Most of the consultancy companies do not hire the brightest people for the job their customers are looking for. Very often they have people that are very good in adapting to new environments and enforce opinions _without_ taking responsibility for them. They recommend, managers accept. None is responsible.

The symbiotic relationship you are talking about does exist. But in several cases it’s a symbiotic relationship that is enforced by consultants long term. Why should a consultancy business recommend something that works if none is responsible and their customer can afford a second or third attempt? Just look for failed projects in the public sector. Look who was working on the failed project. And guess who is working on the successor of the failed project now.

People told me that it could even reach a point where you will find a second management hierarchy that works in parallel to the management hierarchy of their customer with a one goal: Maximize business volume.

I would always criticize these consultancy companies for the way of doing business (even though I am part of it). However there are situations when their recommendations help to overcome communication and acceptance problems or a struggle for competence. In these cases a consultant is just the tool to enforce decisions. They repeat something their client asked for. Since they are from a well-known consultancy company it has to be right. So there is no room for further discussions. This is simple and powerful but dangerous.

It’s as if people are content to fail just as long as it’s somebody else’s fault.

Not only that, but consultants are often corrupt. When you hire a consultant to pick your next CRM, chances are that he’s getting paid (not always in money) from a specific CRM vendor to push their product. I’ve seen this with IT managers as well. They get coddled by vendors, and rather than do what is most profitable for their company, they do whatever will keep the fringe benefits coming (and this is one of the main reasons why capping CEO salaries is a bad, bad idea). More often than not, the benefits they’re getting are something inconsequential and cheap anyway, like movie tickets and dinners at posh restaurants. But see, as long as they’re not buying it for themselves, they can’t be blamed for wasting money, can they?

The motivation behind that kind of thinking is like something straight out of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”. When the VP of Taggart Transcontinental suggests to her boss that they should get rails from a source that can actually deliver them, he replies:

“Orren Boyle will deliver that rail just as soon as it’s humanly possible. So long as he can’t deliver it, nobody can blame us.”