What Do Consultants Get Paid For?
My post of the other day sparked some impatience (and some abuse from a troll) over at Cognitive Edge. Dave Snowden’s response to my attempt to differentiate the roles that consultants play was to reduce the role to butterflies and bees who cross-pollinate but don’t get too deeply involved (though he backtracked a bit when challenged by Clive Flashman). He especially disliked the healthcare metaphor I borrowed from a matrix by David Maister (I still like it).
I actually like the bee metaphor (not so sure about butterflies, they are accustomed to doing flits). Dave takes it from Drucker, but Harrison Owen also uses it to describe styles of engagement in Open Space, and I believe cross-pollination brings value to consulting engagements (a) by helping to connect organisations to others facing related issues (b) giving consultants a broader palette of experience and patterns from different contexts (as compared to longtime employees in one organisation) so that they can read unusual situations faster (c) helping to introduce diverse ideas and practices into organisations.
But it’s too simplistic. Consultants play a much wider variety of roles, some of them good, some of them bad. So if Dave doesn’t like the two-by-two, and I’m not happy with a reduction to “cross-pollinator” I figured I should expand the horizons a bit.
So here’s a list of 63 roles that I believe consultants get paid for. It seems to me they are all a function of four sets of variables: Status (insider-outsider, junior-senior, reputation, representative of an external authority); Ability (expertise, skill, technical knowledge, accepted methods); Activity (mode of engagement, tasks); Content (body of knowledge, routines, methods, messages). So now we’re on four dimensions instead of Maister’s two, and the simple two-by-two typology won’t work. Hence the dictionary format. I know some of them will make Dave scream, but the more irritating they are, the more likely it is that organisations do actually pay consultants to play those roles. Are there contexts where those roles are justified?
If you see any gaps, please let me know…and if you can see ways to organise these from a dictionary into a more meaningful typology, let me know!
Advisor
Advocate
Alibi
Arbitrator
Assistant
Auditor
Authority
Bull Shitter
Butterfly
Challenger
Co-labourer
Coach
Confidence Builder
Confidence Prop
Confidence Trickster
Connector
Conscience
Critic
Cross Pollinator
Cure-all
Dead Weight
Detachable Brain
Endorser
Expert
Facilitator
Frameworker
Guru
Illusionist
Inspirer
Interpreter
Investigator
Irritant
Magician
Matrician
Midwife
Mirror
Mouthpiece
Observer
Oracle
Outsider
Parasite
Powerpoint Addict
Preacher
Prophet
Proxy
Quack
Rationaliser
Salesperson
Scapegoat
Seer
Sense Checker
Shaman
Sparring Partner
Spokesperson
Technician
Temporary Employee
Time Waster
Troubleshooter
Validator
Wayang Artist
Witch Doctor
Yesperson
3 Comments so far
- Patrick Lambe
Lovely, will add it Andrew. Wayang literally means theatre in Indonesian and Malay, and wayang kulit is a form of shadow theatre using puppets. The idea is that there are games behind games, show and reality, surfaces and deceptions.
In organisational life and in politics, “wayang” refers to a surface appearance with a different controlling reality behind it - and a wayang artist is someone who is a master at putting on a show with no substance behind it, or a very different agenda from the one being displayed.
- Patrick Lambe
Here’s another one: Harbour Pilot
Page 1 of 1 pages
Comment Guidelines: Basic XHTML is allowed (<strong>, <em>, <a>) Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically generated. URLs are automatically converted into links.
What a great list. The only one I’d add is Expert Witness - in legal or regulatory context.
What do you mean by “Wayang Artist” in this context?
Cheers,
Andrew.
Posted on July 06, 2007 at 09:55 AM | Comment permalink