Time for consulting profession to grow up

Few industries have had a better run in the past decade than management consultancy. But the lustre is wearing off. In August, Accenture told recruits in Britain to stay at home on half-pay. In June, McKinsey's UK partners were asked to contribute to the company's coffers. Mr John Birt, former director-general of the BBC, was criticised for spending as much as £9 million sterling (€14.5 million) a year on consultants. His successor, Mr Greg Dyke, has vowed to cut through the "consultancy culture".

This is a sign that it's time for consultancy to grow up.

There are five issues that must be tackled before consultancy can claim full professional status.

First, the role of the consultant needs to be defined. These days it includes almost anything that has an advisory and delivery element.

Many consulting firms depend for much of their income on outsourcing or research, which are not consulting activities. Unless you define a profession's boundaries, you cannot define the knowledge, competence and ethics code it requires.

The Institute of Management Consultants should set out and enforce a clear definition of consulting and appropriate standards. Professional qualifications should be based on examination and experience. Those performing below standard should be struck off.

The second trouble spot is pricing. Work is too often sold in costed units of consultants' time, rather than in terms of its value to clients. The temptation is to sell as much activity as possible. Worse, consultants seldom suggest a cheaper piece of work that may be more effective than the assignment the client has in mind.

This is self-defeating, since clients know when they have been cheated by consultants who gave them what they asked for but not what they needed.

Consultants should define with clients how their work will benefit the organisation, what it is worth and what proportion of the improvement will be attributable to the consultant. It can be difficult to show the link between consultancy and business performance measures - but making that link must be part of our job.

Third, consulting too often accepts and even reinforces internal divisions. Whole consultancies become specialists in particular areas. The consultant then follows the client's wallet into functional budgets. That is fine if the issue is functional. But many challenges are more fundamental, such as how to bring strategy to life - or how to develop new markets. These cut across functional boundaries as well as the boundary between the company and the world in which it operates.

Fourth, we have generated too much jargon and mystique. Consultancy is an ideas business or it is nothing, but the life cycle of ideas is shrinking. MBO (management by objective) had a good run as a management vogue; TQM (total quality management) a shorter one. The heyday of BPR (business process re-engineering) was shorter still; CRM (customer relationship management) is today's buzzword and we are now looking for the next three-letter acronym.

The search for solutions is natural. But consultants seldom get to grips with the hard work of ensuring change - for the better, not merely for its own sake - really happens. We need to strip out the big words and complex diagrams and talk common sense; to be excited about new ideas and methodologies, but clear about their limitations and what is needed to make them work; and to give clients what helps them, not what we happen to be peddling.

Fifth, we need to re-examine client relationships. The best work is done when clients and consultants work in partnership and when the job is not finished until the result is implemented and working. Were I a client, I would ask consultants three questions: How do you practise what you preach? How will you work with my people? What will my company learn from you?

Over the next 10 years, consulting will be transformed. The ability to quickly transfer know- how across a global economy will increasingly become the measure of success.

Will consulting continue to grow? Yes, but the industry is entering a new phase. It needs to grow up, not grow fat.

Stephen Taylor is a founder of Kinsley Lord (now part of Towers Perrin) and of Stanton Marris, an organisational energy consultancy.