With or Without You? Using External Consultants vs Doing It Yourself

When faced with the need to change, innovate and transform, should you carry out the initiative yourself, or should you bring in external consultants? We look at the benefits and limitations of both options.

*With thanks to U2 for providing the soundtrack to this Enlightenment article.

Stuck in a moment you can’t get out of…

There comes a time for many business leaders when they realise that something needs to change.

They become aware that their business is stuck and at risk of being left behind, that their competitors are growing faster and innovating quicker, or that technology has moved on and they haven’t.

Or they realise that their business needs new direction, fresh ideas, and an injection of urgency if they are to achieve their growth ambitions and seize the opportunities that are emerging in their market.

At this point, the leaders of the business have a decision to make.

Do they carry out the required change project themselves or do they seek external consultants to help?

Walk On! The Benefits of Doing it yourself

Many business owners will decide to carry out the change initiative themselves.

And it might surprise you to find us telling you this – as we are a consulting firm - but there are several good reasons why you might be best placed to do this.

In their excellent 2014 paper?“Internal Consultants as Change Agents: Roles, Responsibilities and Organizational Change Capacity”?(Organization Development Journal; Vol. 32, Iss. 2, Summer 2014 p.35-53) Anthony Buono and Karthik Subbiah outline the benefits and limitations of leading change internally yourself versus hiring an external consultant.

As business owners ourselves, it’s easy to identify with many of the points they make, and we’ve adapted a table below with their key findings:

As Buono and Subbiah point out, you are better known internally, you know your business and your sector inside out – or at least you should! – so you should be more trusted by your colleagues to lead a change project than an external consultant.

Crucially, you are well placed to navigate any internal political and sociocultural dynamics that exist in your business. You know what will work in the current environment, you can communicate regularly with your numerous internal stakeholders, and you can use your influence and political nous to keep everyone on side with the project.

You can also use your senior position in the company’s hierarchy to drive the change you want to see.

Many business owners also feel that consultants are simply going to “Come in and tell me what I’m already doing”. They claim to offer a ‘Bespoke’ solution, when in reality, it’s a ‘Cookie Cutter’ Solution that’s just the same for every other client!

You’re also more likely and willing to see the transformation initiative through right to the end. This is contrary to the prevailing perception of many external consultants who’ll charge you a LOT of money to tell you what to do, but not stay to do it!

Get out of your own way…

For each benefit of carrying out a change project yourself, however, there is a negative shadow zone.

As you can see in Table 1, there are a few big problems associated with ‘Doing It Yourself’ rather than bringing in an external consultant.

One of the hardest factors to overcome as an internal change leader is your perceived credibility among your colleagues. Or more specifically, lack of credibility.

Fundamentally, how can you be the person to lead and deliver change, when you are responsible for, and represent, the status quo?

In our experience, internal company leaders are often bound to, and blind to, the prevailing cultural norms of their business. How can you realistically change the culture – “the way things are done around here” – when you and your leadership team may be sustaining the existing culture?

When it comes to redefining the organisation’s vision, mission, values, and behaviours, it’s very hard for an incumbent leader to detach themself from the current situation and bring about the change they are seeking.

As we pointed out earlier, while leaders are well placed to navigate their company’s internal politics, they are also greatly?influenced?by their company’s internal politics and not always to the benefit of the change project.

Are those responsible for change carefully navigating the company’s politics to bring about the desired strategic change? Or to protect their own position in the hierarchy and build their own reputation and social capital? Do they avoid having the difficult, but necessary conversations needed to drive change for fear that they upset the wrong people?

Whether it’s true or not, internal change leaders are often seen as self-serving by their employees, occupied with protecting their future promotion prospects and their position in the organisation.

A second major limitation of leading a change yourself is a lack of objectivity.

Although it’s hard to admit, internal stakeholders are unlikely to be truly objective when leading a change project.

In our experience, it’s often hard for those within a business to see their blind spots or to acknowledge they even have any!

Internal leaders often allow their own biases and preconceptions to drive their decisions. They find people internally who will support their ideas (confirmation bias) and make choices based on what they know (familiarity bias).

Herein lies another problem of ‘doing it yourself’.

By working their way up through a company’s hierarchy over many years to a position of authority, the experiences of company leaders are often limited to their own business.

You only know what you know. You are limited to you.

The business perspective of an internal change leader is unlikely to be as broad as an external consultant and they will rarely have had had the same range of professional experiences.

This limited horizon means that it’s unlikely that an internal business leader be as aware of new emerging technologies as an external consultant or able to generate the same number of new ideas and innovations.

Finally, company leaders who wish to lead change themselves lack one fundamental resource: time.

It’s an old adage, but business leaders spend almost all their time working?in?the business and rarely,?on?the business. Particularly in SME businesses.

Change and innovation requires a large time commitment, which is something internal business leaders rarely have. So projects are either extended indefinitely or simply never get off the ground.

Sometimes you can’t make it on your own…

As we disclosed earlier, we are external consultants, so we are not exactly impartial in this debate!

However, as we outlined some of the benefits of ‘doing it yourself’ earlier, allow us to outline what we believe are the main advantages of bringing in external consultants.

External consultants are, obviously, external to the client’s business.

This independence means they can bring an objectivity and wider perspective from outside the client’s business.

The best external consultants should bring insight, fresh ideas, and creativity, with focus and energy. They should reveal your blind spots and help you to see the things you can’t.

External consultants are not constrained by internal politics, so it’s much easier for them to have difficult conversations and to tell those in positions of authority what they’ve found or recommend, even if it’s not what they want to hear. Although clearly, they must go about this is in a way that keeps everyone positive and engaged!

The perceived credibility of external consultants should also be higher within the client’s business.

Their experience and specialist expertise – that’s not found in the client’s business – gives them a level of status which they can use to influence senior stakeholders, get more candid views from the client’s employees and push through change efforts.

It’s rare that an external consultant is seen as self-serving in the same way that the client’s employees might view each other.

Finally, external consultants will likely have led similar change processes for other clients in the past. They will know what works and what doesn’t. They will know the processes, policies and procedures that will drive change, so they are very well placed to lead you on a similar journey of transformation.

With or without you?

Should you use external consultants or do it yourself?

In our view, the answer is a combination of the two!

Obviously, we believe that external consultants have a critical role in leading transformation projects!

But we also recognise that internal business leaders have a critical role in driving and supporting change initiatives.

We believe the best option is to combine the two options.

External consultants bring their expertise, credibility, status, experience, and objectivity.

While you bring the internal business knowledge, influence, political nous, and communication skills needed to keep employees and senior stakeholders - who will be critical to the success of the change project – on our side.

But how can you do this in practice? In the second part of this series, we suggest a framework you can use on a change initiative, that maximises the advantages of your internal knowledge and influence and the benefits brought by external consultants.

STILL HAVEN'T FOUND WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR?

If you’re a business owner or company leader looking for a consulting firm who will drive real change for your business and help you innovate and to realise your growth ambitions, then contact our Uncommon Consultants today.

Photo by?Todd Poirier?on?Unsplash