Private firms are entertainingly idiosyncratic in ways only founder-powered public firms barely approach. The other big one I find entertaining is Dr Bronner’s soap which has a massive label full of dense text that is totally stream of consciousness sentences. Amazing.
Perhaps it’s a characteristic of closed groups. SQLite has its moral code that is the Ten Commandments++. Good stuff.
If a public co CEO acts differently than others and then underperforms the market, shareholders then look at rhe idiosyncrasy as a bad thing. So they naturally all start to act like each other. Buffett had a similar idea he termed the institutional imperative.
If you’re the private owner/CEO you just get to be steered by the customer, and can even stop growing if you want.
Dr Bronners is local to me and they are very active in the burner scene (I believe the founder is an OG burner). I have a few friends who work there and Bronners often has a presence at local burner events (and Burning Man) -- notable because these are environments where commercial expression is generally forbidden. Yet they sometimes get a pass, I think because they embody the burner spirit and often supply a needed service (showers) totally free and in a way that fits in with the culture. It is the most guerilla marketing you ever saw and I would not be suprised if that wasn't their intent -- rather its just the company gifting itself and embodying the spirit of the ten principles.
They remind me a lot of Valve in that they are able to chart their own path and find success.
Bronners certainly isn't without its problems as a company. But I find it to be very inspirational that companies can find success without having to devolve into the bland milquetoast mediocrity that feels like 95% of US business culture. We need more people being visibly, authentically, and unashamedly weird.
> Larry would do these big usability studies and demonstrate beyond any shred of doubt that nobody can understand that frigging website, but Bezos just couldn't let go of those pixels, all those millions of semantics-packed pixels on the landing page. They were like millions of his own precious children. So they're all still there, and Larry is not.
Thats a good point of view of the traditional Managment consultants, now for the "AI era", this type of interventions will not exist
Maybe now the Big coorp will finally get closer to real life solutions to the problems companies face
My company is "AI native" in the sense that even though we are not a tech company we are using it heavily to build a bunch of tech that makes us more efficient.
Think building better SaaS products around our actual process rather than whatever bespoke niche SaaS product provides. this has yielded real savings in both software costs and efficiency. Compared to our peers, we are light years ahead. Even the supposed "leading AI readiness consultants" hired by the group board agreed.
our board have still hired kpmg[1] or some other vague merchant to come and help us deliver "efficiencies"
[1] its not them, but I want to keep some level of mystique about where I work
Yeah, in the short term the delivery of "efficiencies" will still be masked, but I think looking into the real potential of AI Agents and Tools It will become harder to hide "fake" solutions, but It can be me just being optmistic
Nope. Everyone has their strengths and should avoid some types of work. AI doesn't change this.
Many consultants and entrepreneurs are too shameless to do that. AI only amplifies their dysfunction.
What most businesses are doing instead is squeezing their middle management to do more with less. No consultants. AI is cheaper. This squeeze happens every time the economy stagnates, and adding AI as "help" is irrelevant.
I agree in the short term the disparity will rise, but looking further I think the efficiency of the AI Agents and the tools specific for each task will shorten the gap between fake and real solutions, But thats me being optmistic for a "good" AGI
Not gonna lie, the website of a remarkably ordinary frozen food supermarket found on most UK high streets is not where I'd expect to find this kind of content :)
I wish I new of more gems like this. Company sites that go into detail where they went wrong and how they turned things around make for both amazing reading and great educational material.
With all respect, I just downvoted you because you're becoming recognizable. Your account is scarcely a year old with almost no karma, and checking your profile right now, the first page of comments is all but one you posting a link to your own app. You gotta slow down. This is a discussion board, not a growth hacking mixer. Plenty of people become known for popular products and companies they're associated with, but it can't be all you ever talk about. The world at large isn't a sales conference and doesn't find that interesting.
Malcolm Walker, the founder and his son Richard Walker the current chairman are (for such an ordinary seeming supermarket) surprisingly progressive and have often spearheaded sustainability and corporate responsibility campaigns. Malcolm Walker was an active member of Greenpeace and Iceland worked with Greenpeace on several campaigns over the years.
Score-settling by the ousted (and then returning) CEO Malcolm Walker. After Iceland merged with Booker in 2000, Walker was pushed out and a new management team led by Bill Grimsey took over. Sales declined, head office staff ballooned and they hired a lot of McKinsey types. Walker's point is that they'd overcomplicated what was basically quite a simple business.
Reading between the lines, you kind of get the picture...
