Institute for Simplicity

On17 of  June 2011 Financial Times Deutschland published an interesting interview with Horst Pabst, a very unique consultant.

He only does consultancy for immigrants. Most of them are restaurant owners or owners of a small fast food business selling typical food of their home countries. He helps his clients to meet hygiene standards, understand book keeping or how to start and run their own business.

We found the following question and answer:

FTD: “Have you ever thought about going back to your past job which was being a director of a local savings bank? wasn´t that job much more comfortable than your consulting business. You would also earn more money there.”

Pabst: “Sure, but that is not so exciting. I remember, we had McKinsey as consultants back when I was still working for that Savings Bank. They distributed tons of paper, were juggling lots of numbers, gave us smart recommendations, making us feel very small. That is when you think you may as well sell soap.”

We are convinced: you do not need consultants. At least you do not need them to explain to you your core business or develop a strategy for the future. Isn´t is absurd to call consultants who never ran a business like yours and ask them to help you. You only need consultants in the case of any specific knowledge you need which you may not have in terms of your core business.