General News
14 December, 2024
Barry's Corner
Have you heard the adage about consultants who want to borrow your watch to tell you the time and then keep the watch? It's been rolling around for years and probably still be relevant today.
Consultants do get a bad rap, and that is not always true. I hear the term fairly often, but it has made me think about what it really means. As you can imagine, there are consultants for many specialists and activities in finance, medical, agriculture, and lots of other industries who try to look into the future and draw up a report.
We talk a lot about consulting and it sounds good to consider you will be involved in the process of the development of a project. What could go wrong? For large projects a lot of talking needs to take place. Get a meeting together at the local hall, Lots of people show up and procedures are presented and explained. Big loud voices take the floor and can dominate while there are folk who are a bit more timid and have a genuine concern and who get overlooked.
It's hard work to explain complex matters in heated debate to an audience who are swayed by the loud ones and the intention can fail at the hurdle. There are multiple methods nowadays to get a message into the community with all the social media available that is not an old medium. Newspapers can be useful to reach a lot of people and while headers and tractors are going round and round there is an ideal way of explaining things, electronically or by hard copy.
It is pointless to hire a consultant who does not live or come from that district and have them front the hall and get howled down so the project is delayed. Better to explain to smaller groups, even around the kitchen table. It is time-consuming, expensive and hard work but more effective.
While there can be half a dozen good advice reports delivered it is you who must make the decisions in the end. The responsibility rest with you. Consultants can offer useful and practical advice and that could be worth the investment. Being consulted can be good and bad. It may not be a message you want to hear.
On the other hand, we need to keep in touch with the world.