I am a consultant but before you throw eggs, save them as you will need them.
Have you ever baked a cake?
You have probably heard the story about when instant cake mixes came to market 80 odd years back, they were a flop and didn't sell. The reason was that one would add water, mix and put it in the oven. The housewives felt like they were cheating and not actually baking.
The solution was that the company removed the powdered eggs and milk from the mix and added some extra directions and Presto! the product sold like well, hot cakes. Adding in those extra steps meant that the wives could say 'I baked this' and feel like they were not lying.
Did adding eggs make them pastry chefs?
Now, many consultants offer the same solution to a myriad problems where they provide nearly all of the ingredients for a client and then say, add eggs and milk and success is guaranteed. There are several problems with this approach that people pay potentially massive amounts for.
Firstly, the list. Just like the housewives that felt like they were baking, a list does not create experts. List based success is always dependent on several factors. Namely the contents of the list but more importantly, how well they match up to the current environment. Timing is everything for a list and if it isn't matched to current needs and opportunities, it is bound to fail, no matter how well presented it is.
Secondly, the milk and eggs. What does the client need to add? Time and investment. Even if the list is excellent, if the client doesn't do what it says, it will go nowhere. The reason many are wary of consultants is quite often, the information they provide is so generic it is useless or that the results didn't come because investment wasn't made.
Why offer generic information if it is useless? Because it is easy. Many consultants have learned and spruik some method or another that they have learned from another consultant that sells consulting methods. These are then pushed to clients as a pathway to the many problems, regardless of the industry or real personalities of the client and their company.
Large scale business forums are very popular now and celebrities get paid a lot to speak. What can someone say to an audience of 10,000 people that will be accepted by and help them all? Just do it? This is cheerleading, not consulting but many consultants take this into their clients.
Imagine entering into a cake baking contest and everyone makes a cake from a packet by adding milk and eggs. Who wins?
This is the issue, because the milk and eggs are very important. Invest time and energy well into the list and you may even become successful but, this is only true if the list is suitable and no one else puts time and effort into working on the same list.
Talking of cheerleading, here is another problem. Do you remember that Kirsten Dunst movie with spirit fingers and the guy that sold the same choreography to many teams? These generic consulting methods get bought by many companies and pushed far and wide. Everyone has the same information so it will come down to (still if the list is worthy) which put in the most effort.
So the consultant has put you into the same boat with everyone else. If no one had hired the consultants, they would all be in the same place still, just a different boat. Well, that is not true, as each company would likely look to their competition as motivation which is a slightly more organic way to develop.
Now, the next issue to look at is why we want to work from someone else's list at all. It seems that we do actually like to be told what to do as this gives us someone to blame when it doesn't work or we don't even try it.
How many times have you seen an amateur make a cake that looks like the one in the picture? 'But I followed the directions!'. Yes, you did, but it doesn't mean you have the skill to complete it like a seasoned professional.
Following a recipe, even with a good result, leads to bad results as one doesn't learn how to make their own list. Who uses a navigator to travel somewhere but no matter how many times they go to the same place, they can't get there without the navigator? We learn to rely on the aid and never develop our own methods that likely work better for us when tailored and developed.
Even if the list is brilliant, it is made for a certain situation and as soon as the list gets applied,the situation begins to change. Plus all of the external influences that will affect circumstances too. That means that the list will become less effectual as time proceeds.
But, since you don't actually know how to make a cake, you have to call in the consultant again. This is brilliant for the consultant of course.
The problem is these days is, not many people are willing to put in the effort needed to build their own recipes, they are looking for quick solutions. Unfortunately, there is no way around it, you are going to have to work to get results or be very lucky that no one else works at all.
At Steemit, we can see many senior posters telling of the way to be successful on the platform and a lot of the information is valuable. But, a lot isn't. Remember that the senior members came here at a different time and when competition was nowhere near as high as it is now. As I said before, timing is very important.
Having said that, pretty much all of them say that effort and consistency is needed. Milk and eggs. From what I have witnessed, there aren't that many that have put a lot into that part of the recipe either. Remember that quality, time and effort doesn't translate directly into rewards, but increases chances.
There is definitely an expectation vs Reality situation here and it doesn't matter what list you follow, the site is changing so rapidly that there is only really one direction that is suitable as advice.
Learn to adapt.
That is a direction but even in those three little words, there is a mountain of background work required to build the skill base necessary to adapt to a volatile environment.
It doesn't matter what skill you are looking to improve or what your company does or what you want to achieve here or anywhere, it is likely that in order to be successful in the long-term, one has to learn how to bake their own cake.
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]