Management Consultants are bred to be elitists who hoard power and wealth amongst each other. This is a consequence of the filtering that happens for those who go into Ivy League / Elite school system that feeds these firms. It breeds people who are smart enough, loyal, and focused on results that can be measured (eg grades, profits) everything else be damned (impact on people, society, long term value, etc). Just because somebody is a Rhodes scholar for example, doesn’t mean they are the smartest and best leader, it basically means in most cases that they are a kiss ass.

I used to be a management consultant with Boston Consulting group, and I can assert from personal experience that management consultants truely believe they are superior to others. They are bred that way as they have been kiss asses their whole childhood in order to get into the top Universities. Top Business Schools are largely breeding grounds for Machiavellian behavior. They literally look down on anybody who is not an executive as just another dumb body doing their busy work. (I’ve also been on the receiving end of McKinsey’s schemes) They are literally a virus, who’s objective is to:

1) Attack the nucleus of the cell (middle management)

2) Take over the machinery of the cell (the company) to replicate more viruses (consultants) inside the cell

3) Spread to other cells in the body (other Divisions in the company)

4) And then jump to other bodies (companies) continuing to replicate

Management Consultants are smart and have a lot of useful experience and data — -they do create value sometimes despite their ignorance of the market, the company’s business, and the organization. They are best used as a partner to provide an outside perspective which ideally would be integrated in conjunction with the rest of the company. But partnership is usually impossible, sadly, as executives often use consulting companies for their personal objectives like taking control, pushing other people out, not having to deal with other managers and people , getting credibility / power with the Board, generating short terms results or more often the perception of results to make themselves look good, at the expense of long term value and company’s culture…things that are harder to measure.

So despite the value they provide, they usually create more damage then they are worth. But individual executives sadly will often benefit. If you find yourself in a position where you are engaging one of them, put them on a very short leash, do not allow them to interact with anybody else outside a select group of people, tell them that, and if they veer off and start networking, or working really long hours and taking over other people’s work in the interest of “speed” or “efficiency” fire them.