2006
A spectacular turnaround sees a 10% sales decline turned into growth of 20% year-on-year by March 2006, making Iceland the UK’s fastest-growing food retailer.
2005
The Big Food Group is taken private and Iceland returned to the management of Malcolm Walker and other senior executives who had been ejected in 2001.
2004
The Big Food Group is nearing bankruptcy as provisions made in 2001 come close to exhaustion.
2002
Iceland-Booker is renamed The Big Food Group and launches a grandiose recovery plan (Click here to read the saga of ‘The one, two, three, four, five year recovery plan’) but customer numbers and sales remain in steady decline while costs escalate.
2001
New Iceland chief executive Bill Grimsey issues a massive profit warning, and Malcolm Walker and other senior managers are forced to leave the company
I worked for a public sector organisation around then that had the same chairman (not CEO) as Iceland, sorry, “the Big Food Group”. He was genuinely one of the most obnoxious, bullying people I’ve ever encountered - known internally as the Poison Dwarf. So none of this greatly surprises me.
Not in the UK. This was an EU ruling. In the EU you could theoretically open your own store named Iceland but you’d have to be careful about doing absolutely anything that might be intepreted as impersonating the existing store.
I think generalizations are usually bad. I genuinely am weirded out by management's fascination with consultants. It really is about incentives, and consultants usually do not have the right ones, at least the big ones. Also, there are management which feel like companies always need change, but really you have to examine the competitve position within the broader industry not just a vacumm. Things honestly stay the same for a long time. IBM had more revenue then Microsoft all the way up to the early 2010s. Switching costs are powerful - https://s-1.vercel.app/posts/why-dropbox-is-a-obvious-pe-tar...
I think a key takeaway is the human nature to constantly act, and not just sit and do nothing. Lot's of value in sitting around, especially in investing.
sometimes, employees are bad at their jobs, or organizations are unable to solve their own problems. people who have no long term loyalty or political agency within the organization can help resolve internal issues, provide external validation and new perspectives, and solve problems.
I tire of the snide arrogance of people like you; you think you can solve everything if you cared to. not every organization can afford to hire people as amazing and all knowing as you.
making talented people available on short contracts, for employers with terrible reputations who cannot hire the right people able to deal with ambiguity and short timelines can be a win win arrangement for both sides.
Are there issues across the industry, including misaligned incentives? absolutely. but that isn't a reason to dismiss the entire industry out of hand.
perhaps we should be equally dismissive of all software devs given the sheer amount of terrible software and predatory revenue models? or are we also going to blame some other faceless group for that as well?
Nah management consultants are leeches. If they really thought their clients could turn it around with One Simple Trick (that only 22yo ivy league alums could see) they would close up shop and move into PE.
Software devs have actually hard skills and don’t charge $1,000 an hour to develop a PowerPoint.
Why do only management consultants defend management consultants? Why don’t employees, C-suites, taxpayers, watchdogs, or anyone else ever sing their praises?
I also asked for an example of a good consulting project with real ROI. Please share one.
> Are there issues across the industry, including misaligned incentives? absolutely. but that isn't a reason to dismiss the entire industry out of hand.
Misaligned incentives are alone enough reason to dismiss the entire industry.
But more widely if an organization cannot manage itself it has no business being an organization. It has to either go bust, or have senior management let go.
By hiring management consultants the senior management is acknowledging it cannot run the organization.
TFA surely refers to management consultants, your parent looks like it as well (when they talk about management obsession with consultants).
Technical consultants are mostly OK if their skill is not your main line of business, you just need a few of them or you need them temporarily. Companies employing thousands of software engineers or other professionals from consultancy firms only demonstrate their inability to plan, hire and organize people. It usually correlates with companies employing swats of management consultants.
The term most people here would use for your job is “contractor”, not “consultant.”
A consultant, in most people’s minds, is someone they would consult with, who would tell them what to do, in an advisory capacity; not someone who would actually do any kind of work. (In other words, a management consultant.)
The only people who use the term differently are consulting firms themselves, because they think “consultant” sounds fancier (and worth paying more for!) than “contractor.”
Generalizations are heuristics we build upon our experiences. Not 100% correct but a good mental model to adopt situationally.
You are shooting down the whole notion of generationalizion without much backing.
You gotta provide why it's bad instead of whataboutism direction you took.
In my experience senior management hires management consultants to tell them to do what they wanted to do anyway but now they can blame the consultants.
The two consults in Office Space absolutely nailed it.
