At my old company people repeatedly thought it was a good idea to bring in 'management consultants' to form a 'corporate strategy'. Their work output was completely farcical. If I'd been tasked with making a fake management consulting presentation and had hired actors to come up with something and they'd come up with the 'real' presentations I was shown I've had told them that it was too obviously fake and they needed to put in some minimum of work. About the only coherent thing they would say was that whoever's bright idea it was to hire them was very important for the company and should be put in charge of all kinds of stuff.
love the buzzwords, haha 'corporate strategy' lol. Yea, I was also pretty shocked when seeing some of the presentations ... have you ever seen so-called 'change management' presentations?
@@annabocca Haven't heard the term 'change management'. There was definitely a lot of 'brainstorming' which seemed to be code for 'come to the conclusion we've decided you'll come to but you're going to be responsible for it not us'. There was a lot of emphasis on 'process' and doing things like, say, pulling out your computer and doing actual research was verboten. What was ridiculous afterwards was there was this idea that you had to follow the 'annual plan' which couldn't possibly revisited until the next annual planning session also run by consultants, regardless of what happened in the middle. I at one point snarked about having a five year plan, and had to explain the reference when people got excited about me apparently buying into the 'process'.
@@BramCohen hahaha love it, the 'buying into the process' - will defs use that in my next video, feel like I want to make the vids in this series a little more sarcastic and use more stakeholder language as well :D
@@annabocca As far as I can tell the main use of management consultants at private companies is that whenever there's a political battle between executives whichever one of them manages to waste more money paying management consultants to say they should win gets to invoke the sunk cost fallacy thus triumphing over their rival.
@@BramCohen Absolutely LOVE hearing your thoughts! Also big fan of your work! If you’d be interested to be in one of the next episodes of my conslutting series and being interviewed about your experiences with consultants I’d be over the moon :D
Oh finally, the long-teased "consulting is scam" video and it's only the beginning of a series? Noice!😁 Really interesting insights into that industry. Crazy money flows for just some advice from "experts", especially when the results turn out to be shit. 😂 I'm looking forward to the next videos.👍
Thaaanksss :D scripting as we speak - sorry for the delay, had to get a new camera, and working on making the next video more engaging, because had to realise that the quality of a phone camera and just throwing in some screenshots isn't going to make the best video... but comments like these are very motivating
I was a consultant i had no idea what i was doing to add value anywhere, and i struggled to see how any of my colleagues added value anywhere. when people asked what I did on a daily basis I had no answers for them lol.. But I worked my arse off doing nothing, learned nothing except how to make neat powerpoint slides efficiently. It is really a drain on economy, it draws in loads of talent to produce next to no economic output.
great video! one note on the comparison to the burj khalifa: obviously, hospitals are way more expensive because they need tons of specialised infrastructre, pipes etc. Also, the burj khalifa was probably built using a lot of slave or underpaid labour, while wages in sweden are obviously way better, resulting in higher construction costs. It still serves as a great counterexample to the common narrative that "the private sector is so much more efficient than the state at operating and constructing buildings", as their planning was obviously flawed
Really intelligent video, not just a simple sarcastic rant-you can tell there's some thought put into it. Brava, well done! :) If I can ask, looking back, is there anything you would have done differently in your career? Would you still choose consulting? Do you think it gave you something that helped you later on? Keep it up!
Awww thank you so so much 🥰🥰🥰 really means a lot, as I did put loads more effort into this one than into my previous videos! I still want to make better visuals though (camera quality really sucked, I had to go inside because it started to rain so it was really dark and the iPhone quality sucks at low lights, also I think I want to do some prettier graphics (take a page out of the consulting book 😂) and not just rely on screenshots or the line graphs I made in excel). As for career, I don’t think I would’ve done a lot differently, I don’t regret going into consulting because it made me see how so much of the corporate world is just pretending and bullshitting and it’s definitely a realisation that helped me walk away from it. But if I wouldn’t have gone in there I guess I’d have always be impressed by people wearing suits to work lol And I did have a cool mentor in consulting that I learned a lot from regarding the banking sector but only because he also saw through all the bullshit, which was cool. Other than that, I got really good at PowerPoint haha but not sure if that’s a skill I‘m very proud of.
I think most of this criticism is directed towards management/strategy consultants or these large consultant firms right? For example the majority of civil engineers or architects work in consultant-like/project-based work simply due to the nature of their work.
100% haha this is about the management and strategy consulting firms that pretty much only sell PowerPoints with buzzwords - I have huge respect for people with actual expertise and skills like architects and civil engineers
Because the name of a oh so fancy consultancy firm is on the price tag. I think it's just like how some people are obsessed with luxury brands nowadays even though the products are definitely not worth the premium price
Great video. I wonder if there is a "consultant" space for me personally: a trained analytic philosopher. Companies could hire me to be a veritable bullshit detector and weed out useless consultants, lol
At my old company people repeatedly thought it was a good idea to bring in 'management consultants' to form a 'corporate strategy'. Their work output was completely farcical. If I'd been tasked with making a fake management consulting presentation and had hired actors to come up with something and they'd come up with the 'real' presentations I was shown I've had told them that it was too obviously fake and they needed to put in some minimum of work. About the only coherent thing they would say was that whoever's bright idea it was to hire them was very important for the company and should be put in charge of all kinds of stuff.
love the buzzwords, haha 'corporate strategy' lol. Yea, I was also pretty shocked when seeing some of the presentations ... have you ever seen so-called 'change management' presentations?
