The power law in consulting

A recent article in Booz & Company’s strategy + business magazine draws attention to some fascinating academic research on how power affects decision-making.  We already know (from other research) that the quality of decision-making declines when people depend on their own beliefs and ignore the advice of others: “outside information helps ‘average out’ the distortions that can result when people give a great deal of weight to their own opinions and first impressions,” observes Booz.  The trouble is that the more powerful an individual becomes, the more confidence they have in their beliefs and the less likely they are to listen to advice.  Add to this yet more research which shows that we all select facts that reinforce our current thinking rather than looking objectively at what all the evidence tells us and you begin to appreciate two things.

This first is that middle managers are right to complain that their advice is ignored.  It often is: their bosses, confident in the beliefs that have so successfully taken them up the corporate ladder, aren’t prepared to listen to others, certainly not those beneath them.

The second is that this throws light on one of the most important roles a consultant has – helping organisations and individuals take better decisions by bringing outside information and an independent perspective.  The more powerful executives think they are, the tougher, but more important, this role is.  Consultants are helped by being outsiders: if clients don’t listen where they feel powerful, it follows that they will be more likely to listen to consultants because they have no hold over them.  That leaves the issues of selective hearing: irrespective of whether you’re a colleague or a consultant, the person you’re talking to is only likely to take on board the points they already agree with.  If you’re going to change someone’s views you need to be both demonstrably right and persistent.

Both of these qualities – objectivity and the willingness to challenge – are only sustainable if you’re also disinterested: the advantage consultants have disappears if they become economically dependent on a client and the client knows it.