Hiring a consultant must mean that you’re bad at your job (and other myths about getting external help).
I was running a workshop for a client recently. We got casually chatting over lunch about working with consultants, and I was asked:
“Do other universities work with consultants a lot then? I’ve always worried about even asking for us to get external help with something in case people think that it means I can’t do my job.”
The question took me by surprise. After 14 years of running this consultancy and working with something close to 300 organisations, I just assumed that most people realised the benefits of working with consultancies and agencies. And I’m horrified to hear that some people might interpret working with us as being a sign that they are somehow “less than” or “not good enough”. Not least because that’s not how we see our clients at all.
But, my work as a coach also tells me that people tend to make things mean a lot about them. And as I pondered this I started to see interaction after interaction that I’ve had over the years that points to a general concern that if you work with a consultant, that must be a sign that you’re somehow “lacking” in some way.
So, I wanted to address some of these myths head on and hopefully demystify what partnerships with agencies and consultancies really mean.
If I have to use a consultant, it’s an admission that I don’t know something that I should
There are many reasons to bring in consultants:
To bridge a capacity gap
To get another perspective
To bring in an area of depth-expertise that doesn’t need to exist in-house.
It’s a huge strength to know what you don’t know and to know how to access that knowledge. Your job is rarely to know everything (and if it is, then I’d question your role description!). So, see it as a strength, not a weakness, that you want to bring in someone with a specialist skill set. And recognise that bringing consultants in isn’t always about knowledge (capability), but sometimes just about time (capacity), or just needing/wanting to fast-track something that otherwise will always end up on the back burner.
I’m failing at getting everything done if I have to use a consultant
You might be struggling to get everything done. Maybe you’re being asked to do too much? Maybe your time is compromised by unclear priorities or sufficient frameworks to determine how it is best used? Maybe you’re just bursting with ideas, but you also don’t want to work 90 hour weeks?
Not getting everything done is rarely a sign of failure. And bringing in the external perspective of a consultant might be just the thing to support you to see through it all and determine the best way for you and your team to really be spending your time.
Trying to fix the plane while we’re still flying it is one of the biggest mistakes that we make when we try to take on everything. So, while you focus on flying the plane, have consultants come in to take a look at engineering the new model. Or the other way round! Use agencies and consultancy support to take off the load of flying the plane so that your time is freed up to do the vision-setting and strategic planning.
My boss will think less of me if I ask to work with a consultant
Maybe they need to read this blog post too?
Take a look back at number 1 and consider the reason why you might want a consultant’s support. Consider that your boss might consider it a sign of your strength and ability that you have the strategic foresight to recognise that a consultant’s support could really bring value to achieving your team’s goals.
I’ll only learn if I do this by myself
Oh I feel this one so hard too. I honestly just want to do it all myself, to know everything about everything, and to feel that the only way that I can possibly learn is to actually immerse myself in the thing and do every last detail myself.
And that’s why I’ve burned out before, and why I didn’t grow my company in the first 5 years or so of business.
So, a couple of things that you might consider:
Is this something that you really need to know or learn? If it’s a skill that you’ll use every day and consistently over and over again in your role, then probably yes, you need to learn it (see the next point). If it’s not and you’re putting in a huge learning effort to develop the skills to do something rarely or just once or twice (things like writing a strategy, content modelling, audience research, taxonomy design, and so on…) then you being the one to learn it all might not deliver a great return on investment (and it might slow everything down). If you need a new CMS, or CRM, or other piece of software, you’re not going to go off and train to code so that you can develop it yourself, are you? So, why would you do that for other skills that you just don’t need all the time.
If you need or want to learn from this, then make that part of the brief to the consultant. Some consultants will keep their methodologies and thought processes totally to themselves. But at Pickle Jar Communications we pride ourselves in making knowledge transfer part of the process when a client asks for it. In fact, we’ve designed and delivered some really cool projects that are 100% in service of doing part of the work and developing team skills in a specific area - like audience research - in parallel with us doing the work. Partnership work is a sweet spot for us. Ask us about our work with University College Cork.
Consultants are going to come in, criticise and make us look bad
Honestly? Some will.
I’m sorry if you’ve had that experience. Some consultants are ego-driven.
