Consultants Can Turn Managers Into Slaves

For a long time, critics have argued that psychotherapy makes things worse, not better. Therapists, they say, reduce the dignity, autonomy and freedom of those who come to them for help. They force people to behave according to the ideas of others and to believe things about themselves and their experiences that are simply not true.

Therapy may promise liberation, but its critics argue that it enslaves. Indeed, the more extreme critics say that it is a form of political control. It makes people believe their problems are caused not by society, but by their own behaviour. It persuades them to act in a more conformist way.

Even worse, if that is possible, some therapists encourage dependence. Through a number of wellknown processes such as transference, they make sure their patients remain patients, unwilling or unable to make any decisions without consulting their psychotherapists first.

Now replace the word “psychotherapist” with “management consultant”. Is management consulting a form of social control? Do consultants encourage dependence?

Management consultant are, of course, easy targets in the same way that therapists are. Many people resent both their power and the money they earn. And the charlatans, though hopefully fewer in number than the real professionals, are often more memorable.

There are many reasons why managers become dependent on consultants. Consultants can offer unusual (and sometimes correct) insights into the business. They can write smart reports that help in high-level discussions. They can do the dirty work of sacking people. A consultant can, in short, be a very helpful (if very expensive) “friend” of management.

Charlatans encourage dependence by promising more than they can deliver. They let the helpless and hopeless manager believe that there is a silver bullet: all one has to do is to sell this manufacturing plant or outsource that service, and all will be well.

Consultants are also good at giving bad news. Weak managers can hide behind them when they recommend downsizing or restructuring, but such help is often needed again and again.

Consultants also know how to behave. Quiet wisdom, privileged insight and clever judgement is what both therapy patients and management clients want. They want to know that problems can be solved.

It is not difficult for consultants, like therapists, to make clients see the world as they do. They can easily persuade them that things they used to think were good are in fact bad. They can set up processes that bring powerful results, and the clients will need them periodically to support these new ideas.

Most managers have met others who seem unable to make even simple decisions on personnel (hiring, firing, promoting) without first consulting their guru. They seem enslaved, not liberated, by their contact with management consultants.