People, not process, win pitches
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When all comes to all, what is every management consultancy selling? People. Their intelligence, insight, and ability to cut through the chaff. Their experience and success in getting to the really crucial actions that are going to make a difference to the performance of client organisations.
Having some sound processes is important, of course, but processes don’t deliver transformational thinking and market shaping results – people do. And if prospective clients are going to put a key area of their business and a handsome slice of their operational budget into the hands of a management consulting firm, they need to have confidence. They need to know what makes those people tick and be absolutely sure they’ll be able to work effectively with them.
It’s something that IBM recognises well –‘it’s all about the way we think’ is what they tell the world.
But for too many others in the management consulting arena, a clear view of the people that make up the brand, their style of working and their real beliefs are hard to find.
We have much of the language of the ocean liner - size, scale, breadth and depth. We have the charts and the models. We have the visual metaphors of the go-for-it sportsmen and the mountain peaks. But the question for most senior managers, contemplating the business equivalent of the big, hairy, dangerous assault on the summit is: ‘Do I want to be tied by a rope to these people?’ And too often, in the pitch management consultancies make, the answer isn’t clear.
However rational everyone might hope the process of business transformation or major technology restructuring should be, the reality is, when you get deep into it, it’s full of ambition and fear, denial and turf-fighting, flashes of revelation and endless learning blocks. Getting exceptional results is as much a matter of personal chemistry as business process.
So management consultancies need to come out of the closet. Set out their brand stall so that it really talks about who they are as well as what they do. Because when the chips are down, getting personal makes great business sense.