But the good ones can partner with you to bring out your brilliance, surface the gold that you already have that colleagues might be ignoring, and really shine a light on what you bring to the table. It’s not uncommon for consultants to occupy a unique position in a client relationship that means that they can really amplify the need for something to be done that you’ve been asking for for a while. In short, a good consultant will seek to elevate and empower you, not tear you down.
In other words, they should be there to amplify your brilliance, not speak over it or silence it. It should be an empowering process.
Consultants just won’t understand us, so it’s better to do it ourselves
Nobody is going to know your organisation like you know your organisation. And in many ways that’s a strength. But it’s also at risk of getting in your way.
Good consultants will take a look at what “true” limiting factors you have in your way (like budgets, resource, facilities, technologies, etc), but they’ll also aim to see through the limiting beliefs and “stories” that might be in your way.Your limiting beliefs are often a side-effect of embedded culture and behaviours. So, for example, you might hold back on doing something because of how it’s gone before. You might second guess and predict how stakeholders will receive something because you “know” them. And many more such behaviours. In short, you can end up stuck in an impossibility loop or a “can’t” culture.
Good consultants will support you to determine what’s the “truth” about what’s in your way, and what’s just a cultural limiting belief. And they’ll support you to see new ways through what might seem impossible. Inside an organisation it’s not always easy to see the wood for the trees. So, an external partner can help you to do that.
Good consultants will also go above and beyond to really get to know you. Internal consultations is a huge part of the work that we do. And recognising our own assumptions and labelling them as such is an important part of our mindset as we learn about your organisation.
We just won’t be able to implement what they suggest anyway, so why bother?
This one is wholly “fixable”. Simply stress this in your brief, be clear about your limiting factors (see point 6 about whether they’re “true” limiting factors or cultural ones though), and ensure that a workable implementation plan is also expected of the consultants in their work. Consider also partnering with them through the implementation phase too so that they’re on hand to make adjustments over time.
We should just create a new role for this instead
Yes, you might. That’s a totally valid route, especially if the need is for a long term skill or resource. In that case, consultants can help you by:
Providing interim support while you create and fill the role
Help you to define what the role should be, and support you to recruit for the role
Help to make the case for support internally for you to get approval for that new role or a new structure.
Consultants are expensive and won’t provide value for money
It can definitely seem that way. If we do a side by side comparison between how much a salaried member of staff costs the organisation on a daily basis, and how much a consultant charges, consultants look pricey.
We’ve seen organisations struggle to pull together a content strategy by pooling time from existing members of staff and spreading the work. By time you allow for their learning curve to consider how to do it, the distractions that they’ll face along the way, and the time cost of creating something completely from scratch, then the cost is likely to come to a higher number than the cost of working with a consultancy. Consultants have often done the same or similar things multiple times before and so there are huge efficiencies of scale to be had.
Remember, what you’re buying is never just their time on a day rate, but potentially years of developing approaches, templates, tools and know-how, and they won’t be reinventing the wheel for you. They’ll be bringing all of that into your project. And that’s where the real value-add comes in.
Consultants don’t really care about us. They just want our money and then to disappear.
Correct!
Well, for some…
There are definitely some who will come in, want to earn as much as they can in as short a time as possible, and then just leave and you’ll never hear from them again. But the good ones are in it because they care.
At Pickle Jar Communications, the education sector is our sector. We are part of it. We are not outside of it just paying visits from time to time. We see ourselves as much in this work as someone working inside an education institution. We just serve the sector in a project-based way. We do what we do because we’re committed to an impact on education and audience experience of education organisations, not because we see you as a cash cow.
Yes, we want to be paid for what we do. We deserve to be paid. But, equally, we’re not happy if we’re not making a difference. That’s the driving reason behind making sure that we’re always in it with you whether we’re in contract or not. Our work on building and growing ContentEd hopefully is testament to that.
So, hire consultants with commitment and passion.
Lastly, remember that exploring ideas with a consultant needn’t cost you anything and is often totally obligation-free. So, chat to them. Explore the stops and barriers that you’re facing, and get into a creative conversation about how a partnership with them might just support you. Sometimes you won’t even need to hire them, just that 30 minute chat exploring something with them might unlock your thinking.
You might start by speaking with us at Pickle Jar Communications. We’re here for it. I’m here for it!