The trope you’ll often hear in circles like ours is that big 4 consultants exist to provide cover for unpopular decisions. That’s sometimes true. However…
Big corporations and governments aren’t startups in which everyone is encouraged to do as they please in service of the mission. Corporations and governments hire people for very specific roles with very specific responsibilities. Stepping outside of your responsibilities is discouraged. Employees inside big organizations have to think, “how fucked am I if I make this decision and it goes wrong?”. A startup can write off big losses without a second thought, a big corporate or government has to investigate.
If you need to make a big decision, you don’t let an intern take a shot at it, even if they are convinced they have the perfect idea, because if it goes wrong, it’s on your head — which idiot let an intern fuck it up?
You bring in consultants who are (ostensibly) experts so that your responsibility ends at having done the right thing and if anything goes wrong, it’s not on your head.
> The trope you’ll often hear in circles like ours is that big 4 consultants exist to provide cover for unpopular decisions. That’s sometimes true. However…
And then in the rest of your comment you outline exactly that "consultants exist to provide cover for unpopular decisions".
The trope is that an unpopular decision is made within the organization and then consultants are brought in to execute that unpopular decision and absorb the fallout as if it were the consultants decision.
The reality is that people within a large bureaucratic organization often need a decision to be made that has impacts which extend beyond their narrowly defined responsibilities. Consultants are brought in to make the decision instead, to put space between the employees and the decision. The decision might be unpopular or popular, that’s besides the point.
If you’re an employee with a role doing x, putting your head above the parapet and volunteering to do y, it’s a huge risk, for little reward. Best case, the big corporate you work for gives you a pat on the back and a gift card. Worst case, you’re the sacrificial lamb at the altar of accountability. Much easier to offload everything onto consultants to dodge any risk of being held accountable for a bad outcome.
So, yes, consultants protect employees, but not in the cynical way the trope suggests.
I disagree that your take can not be considered cynical. Consultants are used as accountability sinks either way which I have always taken to be the main point of why it's considered immoral to use them.
You just gave an explanation why it happens not that it is not immoral to do so.
Big corporations and governments aren’t startups in which everyone is encouraged to do as they please in service of the mission. Corporations and governments hire people for very specific roles with very specific responsibilities. Stepping outside of your responsibilities is discouraged. Employees inside big organizations have to think, “how fucked am I if I make this decision and it goes wrong?”. A startup can write off big losses without a second thought, a big corporate or government has to investigate.
If you need to make a big decision, you don’t let an intern take a shot at it, even if they are convinced they have the perfect idea, because if it goes wrong, it’s on your head — which idiot let an intern fuck it up?
You bring in consultants who are (ostensibly) experts so that your responsibility ends at having done the right thing and if anything goes wrong, it’s not on your head.