It seems that management in most organisations can't believe something unless they've paid vast sums for it. So they can't believe their own staff if they say X, even if it's right, because they haven't paid enough for it. Then the consultant comes along, interviews the staff, finds they say X, tell the client, charge buckets for it, and are believed. Weird human behaviour...
I see it often at work. I say something and it's met with "you have a very bad attitude". They hear the exact same thing (ex. "we should see where our responsibility begins and ends according to the contract made with the client, and tell them to fuck off otherwise") from someone else, and then it's the next big thing.
the perception is that employees have an incentive to lie: to cover their ass, to cover their incompetence, to be or stay lazy, to ensure their bonuses are better, etc.
in theory, an expensive outside consultant does not have those incentives: they are being paid 800/hr, have no dog in any fight, have a fixed contract and no reason to worry about getting promoted or fired next cycle, and have already been pre-vetted for expertise.
if I do not have faith in my goober, fork-and-spoon operator employees, I pay for these folks to validate the approach. that's not incompetence, that's due diligence.
it's not my money, nor my department -- it's the shareholders -- and I need to convince them that I've done all I can to confirm we need to invest X million in initiative Y.
however in practice consulting falls victim to plenty of bad behaviors, rent seeking, and risks, too
I smirk and laugh this little slideshow and then remember that my own work involves internal tools to promote governance and productivity while formalizing requirements to two outsourced developers.
I don't think I'm one of the red team's 7 captains, but I don't exactly have my hands on the paddle every single day. After all, I can find the time to lollygag on HN between 9-5.
Metaphor is that in rowing the rowers face backwards they don't see where the boat is going. So you need at least single person to look forwards. And to steer you have to command rowers. It is a valid role to have in large row boat. But you only need one of them.
I won’t lie. I want to be Captain/Director, not the rower.
It’s very satisfying to get rich by doing pretty much nothing. And there’s some sadness when some rower does their best but doesn’t even come close to directors/captain positions.
Some excellent rowers can make it sure, but we all are not excellent. Oh well, I stop
I'm not sure how serious you are with this comment, but I'll give you another perspective.
You don't know what other roles that try-hard "rower" has outside of your imagined scenario. There's nothing even stopping them from being the "captain" of another more impressive boat when he's not on yours. Sure he's not the best, but he's doing the job and you're not. He has more experience than someone who never gets their hands dirty. More experience always makes better leadership. You'd be surprised how easy it is for someone else to steal your little hat and how often it can happen. It's definitely easier than the rowing, which I guess was your point?
I really don't mean this in a sour grapes kind of way. I'm totally serious. You'd never know that until it's too late if you're being disrespectful to the rowers. Don't let ego squander opportunities.
And then they came up with a brilliant term called "agile methodology". The word "agile" was a big selling point. Under the new methodology, there will be standup meetings and introspection every 5 minutes during the race.
I specialize in replacing all company I.T. with a subscription to “Reader’s Digest”. The cost savings are phenomenal but we currently don’t have enough data on how it affects productivity, that should come in Q429. In the meantime, we cancelled the company’s vision insurance plans, and replaced it with a subscription to the large-print edition of “Reader’s Digest”, and once again the vast reduction in overhead expenses has induced a lot of very encouraging enthusiasm. That Dave Barry is a hoot and a half. We expect to double executive compensation off the savings from these dual-thrust “Reader’s Digest” campaigns.
I see a disconnection here. Every once in a while we see a article criticizing management consultancy, yet the business is still booming and very powerful and sophisticated corporations still hire them. So, I'd assume that the consulting companies do offer some value, in fact billions of dollars of value. What are those values, then?
My working theory is that in many cases, it's one of those absurdities that are actually necessary because the world isn't always rational.
If you're the CEO, maybe you know exactly how your org should be restructured. But maybe it means stepping on a lot of toes and hurting people you have close relationships with.
If you get the blessing of management consultants you can at least say it's not personal.
Or likely workers on the ground know exactly what’s wrong—management is poor, uncommunicative, or perhaps filled with unqualified nepo hires. This isn’t able to be stated out loud by folks who’s jobs would be at risk. So MCs can come in and fix the symptoms at least.
1. When I was 8, my mom told me that I got paid what my work was worth to society. When I was 12 she told me not necessarily. She said this: "You were only 8. I was trying to make it simple for you."
2. Management consultants get paid by shareholders to outsource blame for decisions made by management.
I've always suspected that at least some of it is information laundering.
