Recently Mike Mair and I met and shared what we were hearing from our network in these early days of 2025.  As many people settle back into work after a holiday break there is a feeling of being overwhelmed as they are bombarded with many challenges.

If this resonates with you, we have some thoughts on how you can ensure you get the impact you want for yourself and your organization in 2025, by partnering with others. We think it’s worth considering not just your team and your wider organisational resources, but what external consultants can do for you.

Our varied experiences have been on both sides of the consulting partnership.  We have been corporate leaders who have partnered with consultants and external consultants who have partnered with many different organizations.

Why is it important to seek out great consulting resources that can help you achieve your goals in this complex and challenging environment?

  1. You can access an external (different) perspective and expertise. This increases your understanding of what is going on outside your organization by working with others who see things in a different way and are experiencing the external environment directly.
  2. Great consultants bring a specialized skill set, often focused on one area that they know in depth. They have done similar things many times (e.g. strategic planning, setting up measurement systems) so will customize the best approach for your organization, bringing a toolbox of approaches that can be customized for you. To move your organization forward, you may not have all the answers to questions that are being asked of you so partnering with those who have a specialized skill set can be an effective way to get to the solutions you need.  Identifying you don’t have the answers can initially be seen as a weakness but in fact this vulnerability is a strength, as you will get credit for bringing the right resources to the table.
  3. You will have an accelerated pathway to change. Contrary to the belief that consultants are not good value (“they cost a lot of money”) good consultants bring a more effective pathway which costs less overall. Less organizational time (internal resources = money too!) is spent on moving things forward.  They bring proven approaches and are better equipped to create a long-term solution rather than a quick fix that may only be sustainable short term. If you partner with the right consultants, it is a more cost-effective solution to achieve the sustainable outcomes you need in a shorter time.
  4. Objectivity and unbiased advice to guide and support you is provided. The relationship you build with consultants is key. You are looking for both their support and their challenge without the organizational perspective (that you must bring to the partnership) so that the best possible solution is developed. One example of this is using a consultant to facilitate workshops.  They run the process of the workshop and allow all diverse perspectives (including yours) to be heard. This results in a smoother process and one where the group owns their outputs.
  5. The gap between knowing something and doing it is closed. The urgency of making things happen increases with the right resource.  With many issues to juggle when you are inside an organization it can be easier to procrastinate in taking on a large project whereas contracting with a consultant drives the initiative forward. Sometimes you don’t need the additional specialist skills, but you do need someone who can do it as well as you / your team can. As with all these reasons this is very dependent on choosing a consultant who has a mindset of focusing on delivering the outcomes that are needed.
  6. Consultants can be used as scalable and flexible resources to navigate changing demands. Again, relationships are key, you need consultants who care about you and the organization and who enter and leave the organization seamlessly. You trust them and they feel part of the team. They are out to make you look good and have values that are aligned with yours. You don’t need fulltime resource in many situations so having a flexible trusted resource who can quickly integrate with the team is cost effective. One example of this is doing strategic planning.  It’s an intense period for a few weeks and then it can be years again before you need an external resource again.
  7. Create shared accountability. Consultants are very clear on the scope of their deliverables and what they need to do for success.  This translates in the partnership to keeping each other on track and shared accountability to deliver.  They talk about the best way to work together and how they can support you and the organization to be successful. Practically this looks like consultants who ask great questions, exploring alignment with organisational and personal goals and measures of success. They check in through the assignment to ensure any changes in scope are transparent and agreed. They also handover accountability at the end of a project – making sure you have everything you need for success.

These are some of the reasons why we think it’s important to consider great external consultants and facilitators.  It’s also a good checklist for you as you decide which consultant you want to partner with, so you get the great consultants who deliver.  What do you think?  Are there other reasons?

Watch out for our next post, we shared our worst and best experiences and some of our lessons learned as we transitioned, so more to come!