Councils of Western consulting companies. Part 1, theoretical

In the article “ How new managers destroy companies entrusted to them ” we focused on the role of foreign consulting firms in this process.

The majority of readers found it controversial to say that the consultants work solely in the interests of the business of their countries, and for Russian companies their advice, to put it mildly, does not bring any benefit.
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Although no one will argue that useful advice on the conduct of public affairs or business discord with the clamping of the Russian Federation on all fronts. Sanctions, the “sanitary cordon” of color revolutions, the ban on banks to buy Russian bonds , the rating downgrade for the country as a whole and for enterprises in particular, promises to tear the economy to pieces from the mouth of the President of the United States, pressed the “big sport” and even did not regret the Paralympians. The State Department has issued instructions on banning companies from working with Russia, and US Vice President Biden promises cyber attacks .

Why, then, Western intelligence services, which are actively used even in economic espionage between the allies , have not yet had a friendly conversation with the management of consulting companies, have not explained to them who they should be friends with, and who they aren’t? Well, of course they talked, though a little bit wrong.

But still, how do these consultants manage to "please both ours and yours"?
How do they conduct business in such a way that their activities are simultaneously approved by both the heads of companies of the Russian Federation and the Western special services?

This is not magic and not art, it is a proven technology.

Article layout

1. Statement of the problem
2. The modest role of the assistant manager
3. Victory loves preparation
4. The beginning of a beautiful friendship
5. Training top management and gaining its trust
6. Gap feedback from employees to top management
7. Noticing traces of negative consequences in reporting
8. Difference of medicine from poison
9. How to harm good advice
10. Additional materials

1. Statement of the problem

It is necessary to consult the companies of the Russian Federation in such a way that as a result they bring profits to Western multinational corporations, but they could never compete with them.

Figuratively speaking, companies of the Russian Federation must grow into sheep, which will serve Western wolves with high-quality food supply.

With the apparent increase in efficiency, Russian companies should become more dependent on Western technologies, licenses and political decisions than on their own government.

Too globally swung? I agree, let's narrow the topic of the article. How can a director of a commercial enterprise inspire ideas that worsen the position of his company, but at the same time keep him in the illusion that everything is going as it should, and “efficiency” has grown.

Even less conspiracy? We simply consider the evolution of the interaction of 5 subjects, each of which has its own interests:

C1. CEO of the Company. The person is intelligent, but needs advice to make changes in the work of the Company. The changes according to his plan are aimed at real improvements, options like “stealing a plant and sawing for scrap” is not a topic of this, but other articles (mostly from the Criminal Code).

C2. Top management of the company. The subordinates of the general director who are interested in preserving their high-paying job are very loyal to the initiatives of their boss.

C3. Company employees. Since the director is idealized with us, then let the employees be professionals in their work, interested in the conscientious performance of work and the preservation of their jobs.

C4. The staff of "local offices" consulting companies. Its goal is to expand and strengthen the consulting business. And no one before them sets the task of ensuring the conquest of world domination for the elite of another country.

C5. Owners and foreign management consulting companies. They want to increase revenues, but are limited in their actions by considerations of national security and the interests of big business in their countries. (This is a simplification of the real situation, but the main thing for us is that the interests of our country are certainly not in priority).

2. The modest role of the assistant manager

Consultants are needed to gather information. They know how others did, but they do not know how to do it themselves . G. Gref.

If you ask, dear readers, what are the duties of an employee at the “secretary” position, then you will probably answer: save your boss from non-intellectual, routine work. The secretary is the assistant manager - to bring orders for the signature, notify the subordinates about the meeting, prepare coffee and all that jazz.

But did it not seem strange to you that the highest state post in the USSR was called “General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU”? How did it happen that in the USSR the secretary actually became the head of the party and the country?

Wikipedia tells us that

The secretary of the Central Committee carried out general management: he approved one or another agenda of the congress / party meeting and determined the degree of readiness of the draft decisions submitted for consideration .

And so, in just 5 years after the revolution, the President of the Council of People's Commissars, VI, who had fallen, but still the actual leader of the party, Lenin wrote a famous letter to the congress , in which he complains that the Secretary of the Central Committee Stalin “concentrated the immense power in his hands” ... And he received this power informally, purely on authority - clear rights and duties for the position of “secretary general” in the Party Charter were written only in 1966 !

The Secretary of the Central Committee, I.V. Stalin, was very clever and useful for the common cause, and the right to “approve the agenda” gradually turned into “form the agenda”. The obligation to “determine the degree of readiness of draft decisions” has grown to “approve the wording in documents”.

He also took over such a routine work as the counting of votes and, to put it in modern manners, some of the responsibilities in the field of HR. He expressed the experience of fulfilling these duties in immortal formulations :

No matter how voted, it is important, as calculated.
Frames decide everything. The most valuable capital is people.