I used to work in engine development and calibration. There aren't many people who know how to do engine cal and it's incredibly important to get your engine emissions certified to sell in a market like the USA. The problem is that most people who know how to do it work for a car manufacturer (OEM). So when I had that on my LinkedIn I would get pretty regular messages from some consultancy or another offering hundreds of dollars per hour to chat with me about my expertise. Of course I couldn't go talk to a competitor but I'm sure a lot of engineers were happy to make a few hundred bucks chatting with some generic consultant who was writing a general industry report with anonymous data and background info.
Well the customer was usually a competitor or a foreign automaker exploring entering the US market. Everyone who could help them understand the timelines, cost, and process worked for their competitors. So the critical info got laundered through consultancies into sanitized anonymized reports; laundering.
Note: I'm not sure whether talking to a consultancy would have violated my employment contract at the time but I never took the calls so I had no reason to look it up. I know that coworkers did and just called it a gray area. I pass no moral judgement one way or another.
Not sure about high espionage, but information laundering is the right phrase for how it usually works: consultants cut across organizational boundaries, gathering useful information from the people who know what's actually going on (the rank-and-file employees) and packaging it for CxOs in a way that allows them to present an opportunity as their own idea, or a risk as not their fault. Nice, safe, clean information.
Major scandal in Australia was PwC secretly passing government secrets (tax changes consulting work) to private corporations [1]. And another one was KPMG passing secret client information to win contracts [2]
I've also seen public information (from SEC filings) being sold by a consulting firm as competitive intel. Which I guess it kind of is competitive intel, but you can download it for free.
It's self-propagating nonsense. In the immediate post-dotcom crash, I worked for a company that was run by a bunch of young HBS grads, who all had management consulting backgrounds, (and a few minor dotcom successes). They regarded themselves as geniuses. They couldn't make a decision on anything.
Their preferred working style was to not make decisions, and to hire consulting firms to make the decisions for them. So they hired these even younger consultants, who would work for a few weeks, and make their recommendations, and then those recommendations would not be put into action. No. Instead, more consultants were hired to review and then discard the work of the previous consultants. Rinse and repeat for a few cycles.
I cannot resist one story. The initial HBS/management consulting CEO was replaced by a new CEO, someone who had run one of the early search engine companies, and had a similar background. He turned out to be no better. What I found very entertaining about CEO2 was his business past. He was known for two decisions. 1) Declined to buy the very early Google for high six figures, when he had the chance. 2) Decided to buy Blue Mountain -- think Hallmark cards but online -- for $780M. Greeting cards. 3/4 of a billion dollars. 1000x the cost of Google at the time.
Yes, hindsight and all, but still. If I had made both decisions by flipping a coin, my expected value would far exceed what this business genius accomplished.
You have to think of it like the nutritional supplements industry. They make mountains of money because people have certain misgivings or insecurities or unrealistic goals (or all of these things) with regard to their health. Would life go on just fine without the entire supplements industry? Sure. But that wouldn’t do anything to assuage the health concerns that people perceive themselves to have.
The same is true of the consulting industry. Because companies _also_ have certain misgivings or insecurities or unrealistic goals with regard to their health.
It's easy -- because companies are people. Management is also people, and sometimes management admit that they may not know what others know. Especially if that management came from the trenches, not and MBA school, so they know very good how to row, but not so well in management (or at least they think they are). So, having money, they seek paid advice from someone who knows it more.
Management consultants exist as a liability shift. Boards or exec management pay them money, the consultants interview them in private, the consultants give them their ideas back. This provides two things: cover, and political lubricant. Worth every penny when the alternative is completely dysfunctional management teams, or when it is your reputation or job on the line.
They are in the business of justifying blame from the executives to the frontline. Executives keep or increase their bonuses, layoffs ensue. If you are the decision maker of a company, and you can pay a team a few hundred thousand a year using company money, netting a 10 million increase in your own salary, its a deal too good to pass up.
144 comments
[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 11.5 ms ] threadbut the same thing keeps happening.
top heavy organizations.
Perhaps it’s a characteristic of closed groups. SQLite has its moral code that is the Ten Commandments++. Good stuff.
The film also has loads of actors from the 1950s/1960s golden age. It was made in 1984 so for some it was their final roles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Bronner's_Magic_Soaps
If you’re the private owner/CEO you just get to be steered by the customer, and can even stop growing if you want.
They remind me a lot of Valve in that they are able to chart their own path and find success.
