Secrecy

Consultant Ninja has an interesting post comparing the way other professions are open and share knowledge compared to consulting:

As he says:

• Conclusions are never shared outside the client
• Books & articles are filled with bland platitudes
• Clients rarely share decks from prior work from previous consultancies
• Internal Knowledge management systems are universally pathetic

In short, the management consulting industry has no means of independently evaluating and rigorously defending logic & analysis.

Well, there are a couple if interesting comments there, and I agree with the one that says that Consulting is a profession.

There is no body of knowledge that a consultant needs to understand and practice to be called a consultant, unlike say a Doctor, Chartered Accountant or Project Manager. There are no universally accepted certifications too.

In fact even management is not a profession by these standards :-)