Why We Love to Hate Consultants

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 August 2013

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dan McGinn, HBR senior editor.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone it's Kurt we need your help with our annual survey this is your last chance to help us get to know you so we can make idea cast even better for you
0:09.8	it's easy just go to HBR.org
0:13.0	podcast survey.
0:15.0	Again, that's HBR.org.
0:17.0	And thanks for listening. Welcome to the H Idea Cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Sarah Green.
0:37.0	I'm talking today with HBO Senior Editor Dan McGinn, author of the Synthesis Essay in our September issue. The topic
0:45.5	this month is Inside Consulting's Black Box. Dan, thanks so much for joining us today.
0:50.3	Thanks, Sarah. So, Dan, in the essay, which is sort of a review of books and a TV show, why do you call consulting
0:57.6	a black box?
0:59.4	I think we all know a bit about consulting.
1:01.6	We know the names of the big firms, maybe we know a few people
1:04.8	who are in consulting, but when it comes to the actual work that they do, the day-to-day work,
1:10.8	I don't think we understand it as well as we do say accounting or law. And I think there's
1:16.5	a few reasons for that. I think it's a very secretive business. Consultants generally are forbidden
1:21.4	from talking about who their clients are or what they're doing.
1:24.6	The clients don't really want to advertise the fact that they're relying on outside help.
1:29.5	And when projects go wrong, nobody wants to admit that they paid and took bad advice.
1:34.5	So there's, it's a secret industry compared with a lot of other industries.
1:39.1	So does one of the TV shows that you review in the piece,
1:42.5	Show Times House of Lies.
1:44.1	Does that show actually shed any light on the subject?
1:47.3	Well, the show is based on a 2005 memoir
	...

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