Bronners certainly isn't without its problems as a company. But I find it to be very inspirational that companies can find success without having to devolve into the bland milquetoast mediocrity that feels like 95% of US business culture. We need more people being visibly, authentically, and unashamedly weird.
https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611
My company is "AI native" in the sense that even though we are not a tech company we are using it heavily to build a bunch of tech that makes us more efficient.
Think building better SaaS products around our actual process rather than whatever bespoke niche SaaS product provides. this has yielded real savings in both software costs and efficiency. Compared to our peers, we are light years ahead. Even the supposed "leading AI readiness consultants" hired by the group board agreed.
our board have still hired kpmg[1] or some other vague merchant to come and help us deliver "efficiencies"
[1] its not them, but I want to keep some level of mystique about where I work
I have a steer that people, process and services are all in scope, but again thats vague-as-a-service™
Many consultants and entrepreneurs are too shameless to do that. AI only amplifies their dysfunction.
What most businesses are doing instead is squeezing their middle management to do more with less. No consultants. AI is cheaper. This squeeze happens every time the economy stagnates, and adding AI as "help" is irrelevant.
https://s-1.vercel.app/
> He replied: "Well, that's the Irish, isn't it?"
so his big bad mistake was to make a remark about how the Irish are more picky than the Great Brits about having horse meat in their burgers?
2006 A spectacular turnaround sees a 10% sales decline turned into growth of 20% year-on-year by March 2006, making Iceland the UK’s fastest-growing food retailer.
2005 The Big Food Group is taken private and Iceland returned to the management of Malcolm Walker and other senior executives who had been ejected in 2001.
2004 The Big Food Group is nearing bankruptcy as provisions made in 2001 come close to exhaustion.
2002 Iceland-Booker is renamed The Big Food Group and launches a grandiose recovery plan (Click here to read the saga of ‘The one, two, three, four, five year recovery plan’) but customer numbers and sales remain in steady decline while costs escalate.
2001 New Iceland chief executive Bill Grimsey issues a massive profit warning, and Malcolm Walker and other senior managers are forced to leave the company
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%ADmsey
and thought it was interesting enough to submit on its own
This is a classic hierarchy-brain/ bureaucracy problem, where "leaders" think the top is more important to the org than the bottom.
[1]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland_v_Iceland_Foods_Ltd
Some people have no shame at all. This is so absurd it read like a comedy sketch.
I think a key takeaway is the human nature to constantly act, and not just sit and do nothing. Lot's of value in sitting around, especially in investing.
sometimes, employees are bad at their jobs, or organizations are unable to solve their own problems. people who have no long term loyalty or political agency within the organization can help resolve internal issues, provide external validation and new perspectives, and solve problems.
I tire of the snide arrogance of people like you; you think you can solve everything if you cared to. not every organization can afford to hire people as amazing and all knowing as you.
making talented people available on short contracts, for employers with terrible reputations who cannot hire the right people able to deal with ambiguity and short timelines can be a win win arrangement for both sides.
Are there issues across the industry, including misaligned incentives? absolutely. but that isn't a reason to dismiss the entire industry out of hand.
perhaps we should be equally dismissive of all software devs given the sheer amount of terrible software and predatory revenue models? or are we also going to blame some other faceless group for that as well?
Why do only management consultants defend management consultants? Why don’t employees, C-suites, taxpayers, watchdogs, or anyone else ever sing their praises?
I also asked for an example of a good consulting project with real ROI. Please share one.
Misaligned incentives are alone enough reason to dismiss the entire industry.
But more widely if an organization cannot manage itself it has no business being an organization. It has to either go bust, or have senior management let go.
By hiring management consultants the senior management is acknowledging it cannot run the organization.
As a consultant myself, I don't get it, that might be true for management consultants, but not for technical ones.
As a software engineering one, there hasn't been a single time where I wasn't among the top performers after a month.
My incentive was always to do a good showing so they may call you for other projects in the future.
A consultant, in most people’s minds, is someone they would consult with, who would tell them what to do, in an advisory capacity; not someone who would actually do any kind of work. (In other words, a management consultant.)
The only people who use the term differently are consulting firms themselves, because they think “consultant” sounds fancier (and worth paying more for!) than “contractor.”
You gotta provide why it's bad instead of whataboutism direction you took.
The two consults in Office Space absolutely nailed it.
