Information.
The consultant has (maybe) the information you need to make some important decisions. Or they know where the information can be found quickly. In some cases, however, he is the only one who has this information.
Most likely, it is somewhere else, but it needs to be found and processed. Is it worth losing your time and effort (time and effort of your employees) to search and evaluate the information? Most likely, it will be more expensive. Especially – if you correctly count all the costs associated with the search and processing of information.
Experience.
The consultant has (maybe) experience in situations similar to the one your company is facing. One actively working consultant leads 10-15 projects per year. Those who in this business for more than 7 years have already “changed” the second hundred.
Do you really think that your situation is so unique that even a remotely similar consultant in his practice has never encountered before?
You don’t think so, do you? Why not take advantage of the experience available to the consultant? Consultants – they are like bees: “flying” from enterprise to enterprise they transfer pollen of ideas, approaches and solutions.
Skills.
A consultant has the knowledge, skills and abilities that can be useful to the company. Of course, this knowledge and skills can also be mastered by the company’s employees.
But it will take a lot of time. At best, months, at worst, years. Can you wait? In addition, they still need to be trained, counseled, and warned against obvious mistakes.
Specialization.
Some of the marketing consultants are deep specialists in a narrow field, for example, in the field of organizing quality market research (group focus) or in product displaying in supermarkets.
The need for their services may arise once or twice a year. Why should such specialists be employed for the remaining 11 months?
“Objectivity.”
Of course, a consultant, just like any other person, is subjective in his or her judgment and just like the employees of the company live in their own world, with their ideas, cliches, prejudices, etc. But this is his world. The consultant is not included in the World and the system of internal corporate relations.
He is a stranger. Devil’s Advocate is very useful in developing new products, new strategies, new programs. Where can I get it? To appoint from among employees of the company is also an option. If it is enough authoritative, status and rooted in the company specialist he will “cut down” on the roots of any new ideas.
If this employee is not authoritative and status enough, his criticism will be “toothless”, and in the end he will be fired anyway, because he “opposed himself to the team”. Not sorry? A consultant does not owe you anything.
He will still leave the company at the end of the consultation. And decisively nothing prevents him from “cutting the Truth Matrix” to your face. Especially – if that will be one of the conditions of the contract.
“Authority.”
There is no prophet in his homeland! Relationships between people working in the same team for several years, almost inevitably acquire “family” traits.
At least in Russia. Bosses know their colleagues and subordinates too well (as it seems to them) to appreciate the new proposals. “Why didn’t I think of that?”, “Maybe it’s nonsense.
In addition, initiatives coming from subordinates are sometimes perceived as an indirect attempt on the position of chiefs. And often – not without reason. A consultant can “sanctify” a specific proposal by his authority, which comes from the employee who is “not supposed to have a status” to put forward projects of this level.
In addition, the consultant does not claim your place. This creates psychological comfort for all participants of the “deal”: the initiator of changes, the one who should initiate changes, but does not want (or cannot) do it and the one who will make decisions.
“Silent ally.”
Psycho-business Analytical function. You come to a psychoanalyst. Well, personally, you have never been to a psychoanalyst and have not even seen a single psychoanalyst “alive”.
You watch a film by Woody Allen (a great director and a great specialist in spending money on psychoanalysts) and see how a person comes to a psychoanalyst. He lies on the couch and begins to talk about his life.
The psychoanalyst nods, occasionally inserting interjections and questions like, “And what did your mother say?”, “And what did you think about at that moment? In an hour, the “patient” gets up, transfers another $150 (minimum) to the “doctor”‘s account and leaves.
A person is much better. You can laugh all you want, but millions of Americans visit the offices of hundreds of thousands of psychoanalysts every day, paying them billions of dollars annually. An alternative is clinical psychiatry.
If you don’t know what it is, it’s better for you not to know. At the very least, watch Flying over the Cuckoo’s Nest with Jack Nicholson in the lead. Also with consultants. The manager invites a consultant.
He knows everything about his business. He has already understood almost everything about the further development and almost made a decision. He needs to verbalize his Vision. And in the course of this verbalization the final crystallization will take place. The consultant only needs to listen, nodding and occasionally inserting phrases like: “And what threats do you see?”, “What prevents the realization of this possibility?
etc. Old (and not very old) teachers know that the final assimilation and long-term consolidation of new knowledge obtained from books, from experience, in the course of “professional development”, etc. occurs only in the process of preparation and actually conducting classes with students.
Who else can be invited to the role of “student”? Wife (mistress) – it will cost more. Subordinate – how do you imagine it? (“Image is nothing – thirsty all!”) Equal status colleague – where to get it and isn’t it dangerous? Maybe one of your “friends”/competitors?