When in 1924 the very letter of Lenin about the “immense power” was read out at the party congress, a modest, disciplined and loyal member of the Comrade Party. Joseph Stalin immediately refused his post as Secretary of the Central Committee. Moreover, he had several times put the question of his resignation before the plenum of the Central Committee, since his confidence in him had been called into question. But party comrades voted to stay. True, not unanimously - supporters of Trotsky voted against. By 1931, they figured out why - it turned out that "Trotskyism is the vanguard of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie . "

But let us return to the main topic: the topic of an attempt to conquer political power not with the help of a palace coup, rebellion, revolution, or even democratic elections, but with the help of a group of people who have gone through the game. Which become so indispensable as advisers to top politicians and (a little later) the generators of basic state ideas, that gradually, first, real, and then legal-political power passes to them.

Yes, it was a quote - from the article “Igrotechnika from Schedrovitsky to Khodorkovsky” . Very interesting, although it may not be everything in it should be believed - where I found it, they doubt that the games were already so widespread. But we have enough evidence that the technology of manipulating decision-makers through their assistant advisers was developed and tested.

3. Victory loves preparation

But let us return to the main topic: the topic of an attempt to conquer political and economic power not through a palace coup, an uprising, revolution, or even democratic elections, but through the expansion and strengthening of the consulting business of a group of specially trained people. Which become so indispensable as advisers to the top management of commercial companies and (a little later) generators of the basic ideas of commercial success, that gradually real power passes to them.

Our consulting benefactors to help business directors collect and systematize information about who and what methods had previously achieved commercial success. They can also advise where it is profitable to attach a profit: they will tell you which bank or offshore it is. Or maybe it is better to buy some competitor or partner? And this will be prompted, and the fair value of the transaction will be calculated - in their hands the valuation of the assets of enterprises and the financial audit.
They will be happy to help with staffing questions for key positions in client companies - I will give an example below.

You can see for yourself - purely secretarial support work and some HR. They do not make any decisions, they do not bear any responsibility:

I do not treat consultants as people whose advice should be followed. On that they and advisers that all decisions are accepted by you. G. Gref.

Well said. But do not you think that, in fact, the conditions for consultants are even more favorable than those of the Secretary of the Central Committee in the period 1917-1922? Opportunities - even more, and risks and responsibilities - even less?

And what will happen if the general director of the company does not accept any other "advice" from anyone, or they do not receive it, do not reach it?

Any director can be manipulated under two conditions:

1. If he himself is a professional, then he is not in the profile of the company (a typical example is a financier in the management of a non-financial organization).
2. There is no feedback from the professionals of their own company.

In order to achieve a constant possibility of manipulation, a constant supporting work is needed, which can be depicted in the form of a variation on the theme of the “Deming cycle” so beloved by the consultants:


1. Measures to increase the susceptibility of the top management environment to the manipulation of consultants.
2. The introduction of the necessary ideas into the consciousness of top management.
3. Noticing traces of negative consequences in reporting.
4. Registration of the case on the next "success" and return to paragraph 1.

As the Romans said in such cases - Amat Victoria Curam - Victory loves preparation.

4. The beginning of a beautiful friendship

After the collapse of the USSR, the first to appear in Kiev at the time of that vacuum of power and ideology were the Americans - foundations, NGOs, politicians. They brought up and in many ways created the modern Ukrainian elite. Azarov N.Ya.

Of course, not only in Kiev. Here is a picture of the Russian Federation.



Picture taken from here .

Transcript of the Plenary Session of the Duma 06/09/2015 (16: 00-18: 00) :

All the listed consulting companies are officially appointed following the results of tenders that are designed so that only foreign companies can win, and all of them are American, because they are under the control of the Americans - there are simply no other consulting companies! We regard this law as an attempt, let's say, to push bodies, ministries, departments, companies to look at this matter in a reasonable way. But whether they understand this or not, they understand perfectly well! Remember the last statement of the head of the Investigative Committee Bastrykin - he directly said that the mechanism behind it (and behind this is the 15th article of the Constitution of the Russian Federation is not just that) - this is, in fact, a mechanism of legal sabotage. This is a struggle, and in it, let's say, strength, not common sense, wins, and the alignment of forces is such that today the ministry prefers to be guided by the principle of attracting “brains” from the United States of America.

We note in passing that if tenders are specifically “designed so that only foreign companies can win,” it means that there is an understanding that they cannot withstand the conditions of equal competition.

The destruction of the USSR, the change of laws, the seizure of power and property, created a situation where incompetent persons appeared in the management of enterprises. Incompetent in changed conditions, without relative depth of their mind.

But for them, consultants had already been prepared in advance, ready to tell you what to do and how to become leaders of “capitalist construction”.

The advice of consultants was also needed by those “red directors” who held their places, privatizing the company for themselves. It was necessary to rebuild the business under the "market" economy, move to international reporting and go on an IPO.

The same applies to those new enterprises that have already been created in “market” conditions. Without foreign consultants, big business was not created.

5. Training top management and gaining its trust

To prevent the “soil” of top management from being exhausted, it was “fertilized” - new management personnel were trained from “golden youth” in MBA courses, who could not do without the advice of consultants.

