Throbbin’s comment the other day reminded me of the deep and abiding love everyone has for the members of my profession. Consultants are like doctors. Everyone waits to call us until it’s NEARLY too late. Everyone resents having to use our services (”jeez, it’s all just applied common sense!”) And everyone thinks we’re overpaid.

Well, I have known consultants who’ve made a career out of borrowing your watch and then charging you to tell you what time it is. And I HAVE known consultants who foster client dependency, or recycle old work, or do some of those things that give us a bad reputation. I guess every profession has its schmucks.

But what the heck. If you really have decided that you despise consultants as a group, I’ll give you ten proven ways to make our lives utterly miserable. (This one is for the other consultants out there reading this - I’ll bet you’ve ALL been there, right?)

1) Don’t tell the consultant what you what you want to spend on their assignment.

(Because, of course, they’ll go and actually spend it. Just like you should never tell a real estate agent how much you have to spend on a house, right? Make the consultant guess. Ask them to give you a proposal without any sense of the scale you have in mind - then get really angry when they guess wrong.)

2) NEVER tell them the real problem.

(That’s their job. Make them spend lots of time guessing about what you really want, and don’t give them any information that’s awkward or embarrassing to you or anyone in the company. Heck, if they can’t dig that stuff out themselves, they can’t be any good, right?)

3) Decide beforehand what conclusions you want them to reach, and refuse to accept any recommendations or findings you don’t want to hear.

(You’re the expert in your own organization, right? Heaven forbid that some overpaid outsider should come up with solutions that you haven’t thought of!)

4) Believe in the absolute uniqueness of their problem.

(I’ve been told by a professional association of nurses in Ottawa, a Jewish community organization, a deaf advocacy group, an Inuit NGO, and a small business that “We don’t like planning because it’s just not part of the way we do things, and you couldn’t possibly understand that because you’re not a nurse/Jewish/deaf/Inuit/me. We’re unique.” And of course, they, and all our clients, ARE unique. But they ALL needed to do some serious planning. And curiously, it worked. It turns out that NO-ONE thinks planning is part of their culture: and it turns out that ANY organization needs to do it.)

5) Hire exclusively based on cost.

(Either pick the cheapest consultant - just as you would choose the cheapest artificial heart, right? - or chose the most expensive one, because they’re obviously the best. Hah. Cost is exclusively an indicator of what a consultant can charge; it’s not necessarily an indicator of quality, or of the appropriateness of their solution. It’s one selection criteria, but it should never be the only, or even the most important one.)

6) Hire a consultant to do work when your real issue is training or staffing gaps.

(Just keep plugging the capacity gaps in your organization by hiring consultants. Don’t ask them to find and fix the REAL problems - keep them busy doing jobs that your won staff should be doing. That’s a terrific way to ensure that the consultant is hated by everyone, that you spend lots of money, and that you build up a solid, long-term dependency.)

7) Provide real bosses and hidden bosses.

(Consultants love challenges. One fun thing you can do to test them is to confuse the reporting relationship. Make their point of contact someone who doesn’t have the authority to approve drafts or materials; and meanwhile, have lots of other senior people provide them with directions, suggestions, or criticism, just to keep them on their toes. Insist that they “incorporate input from everyone”, however contradictory or irreconcilable it is, and don’t ever actually make a decision yourself.)

8) Adjust the scale or focus of the assignment in mid-project.

(Sometimes a consultant’s preliminary findings may uncover additional issues, or point out that the original terms of the contract may not concentrate on the key problem. When that happens, don’t hesitate to change the focus, scope or scale of the assignment halfway through…while insisting, of course, that all the original deliverables be completed as well, retaining the same schedule and, of course, the same fees.)

9) Make them work without a contract.

(Working on a handshake basis is so much friendlier, don’t you agree? Who really needs to agree on dates, deliverables, methodology, approvals, extensions, and terms of payment…when you have trust?)

10) Don’t support the consultant.

(Everyone loves consultants, especially when they materialize without notice (because you forgot to brief your staff) and start reviewing documents and interviewing. It’s such a nice surprise…don’t spoil it by telling people who, what, why and when they’re going to be showing up. Don’t take any responsibility for their work, or their conclusions - after all, you hired them so you’d have someone to blame for the unpleasant truth, right? Heck, you should probably start undermining them right away, just so everyone knows you’re not on their “side”).

I suspect some of you may have suggestions of your own for making a consultant’s life miserable. Go for it - in fifteen years, I think I’ve seen it all.