Beyond Analysis: Revitalizing Strategy Consulting with a Whole-Brain Approach for Lasting Impact

Strategy consulting has been under significant pressure in recent years. Once the crowning jewel of firms such as McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company, strategy consulting now generates but a tiny percentage of revenues compared with totals for these three firms. Rather than advice from armies of consultants, clients are searching for solutions delivered as practical products and technologies that help them gain a competitive edge. This has led to much-needed rethinking: is strategy consulting obsolete or just done wrongly?

While some may still assert that the age of strategy consulting has been laid to rest, evidence appears to hint at the contrary. The international market for strategy consulting, which is at $44 billion currently, is expected to reach $91 billion by the year 2025, with an annual growth rate of about 10%. Criticisms apart, the industry thrives and organizations are ready to gamble on strategic expertise. If demand exists, why all criticism?

Criticism of the Traditional Method

• The classic strategy consulting approach relies heavily on left-brained, analytical reasoning for solving problems in an analytical way and structuring logical solutions for clients.
• The heart of this approach, with which McKinsey's methodology aligns, rests in frameworks and structured analyses, which are often too rigid for the needs of today's dynamic business.
• Defined in textbooks and applied through frameworks, strategy often has a linear understanding that can sometimes forget about the messiness of humans and organizations in practice.

To fill these voids, many consulting firms have advocated for a more balanced, "whole-brain, whole-person" approach. For example, the Accenture, McKinsey reports have suggested that leadership incorporates both the logical left brain and the intuitive right brain. What this does is to begin helping consultants respond better to a particular organization's unprecedented demands.

A whole-brain approach does not negate the logical rigor that defines consulting; it complements it. When consultants can look to creativity and holistic judgment alongside rational analysis, they can create solutions that resonate with organizational realities and inspire meaningful change. This whole-brain strategy takes into account the human dimensions of the problem in addition to the technical ones, hence strategies that feel relevant and impactful to implementers.

What Whole-Brain, Whole-Person Consulting Involves

• Right-brain skills: Intuition, holistic judgment, and compassion.
• Involvement of a whole person: Recognizing that the consultants have emotional, ethical, and practical skills.
• This approach requires thinking and acting, and it formulates plans that incorporate the organization's real needs.

While strategy consulting traditionally does engage both sides of the brain, its methods have often repelled creativity and empathy in favor of systematic analysis. This leads to criticisms that such a conception of strategy does little to help actual decision makers other than advising them with organized ways of thinking through the analysis. Adopting a whole-brain, whole-person approach would enable consulting firms to counter and ward off such criticisms and thus keep their place in the sun. Strategy consulting can then emerge as a practice not only for advising but also for inspiring and catalyzing innovation and resilience in organizations.

This is a crucial moment for the strategy consulting industry-at-large. In a scenario where value is increasingly called into question, it is time for consulting firms to put their money into practice and go whole-brain, whole-person. Besides being something that could change criticism, it also makes the industry more impactful and future-ready.

Do you have anything on your mind about the future of strategy consulting? Could we do something about the industry by going whole-brain, whole-person?