Look at this chart doing the rounds right now.
Look at it!!!
Do you know what it is?
Allow me to tell you …
It’s corporate fear culture disguised as a couple of million quid in fees for Deloitte’s.
That simple.
Hell, it even makes that utter insane Pepsi logo design process book look clear and simply in comparison. And let me reassure you, it was neither clear. Or simple.
Look, I get there’s a lot of complexity in this world.
I get that solutions often require a number of processes, skillsets and collaboration.
But come on … this is ridiculous, especially under the title of ‘agility’.
All it reminds me of is something one of my amazing mentors once told me.
He is an extremely successful businessman who has interacted with all manner of consultants at the highest level, so this is an informed perspective, not some bitter and twisted creative obsessed strategist.
“When a solution is more complex than the problem, then you’re not buying the answer, you’re buying the C-Suite’s annual bonus”.
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As an aside, I’ve written about a bunch of other brilliance he has told/taught me over the years, which you can read here.
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I look at that chart and keep thinking it’s basically a version of the board game Monopoly.
And then I realise that’s EXACTLY what it is, because it’s designed for you to keep paying Deloitte every time you pass go.
Or get lost.
It’s the ultimate selling tool.
Because not only has it been designed to put the fear of god into organisations about things potentially going wrong, it doesn’t necessarily have an output other than ‘business as usual’.
The last time they had something so powerful is when they made billions helping companies worried that the millennium bug would bring down their computer systems.
Of course, every few years they come out with something else to keep the money coming in.
Digital Transformation is one of the most recent fads, which my mentor [yet again] had an interesting take on:
“The C-Suite buy digital transformation because it sounds modern and progressive. That they’re moving ahead into a brave, new World. What they’re really buying is infastucture modernisation … designed to simply not leave them too far behind”.
Now it is important to note not all consultants are bad.
In fact, some are brilliant and fascinating. Red Associates are a particular fave of mine.
[You can read about them in more detail here]
And then there’s FNDR, with my old mate Nick Barham … who are doing interesting things and aren’t packaging it all into making a new logo or website to justify their fee.
However this stuff is ridiculous, and while we can point and laugh and say the people who sell this are charlatans and the people who buy it are idiots, the reality is they’re buying more of it – and for more money – than anything adland has done in decades.
But here’s the thing.
Anything is easy if you [1] don’t have to execute it [2] don’t care about the effectiveness and [3] only care about the cash.
Which leads me to something a mate of mine told me recently.
The difference between a liar and a bullshitter.
A liar knows the reality of a situation but changes/exaggerates the facts within the context of that to achieve their goal.
A bullshitter doesn’t care about truth, so will say whatever is needed to achieve their goal.
And with that, I’ll leave you to decide which one this chart belongs to.