A Consultant Suggests a New Approach

Consultants are often vulnerable. And by “consultant” we mean both true consultants and contingent workers who work on contract instead of being an employee.

Consider a situation in which a consultant is working for a product manager and realizes that the product teams are using a suboptimal testing process. The consultant makes a suggestion to the testing manager, but the testing manager perceives the suggestion as “going out of your lane” and views it as a threat. This might especially be true if the proposed change would alter a strategy that the test manager as previously advocated for. It would mean that, in the mind of the test manager, they might “lose face” by having been wrong.

If the organization has a healthy culture, that would not be a problem. But an organization is made up of individuals, and not everyone accepts constructive criticism. It is not uncommon that a response to constructive criticism is to covertly undermine the person who has made the suggestion.

For example, the test manager might contact the consultant’s manager and claim that the consultant has been disrupting their testing efforts. The manager might even lie about it.

The consultant’s manager then has a dilemma: support the consultant, or side with the test manager, who is an employee and who is an important manager.

Most organizations will quickly terminate the consultant, regardless of the merits of the issue. The reason is that consultants have very low standing compared to an employee. Terminating an employee is a big deal: there are legal implications and human resources must get involved; but terminating a consultant is easy.

The Ramification

The ramification of this is that consultants make suggestions with great risk. If any employee across the organization does not appreciate the suggestion, they can do great harm to the consultant’s situation.

The dilemma for the organization is that consultants often play key roles. They are often brought in because they have special expertise. But if they are afraid to voice their true opinions, then they are not able to share that expertise honestly. They will be inclined to recommend only incremental changes, and to never openly disagree with anyone who has significant standing.

Managers therefore need to support their consultants. If someone criticizes a consultant, do not automatically consider the easiest path. If you behave like that, then your consultants will not be able to advocate for the things that you are trying to do: they will become timid.

Of course, in an organization people need to be tactful. One cannot go around criticizing things without regard for others’ opinions and positions. But one should be able to participate without fear in a dialectic conversation. If there is a seemingly open conversation, but later someone reacts by trying to sabotage one of your consultants, that consultant need to have cover. Otherwise, they cannot be effective, and you might as well not even have them present in the first place.

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