Current management is totally insane - totally risk adverse, incapable of making decisions without resorting to data collection, feasibilities, testing etc - all encouraging 'experts' in relevant fields to promote their own importance and agenda, and totally incompatible with other views and agendas - resulting in incomprehensible, unrealistic and unachieveable briefs and objectives.
Where is leadership, creativity and innovation?
And where is coherence? External people always seem to 'know better' than the people in the business and pedal their own patent nostrums at the expense of coherence. Over-worked, brow-beaten and sometimes simply weak management give in and apply the solutions so that they can report that 'advice has been taken' - aka my bum is protected.
The real pain is that the advice will have cost many times what it would have cost to have someone internal do the work or to have been allowed to form a view after taking advice. How much it costs in the long term is anyone's guess. We recently paid for a charming marketing consultant to produce a marketing review and strategy for us. For much the same cost we could have employed a marketing person full time for four months. Value for money: I think not; but the money needed to be spent by a deadline (why, is a different story).
As to patent nostrums, over the last two months two different consultants have separately told us that the home page of our website should have 'the on-line shop' and 'the fund-raising message' in the most prominent position. And there I was thinking we had something to do with being a museum: making an offer, telling people what there was to say and persuading them to visit (and pay).
Consultants recommend consultants and contractors as the answer to an organisation's problems and a whole archipelago is growing up 'providing services' where we managers would much rather have dedicated teams that have watches and can tell the time themselves.
I suppose we should be reassured that things are no better at the top of the slag heap as they are at the bottom.
