Beyond the consultant sticking plaster
Hypothesis: Most organisations say they want to reduce their reliance on consultants. In reality, they are not avoiding consultants. They are avoiding the hard work of building internal capability.
I recently asked 200 senior leaders in my network, including CFOs, about their spend on consultants and their appetite to reduce it. The response rate was just over 20%. The answers were revealing. I asked myself about the non-respondents and have assumed that this was a combination of the questions being asked via Linked In and their being a reluctance to talk about this topic in general (more on that later.) The responses I got were very consistent the dominant message was clear: “We don’t want to spend money on consultants.”
But that’s a little like asking if you’d like to lose weight or be a bit fitter - who says no.
And yet, when I asked about investment in developing internal change and transformation capability, the answer was almost universally: none.
That contradiction is the heart of the issue.
The hidden pattern
There are three dynamics at play.
1. Consultant spend is reactive. By the time most organisations hire consultants, they are already in trouble. A transformation is off track. A programme is late. A capability gap is exposed. At that point, there may be no real alternative. You buy help.
But buying help in crisis mode is not a strategy. It is a response.
2. The spend is often hidden. Several leaders admitted that consultant costs are “managed” below the line or absorbed into programme budgets so they are less visible. Publicly, the organisation claims it wants to reduce dependency. Privately, the pattern continues.
That is not cost control. It is avoidance.
3. No one invests in the alternative. If you genuinely want to reduce reliance on consultants, there is only one credible route: build the capability yourself.
Yet when asked what they were spending on developing in-house change leadership, the answer was zero. Not reduced. Not small. Zero.
You cannot say you want to wean yourself off external support while investing nothing in internal strength.
The accountability myth
There is another uncomfortable truth. Many executives believe that hiring a consultant reduces their personal risk. If the project fails, the consultant can be blamed. The contract can be terminated. The story can be rewritten. But accountability is never outsourced. If a transformation fails, it fails on your watch. The presence of a prestigious logo does not transfer ownership. Ironically, building internal capability feels riskier. If it goes wrong, you are “blaming your own team.” That feels personal, exposed and political. The safer emotional option is to buy external expertise again. This is understandable. It is also short-term thinking.
Even the Big Firms see the gap
Interestingly, major industry reports acknowledge the same problem. PwC’s annual CEO survey consistently highlights leaders’ concerns about whether they have the skills internally to deliver the transformations they are sponsoring. Forty percent of leaders felt their team did not have the skills to lead the transformation that they were personally sponsoring. McKinsey & Company has written about the need for “leadership factories” to systematically build transformation capability. I wrote about this here.
The capability gap is real. But large consultancies are structurally designed to sell expertise, not to make themselves redundant. Their reports diagnose the problem well. They are less explicit about the practical alternative for organisations that want to own the solution. This is not a criticism. It is a commercial reality.
A more deliberate question
If you are serious about reducing dependency on consultants, pause and ask three disciplined questions:
What capabilities are we repeatedly buying? Be specific. Is it programme leadership? Stakeholder management? Benefits realisation? Change design? Market expertise?
Should we have these capabilities in-house? Some capabilities are episodic or highly specialised. If you are entering a new geographic market for the first time, external expertise may make perfect sense. But if you are repeatedly buying help to deliver change, lead programmes, align stakeholders or manage risk, that is not episodic. That is core.
If the answer is yes, what are we doing to build them? Not in theory. Not in aspiration. In budget, time and leadership attention.
Building credible internal change leaders will not happen in a two-day workshop. It will likely take six to twelve months of structured development, live application and senior sponsorship. It requires space, practice and support. It is harder than signing a contract. It is also more sustainable.
The real risk
The biggest risk is not that you hire consultants, it’s that you never examine why you need them. If every major initiative requires external rescue, you will have a capability strategy issues as well as a cost problem. Consultants should be a deliberate choice, not a reflex. The alternative is not “no support.” It is intentional capability building. It is creating protected space for emerging leaders to learn how to deliver change safely. It is accepting that short-term discomfort may be necessary for long-term independence. You are always accountable for transformation outcomes. The question is simple:
Do you want to rent capability repeatedly, or build it once and compound the return?