Often consultants will tell a company, team, agency or non-profit that they can make them more efficient or effective. The company or organization will say something like, but we already are effective. Of course the consultant says: “I can make you more effective!”
You can see very quickly how this can turn into silly rhetoric and indeed it is a bit of trickery that consultants use, it is akin to a take-away close sales tactics. Indeed is it both a little bit of BS, consultant ego and forward looking projections. In fact how would the consultant know he can make them more effective or efficient before he even has a look inside their business model?
One thing that the late Dave Thomas, Founder of the Wendy’s Hamburger Chain use to say is that he would not allow anyone to give him advice unless they were a multi-millionaire or unless they had more money than he did. Interesting, and I am sure this did not mean he did not listen to his frontline employees like Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonalds always told his executives to do, but I am sure Dave Thomas was right for his way of doing things. You might even buy his book; “Franchising 4 Smarty Pants’” and quickly read through it, I hope that is the title, I just don’t remember and the book was not very good and it is simply not worth my time to look it up.
If a consultant starts bantering around buzz words or starts talking about the “Law of Effectiveness” as one would be consultant recently did with me. Ask them to prove their successes, name names, companies and show you? Ask if the consultant himself is effective? For instance what did he achieve lately? If they cannot show you, tell them to shut up and get out of your office and when they leave do not listen to their dribble about how they can make you better. Just hand them a mirror and tell them to make themselves better.