Many leaders solicit the help of internal and external consultants, and the return on that advice depends on who’s receiving it. The author, currently an internal advisor and formerly an external consultant, reflects on the different returns leaders get for the same investment. Some engage consultants on interesting problems and create a sense of team and joint mission. They benefit from consultants’ best thinking, innovative advice, and hard work. Yet others oversimplify the issues at hand or underestimate what it takes to create results and treat consultants as transactional vendors. Those leaders not only pay the cost of a missed opportunity, they also run the risk of not addressing the issues they’re seeking to resolve. The author presents three ways to get the most out of your engagement with internal or external advisors.
