I should have gone into management consulting! When I was at Dow, one of the Big 3 consulting firms came in to evaluate the R&D engine and decided that 1) We needed to focus on projects that will make money in the short term and 2) We needed to adopt the "best practices" of our peer groups. The keen observer will recognize that Observation #1 is actually just the definition of business, and Observation #2 is laughable in that our peer groups were getting the same pitch from the same consulting group! They just sold our competitors' good ideas to us, and vice versa. Talk about a sustainable business model.
Business doesn't have to be just short-term - you have to make money now, to pay the bills, but if you're in a business where you need to develop products in the longer-term, making money in the short-term might compromise your ability to do so in the long-term (and your attempts to make money in the long-term obviously cost you money in the short term). Focusing on projects to make money now at the expense of projects to make money later might be worse than doing nothing different than now - it depends on the balance of short- and long-term assets and spending.
Consultants get paid by management, and so they usually say what management wants to be heard (and what best compensates management). Prophets from the Bible may have spoken truth to power, but they mostly ended up dead (more quickly than otherwise), and consultants obviously keep that in mind.
looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20
Hee-frickin'-lair !
ReplyDeleteI should have gone into management consulting! When I was at Dow, one of the Big 3 consulting firms came in to evaluate the R&D engine and decided that 1) We needed to focus on projects that will make money in the short term and 2) We needed to adopt the "best practices" of our peer groups. The keen observer will recognize that Observation #1 is actually just the definition of business, and Observation #2 is laughable in that our peer groups were getting the same pitch from the same consulting group! They just sold our competitors' good ideas to us, and vice versa. Talk about a sustainable business model.
ReplyDeleteBusiness doesn't have to be just short-term - you have to make money now, to pay the bills, but if you're in a business where you need to develop products in the longer-term, making money in the short-term might compromise your ability to do so in the long-term (and your attempts to make money in the long-term obviously cost you money in the short term). Focusing on projects to make money now at the expense of projects to make money later might be worse than doing nothing different than now - it depends on the balance of short- and long-term assets and spending.
DeleteConsultants get paid by management, and so they usually say what management wants to be heard (and what best compensates management). Prophets from the Bible may have spoken truth to power, but they mostly ended up dead (more quickly than otherwise), and consultants obviously keep that in mind.
I love how saying that something is "best practices" is an automatic exemption from having to give reasons or data to back it up.
DeleteI believe the consulting firm was Toilet and Douche. Associates attended meetings carrying paperwork in bags.
ReplyDelete