@@annabocca Haven't heard the term 'change management'. There was definitely a lot of 'brainstorming' which seemed to be code for 'come to the conclusion we've decided you'll come to but you're going to be responsible for it not us'. There was a lot of emphasis on 'process' and doing things like, say, pulling out your computer and doing actual research was verboten. What was ridiculous afterwards was there was this idea that you had to follow the 'annual plan' which couldn't possibly revisited until the next annual planning session also run by consultants, regardless of what happened in the middle. I at one point snarked about having a five year plan, and had to explain the reference when people got excited about me apparently buying into the 'process'.
@@BramCohen hahaha love it, the 'buying into the process' - will defs use that in my next video, feel like I want to make the vids in this series a little more sarcastic and use more stakeholder language as well :D
@@annabocca As far as I can tell the main use of management consultants at private companies is that whenever there's a political battle between executives whichever one of them manages to waste more money paying management consultants to say they should win gets to invoke the sunk cost fallacy thus triumphing over their rival.
@@BramCohen Absolutely LOVE hearing your thoughts! Also big fan of your work! If you’d be interested to be in one of the next episodes of my conslutting series and being interviewed about your experiences with consultants I’d be over the moon :D
Oh finally, the long-teased "consulting is scam" video and it's only the beginning of a series? Noice!😁
Really interesting insights into that industry. Crazy money flows for just some advice from "experts", especially when the results turn out to be shit. 😂
I'm looking forward to the next videos.👍
Thanks for the kind wordssss ♥️♥️♥️
Can’t wait for part 2!
Thaaanksss :D scripting as we speak - sorry for the delay, had to get a new camera, and working on making the next video more engaging, because had to realise that the quality of a phone camera and just throwing in some screenshots isn't going to make the best video... but comments like these are very motivating
I was a consultant i had no idea what i was doing to add value anywhere, and i struggled to see how any of my colleagues added value anywhere. when people asked what I did on a daily basis I had no answers for them lol.. But I worked my arse off doing nothing, learned nothing except how to make neat powerpoint slides efficiently. It is really a drain on economy, it draws in loads of talent to produce next to no economic output.
And somehow it opens doors for you so its really good to have on a resume lol
Hahaha same feeling - its really wild how this is a thing
great video! one note on the comparison to the burj khalifa: obviously, hospitals are way more expensive because they need tons of specialised infrastructre, pipes etc. Also, the burj khalifa was probably built using a lot of slave or underpaid labour, while wages in sweden are obviously way better, resulting in higher construction costs. It still serves as a great counterexample to the common narrative that "the private sector is so much more efficient than the state at operating and constructing buildings", as their planning was obviously flawed
Very fair point!!! And thanks♥️♥️
Really intelligent video, not just a simple sarcastic rant-you can tell there's some thought put into it. Brava, well done! :) If I can ask, looking back, is there anything you would have done differently in your career? Would you still choose consulting? Do you think it gave you something that helped you later on? Keep it up!
Awww thank you so so much 🥰🥰🥰 really means a lot, as I did put loads more effort into this one than into my previous videos! I still want to make better visuals though (camera quality really sucked, I had to go inside because it started to rain so it was really dark and the iPhone quality sucks at low lights, also I think I want to do some prettier graphics (take a page out of the consulting book 😂) and not just rely on screenshots or the line graphs I made in excel). As for career, I don’t think I would’ve done a lot differently, I don’t regret going into consulting because it made me see how so much of the corporate world is just pretending and bullshitting and it’s definitely a realisation that helped me walk away from it. But if I wouldn’t have gone in there I guess I’d have always be impressed by people wearing suits to work lol
And I did have a cool mentor in consulting that I learned a lot from regarding the banking sector but only because he also saw through all the bullshit, which was cool. Other than that, I got really good at PowerPoint haha but not sure if that’s a skill I‘m very proud of.
Amazing job, Anna! 🤩👏🏼 looking forward to the next parts!
thanks so much Matleena
I think most of this criticism is directed towards management/strategy consultants or these large consultant firms right?
For example the majority of civil engineers or architects work in consultant-like/project-based work simply due to the nature of their work.
100% haha this is about the management and strategy consulting firms that pretty much only sell PowerPoints with buzzwords - I have huge respect for people with actual expertise and skills like architects and civil engineers
Seems consultant firms need to hire consultant firms to clean this mess up.
realising this could be the beginning of a consulting pyramid scheme :D
I'm still wondering why would a business owner would let an inexperienced person give them a consultation. What are they even thinking?
Because the name of a oh so fancy consultancy firm is on the price tag. I think it's just like how some people are obsessed with luxury brands nowadays even though the products are definitely not worth the premium price
Great video. I wonder if there is a "consultant" space for me personally: a trained analytic philosopher. Companies could hire me to be a veritable bullshit detector and weed out useless consultants, lol
Love it - ideally make a PowerPoint and invent some buzzwords and some profit-maximising-bullshit-matrix and they’ll all be hiring you
Omggg yaaaass she is back!!!
♥️♥️♥️
Such a good videooo
Thanks so much ♥️♥️♥️
And she’s not holding backkkk 👀
It's all a big scam
It iiiisssss - working on the next part of the series right now and there’s so much more scammy stuff - it’s mad
😍😍
FIRST