

Okay, let’s get the jokes out of the way first. Most are just like attorney’s jokes except maybe not so insulting. I particularly like the comment that a consultant just takes your watch and tells you what time it is and then charges an
outrageous fee. Hopefully you haven’t had that type of experience in working with consultants. I can imagine that many of you have been caught scratching your head after an engagement was over wondering what value you just got out of this relationship.

Usually, there are two reasons for hiring a consultant to help solve a business problem: 1) you don’t have the expertise in-house, or 2) you don’t have the time. If you are the top person in your organization, you typically are worrying about threats from the environment external to your organization and the vulnerability of your staff to react when bad things do happen. And unless you’re Bill Gates or Rupert Murdoch, you probably are dealing with limited resources as well. And even though you’ve done the best job possible in hiring the most talented staff that can handle the majority of issues that can be thrown at them, something is bound to come up.

Occasionally, there will be something that they (or you) don’t know how to handle. There can be many keys to knowing when to bring in someone from the outside. Maybe you wake up in a sweat in the middle of the night, screaming something unintelligible and all you can remember is everything is at stake and you’ve got to do something, but you just don’t know what, where, who or how much. Maybe you’re losing customers for reasons that you’ve never heard, or suppliers are cutting into your margins, or maybe your staff turnover is costing much more than in the past. Whatever the symptoms, you realize that there are no easy answers, but hopefully you have a solid idea of what is the problem. When you realize that you need to ask for help, the key is to know what the problem is. If you don’t, then you are even more vulnerable than you can imagine!

If you’ve considered that the skill set of your staff is not the problem, maybe it’s that everyone is working 110% and someone or something is going to blow unless you do something. The biggest problem with limited resources is that they are limited! Many times the business model that has been developed allows for day-to-day operations and can be so lean that when unusual circumstances come up, it throws the whole organization for a loop. Now I’m not talking about calling up a temp service or getting an intern to take up the slack for seasonal workloads. I’m talking about an issue that can have significant impact to your business model and no one can be assigned to tackle this issue because everyone is stretched to the limit.

The real temptation here is to say to yourself, “By the time I explain everything and the problem, I could just get it done myself!” And that is probably true and you could, if you could ignore the additional stress that could be created on top of what you already are shouldering. And you could just forget the weekend fun stuff that you have planned because you are going to be working all weekend just to get ready for Monday. While you probably do have the best view of the capabilities of yourself and your staff, it is possible that sometimes you could be a little too close to the problem, issue or challenge (whatever your organization calls these things these days). One advantage to consulting with someone from outside your organization is that they can bring to you the experience of seeing similar problems from other organizations. Options and potential solutions are what a consultant should bring to you. While you may be in danger of being myopic I would warn you not to totally abdicate your decision-making responsibility. You are still accountable. The consultant could be long gone by the time the results are in and you will still be responsible for the decisions you make based on the advice of outsiders (or insiders as well).

So when you need a consultant? When you need help seeing the future and you need additional tools in your toolbox to create the best strategy for your organization. I’m not talking crystal ball, hocus pocus stuff. What I hope you are doing is always looking out to the future, trying to position your organization so that it is viable going forward.