How do you know a consultant is competent?

Think about it. You understand (I hope) situational competence. We all know people who are extraordinarily competent in one area and hopeless incompetents in other areas.

So the question is really, “How do you know the consultant you’re about to engage is competent to assist you with the issue at hand?” Having the world’s greatest consulting brain surgeon working with you on a factory floor reengineering project might not be the wisest thing to do, no matter how competent the consultant was in her field or how nice she was.

What’s the approach you use to determine and verify the competence of the consultants with which you work? From my perspective, it’s less important which approach you use (as long as it works) and more important THAT YOU HAVE AN OBJECTIVE APPROACH that you use with consistency.

So. What’s the name of your approach? How often do you update it? Who is in charge of updating and maintaining it? Is it used consistently throughout your organization?

Hmmmmm.

Is Your Consultant a Seer or a Peer -- or Worse?

It all depends on the evaluation criteria you developed to select the consultant.

As part of selecting a consultant to address your issue or problem, best practice dictates that you carefully define your evaluation criteria. Understanding the kinds of experience and the specific skills and competencies you’ll need in an advisor is not a trivial matter.

First, you have to be confident that you and your team have actually isolated the root issue or problem to be addressed. You know that’s important because you’ve all heard the yada yada blah blah about solving solutions instead of problems.

Especially in those cases with the potential for a significant impact on your organization, we recommend a non-traditional, but very effective, approach.

We feel that in the long run it’s often more effective – and sometimes even cheaper – to first hire a consultant to define the issue or problem. Once you all agree that the root issue or problem has been uncovered, have that same consultant help you develop the evaluation criteria for a consultant to actually resolve the issue or problem. And, no, the first consultant can’t be considered a candidate for the next job. This keeps everyone honest.

And yes, you still have to develop the evaluation criteria for the first consultant. And no, this isn’t supposed to be one of those Carch-22 type of things. Being a proactive client isn’t the easiest job on earth.

Remember, if things were really easy, any under-educated doofus that flips burgers for minimum wage could be sitting in your plush seat instead of having to stand all day. And where would that leave you?