Saturday, December 03, 2005
Why I call myself a Prosultant(sm)
Pro is the opposite of Con. When I left AT&T I vowed never to call myself a Consutant.
Tom Evslin articulately captures what I, too, observed at AT&T, albeit from the shorter end of the stick:
Tom Evslin articulately captures what I, too, observed at AT&T, albeit from the shorter end of the stick:
“Don’t cross THEM,” a friendly fellow officer advised me on my first day at AT&T. “THEY’ll ruin your career.” . . . THEY called meetings; THEY facilitated meetings; THEY assigned followup; THEY designed Board meetings and presented to the Board; THEY often called for more of their own kind as reinforcements. And THEY could wreck your career.If you're still mystified by this, read the rest of Evslin's rant.
THEY were the consultants.
AT&T had already discovered outsourcing when Bangalore was still a sleepy village and the streets of Shanghai were clogged with rickshaws. AT&T outsourced thinking.
AT&T outsourced thinking to THEM – the consultants.
*snip*
THEY were on all sides of every major strategic decision and every minor tactical decision AT&T made. No idea could be advanced unless it was consultant-vetted. Warring senior executives each had their own phalanxes of consultants drawn up to advance their agendas (whose agendas? the consultants or the executives? impossible to tell).
*snip*
John Walter’s nine month career as AT&T President and COO wasn’t a happy one. But he did ban THEM! All of THEM!
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