IT consultants: A little advice to the aspiring professional ..., part 2

I thought I would carry on with my rant from last time about IT Consultants. This is such a rich field about which to complain that there may even be a part 3 and 4, and for those of you who wondered about why you had to be ‘registered' to read my last blog, please go take a look at my response to some of your comments and PLEASE feel free to share your consulting 'stories' with everyone in the 'comments' section of the blog. After all, "there are eight million stories in the naked city, mine has been just one of them."

Now, as with the previous post, I want to concentrate on the ‘business' and/or ‘strategy' side of IT consulting, rather than the pure technical folks, and offer some words of wisdom and warning for those of you embarking on this career choice.

1) Consultants are beloved (at least initially) by those executives who hire them but are typically greeted with one or more of the following three emotions by everyone else :

• FEAR -"Are you here to a) make me look bad, b) give me MORE work or c) get me fired?"
• LOATHING - "You come in here with your fancy BMWs and your MBA attitudes. I ALREADY told the boss what's wrong!"
• CONTEMPT - "I've been working here for 15 years. You don't even know how to blow your nose!"

2) No one is your friend, not even the person who hired you. No matter how high up your contacts in the organization, you are often nothing more than a pawn in a game of political chess ... and you don't know the rules of the game.

3) You will be quoted at times when you least expect it, so be very careful what you say and to whom you say it. I cannot remember how many times I have heard someone in a meeting start out their conversation with "Well, the consultant said ...", and either felt "oh dear god, that is NOT what I meant though", or seen a familiar look of horror on the face of some poor soul who has just lost all consulting credibility with his hiring executive.

4) When you first get the gig, just shut up and listen for a while (longer than you think!) The ‘loathing' feeling that I mentioned in point 1.2, is SO based on experience. I am a firm believer in The Peter Principle which states that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence", and nowhere is this more true than in the larger organizations who make a practice of hiring consultants. Let's take an example where you are hired by an upper level manager, who has been with the company for decades, is known by everyone in the organization, yet has been passed over for VP on a number of occasions. For argument's sake, let's call him ‘Peter', and Peter needs to ‘make improvements to his department's productivity' (one of the usual, vague briefings that a consultant gets). Best bet is to ignore all of Peter's ideas and suggestions and listen to the young, enthusiastic whippersnapper who has been there for about a year and is already looking around for his next position. In my experience, someone in every organization knows EXACTLY what changes need to be made, and their opinion is based upon months' worth of observation and living with the problem, as opposed to yours, which will invariably be based upon a wing and a prayer. Of course, the truly difficult thing about being a consultant, and why the good ones get paid lots of money for this 'recognition skill', is finding out who to listen to, AND then, who to believe. Hmmmm ... and while we are on this topic, never listen to anyone in the accounting department ... enough said.

5) Never get under the skins of the revenue earners. Salespeople and geeks rarely mix well ... one group invariably wears good-looking suits, has personalities and demonstrates ADD, and the other group is anal retentive, introverted and ‘matches patterns' like John Nash. One talking to the other is like Captain Kirk talking to the Klingons (There, see, a truly geek reference, damn!)

6) Beware the person who invites you into their office and rabbits on about nothing in particular and has hours to spend in deep, meaningful discussion with ‘the consultant'. Especially beware if they have a secretary who discretely closes the office door and tells everyone in an awed voice "don't disturb Jim, he is meeting with the consultant." You are NOT that important. The Jims of this world a) will not know a thing about what really needs changing, and b) will be the folks who invariably uses the aforementioned "well, the consultant said ...", and land you in a heap of trouble.

7) When you give your inevitable ‘presentation', PLEASE remember the following simple rules ...

• Do NOT read out what is written on the slides ... anyone with any sense has read them the instant they display.
• Do NOT tell the audience what they already know. Recounting the past 5 years of corporate results and financials will lose your credibility with all that matter.
• DO acknowledge those who truly helped you, if for no other reason than they will usually be the brightest in the room, and you should always grow your professional circle whenever you have the opportunity.
• State your conclusions and recommendations SUCCINCTLY.
• Remember you were, and probably still are, just a pawn in their corporate game. Someone in that room has just ‘won', but someone has invariably just ‘lost' and you HAVE to be aware who is who. You should ‘know your place', quietly thank god, the ‘winner' and the accounting department (their only real value to you) for your check ... oh, and like every successful consultant out there, smile discretely and hint at what might make another good ‘consulting project' for the company ...

After all, IT Consulting is not a one-time, glancing blow, it is a continuous process of slowly sucking the life out of an organization for your own rewards!

Glyn Meek, with 40 years of experience in the technology industry, has earned his curmudgeonly outlook.