“Accenture tells us we have 50% more middle managers than our peers” or “Bain tells us our customers don’t like us despite the internal CSAT scoring”
disclaimer: ex management consultant
Smooth, but deep burn. Masterfully done!
in theory, an expensive outside consultant does not have those incentives: they are being paid 800/hr, have no dog in any fight, have a fixed contract and no reason to worry about getting promoted or fired next cycle, and have already been pre-vetted for expertise.
if I do not have faith in my goober, fork-and-spoon operator employees, I pay for these folks to validate the approach. that's not incompetence, that's due diligence.
it's not my money, nor my department -- it's the shareholders -- and I need to convince them that I've done all I can to confirm we need to invest X million in initiative Y.
however in practice consulting falls victim to plenty of bad behaviors, rent seeking, and risks, too
I don't think I'm one of the red team's 7 captains, but I don't exactly have my hands on the paddle every single day. After all, I can find the time to lollygag on HN between 9-5.
The best supermarket in the UK is Waitrose but the price premium is excessive compared to the quality.
Because he beat up all the other captains.
> why isnt he rowing
Because he’s the Captain and he doesn’t want to.
> why are we rowing, and where are we rowing to?
The Captain knows. Don’t you trust the Captain?
> Malcolm has only ever had three paid jobs, and so far he’s been fired from two of them.
the irony is definitely intended
It’s very satisfying to get rich by doing pretty much nothing. And there’s some sadness when some rower does their best but doesn’t even come close to directors/captain positions.
Some excellent rowers can make it sure, but we all are not excellent. Oh well, I stop
You don't know what other roles that try-hard "rower" has outside of your imagined scenario. There's nothing even stopping them from being the "captain" of another more impressive boat when he's not on yours. Sure he's not the best, but he's doing the job and you're not. He has more experience than someone who never gets their hands dirty. More experience always makes better leadership. You'd be surprised how easy it is for someone else to steal your little hat and how often it can happen. It's definitely easier than the rowing, which I guess was your point?
I really don't mean this in a sour grapes kind of way. I'm totally serious. You'd never know that until it's too late if you're being disrespectful to the rowers. Don't let ego squander opportunities.
In this day and age, bad UX is great for preventing ADHD users
If you're the CEO, maybe you know exactly how your org should be restructured. But maybe it means stepping on a lot of toes and hurting people you have close relationships with.
If you get the blessing of management consultants you can at least say it's not personal.
2. Management consultants get paid by shareholders to outsource blame for decisions made by management.
I used to work in engine development and calibration. There aren't many people who know how to do engine cal and it's incredibly important to get your engine emissions certified to sell in a market like the USA. The problem is that most people who know how to do it work for a car manufacturer (OEM). So when I had that on my LinkedIn I would get pretty regular messages from some consultancy or another offering hundreds of dollars per hour to chat with me about my expertise. Of course I couldn't go talk to a competitor but I'm sure a lot of engineers were happy to make a few hundred bucks chatting with some generic consultant who was writing a general industry report with anonymous data and background info.
Well the customer was usually a competitor or a foreign automaker exploring entering the US market. Everyone who could help them understand the timelines, cost, and process worked for their competitors. So the critical info got laundered through consultancies into sanitized anonymized reports; laundering.
Note: I'm not sure whether talking to a consultancy would have violated my employment contract at the time but I never took the calls so I had no reason to look it up. I know that coworkers did and just called it a gray area. I pass no moral judgement one way or another.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PwC_tax_scandal [2] - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/10/kpmg-...
What does that have to do with providing value?
Their preferred working style was to not make decisions, and to hire consulting firms to make the decisions for them. So they hired these even younger consultants, who would work for a few weeks, and make their recommendations, and then those recommendations would not be put into action. No. Instead, more consultants were hired to review and then discard the work of the previous consultants. Rinse and repeat for a few cycles.
I cannot resist one story. The initial HBS/management consulting CEO was replaced by a new CEO, someone who had run one of the early search engine companies, and had a similar background. He turned out to be no better. What I found very entertaining about CEO2 was his business past. He was known for two decisions. 1) Declined to buy the very early Google for high six figures, when he had the chance. 2) Decided to buy Blue Mountain -- think Hallmark cards but online -- for $780M. Greeting cards. 3/4 of a billion dollars. 1000x the cost of Google at the time.
Yes, hindsight and all, but still. If I had made both decisions by flipping a coin, my expected value would far exceed what this business genius accomplished.
The same is true of the consulting industry. Because companies _also_ have certain misgivings or insecurities or unrealistic goals with regard to their health.
But the reason people feel dehydrated is because Brawndo ads tells them they had a thirst that needed mutilating.