Extract Value from Consultants: How to Hire, Control and Fire Them

Gordon Perchthold & Jenny Sutton
Greenleaf Book Group (2010)
ISBN 9781608320356
Reviewed by Irene Watson for Reader Views (03/10)


At some point in the life of a business, management considers hiring a consultant for a variety of reasons: increase sales, reposition staff, add services, reorganization/restructure, and the list goes on.  However, not all consults give value and certainly don’t have the expertise to cover all aspects of a given business but give the indication they do.  Authors Perchthold and Sutton give solid, important advice and warnings in “Extract Value from Consultants: How to Hire, Control and Fire Them.” However, they also point out “Although this book may appear in places to be critical of the consulting profession, we do not intend to imply that all consultants engage in negative practices, and we are certainly not recommending that you simply avoid hiring consultants.” (p 13)

Anyone can call themselves a “consultant” with basically no credentials or certification needed by creating a consulting company; a website, an email address and some business cards will suffice.  These are the people that Perchthold and Sutton encourage investigating before hiring.

The expert authors also encourage the management team to define the issue within the company themselves, as well as to “separate symptoms from problems.”  They suggest using their “The Minto Pyramid Principle” for this process. But, there is just so much more to this book - I could write a book about all the information they give!  However, that’s not the intent of this review.

The bottom line I get is the necessity of establishing clarity within management of what the expectations of the consultant are and communicating it to him or her, as well as improving the team’s knowledge of in-house facts and data so that this communication is possible.  I believe in many cases consultants are hired by management for the wrong reasons - to give them the facts and data.  As I read “Extract Value from Consultants” I had many revelations of my wrong-doings as management and now realize the consultant I hired didn’t provide me with the leadership I actually needed.  Much money was wasted on my part with no notable results. Now I know why.  I relied on the consultant to fix my business but that’s not how it works.

I highly praise Perchthold and Sutton for giving us a concise but detailed account of what we, as management, must know when hiring a consultant. “Extract Value from Consultants” emphasizes it is important we don’t give away our power to the consultant, but work side-by-side. This is the only way value will be added through a consultant and our businesses will be taken to the next level of success.

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