In short, an MBA is built on “case study”, where instead of a systematic (scientific) approach, a set of “successful” templates is taught, thereby creating a predisposition to “clip thinking”.

The lack of independence of thinking necessitates maintaining communication with the “teachers” for regular consultations both on the subject of adaptation of old cases, and for obtaining new cases, i.e. Information about what has appeared in the “world of top management”, in the world of effective management of large companies.

We are a team of top managers of Sberbank every year for 7-8 days we go to Stanford ... we study on a program specially prepared for us .... G. Gref.

What more wish? These are the most suitable conditions for directing the thoughts of top management in the right direction.

Imagine even a less hothouse situation: a top-management meeting is organized at the enterprise in order to work out a further work strategy in our difficult times.
The secretarial work is happily taken by the consultants - they will prepare presentations on cases from other companies, etc.

And in the course of the play, the consultant says that, for some people, in the same situation, having such KPIs did this and that, they got a gain, etc. The CEO at this moment asks his subordinates - and what are our indicators?

The trick here is that the consultants who are leading the meeting know in advance what specific indicator is being discussed, and the rest are not. Someone for memory knows exactly all the numerical values ​​of the KPI related to it, but someone does not. In general, the impression that the consultants know the state of the client company better than its own top management will be achieved. Especially the one that did not use the help of consultants in the preparation for the meeting.

So the consultants solve their task - to strengthen communication with the general director and top management of the company, to gain more and more trust.

Direct implementation is also not discounted:

Rare vacancy: position of a senior analyst in Megafon Strategy. We need a person with 1.5-2 years of experience in positions in the field of analysis, evaluation, business development and strategic planning, or at least 1 year in consulting ...

Strategy MegaFon is a small, young team of 14 people. Our approach to work and the atmosphere are focused on the standards of leading international strategic consultants, from whom we differ in proximity to business and a greater opportunity to implement ideas and solutions in life. We work directly with top management and interact a lot with regional branches, functional divisions and subsidiaries of MegaFon PJSC.

Let's analyze this job posting. The head of the MegaFon strategy team, most likely a former consultant, posts a vacancy on the concubine site of the consultants. At the same time, in his opinion, in order to determine the strategy of MegaFon, it’s enough to stand up for 1.5-2 years in any other office. But, you know, it is even more preferable to have 1 year of indoctrination work in a branch of a consulting company.

Of course, no one's own useful strategy can be formulated. But he will be an excellent conductor and performer of other people's ideas.

And these were the requirements for the "senior analyst." I am at a loss to imagine who they want to see in the “MegaFon Strategy” division at the post simply “analyst”, without the “senior” prefix. Maybe a young man without any work experience at all, but with recommendations from “his own”?

However, the topic of this article is the introduction of ideas, not the introduction of people.
About the nuances accompanying the introduction of consultants to the company management, we can talk sometime later.

6. Gap feedback from employees to top management

To solve its task of expanding consulting business, consultants should not only strengthen their ties with top management, but also weaken the relationship of top management with the company's own specialists.

Ideally, the enterprise should not have its own high-level management specialists.

The “golden youth” is also interested in this, because of its grip in the top management.
So why would the consultants not help them build a system to cut off potential internal competitors? Such a system and a management style that would squeeze smart employees into foreign companies.

In the field of IT, this situation is very bright; top managers speak directly to IT specialists: the situation in the country is difficult, there is no money . But IT professionals are expected in foreign companies, where the degree of adequacy of management and the internal environment is much higher.

When top management, following the advice of consultants, destabilizes the processes in the company, the line management and employees try to mitigate the consequences. By the way, the consultants call this “resistance to change” or “rejection of changes”, thereby setting a negative label even on constructive criticism in advance.

However, still try to get this criticism - as we have already analyzed in the Properties of the vertical of power , the distress signal, passing from below to the upper levels of the vertical, softens at every link and turns into “everything as a whole is good” as a result.

Therefore, in order to notice in time that things have already gone wrong, top managers need not only the ability to think for themselves, but also have a feedback channel outside the hierarchy of subordination, through which you can systematically collect and analyze feedback from the professionals of your own company.

Such channels of additional feedback are provided for even by legislation - risk management and internal audit. But they help organize ... the same advice and with such nuances that allow you to block the work of this feedback.

The process of stretching the Company on a favorite case-pattern from MBA courses is fraught with the appearance of idiotic (anecdotal, schizophrenic) situations. Often, employees cannot explain how the idiotic situation will be resolved, the top management cannot go straight ahead - they have not foreseen this situation, and have not worked out solutions for it. It was smooth on paper, but they forgot about the ravines.

Developing a workaround may take several months. All questions for this period, staff questions to the management "hang in the void" without answers.

The unpleasant situation that pushes past MBA managers to limit uncomfortable communication with the “bad people” in favor of communication in the circle of their “Teachers”, where Spaceships successfully surf the Universe.

So the top management is separated from the company's team informationally and psychologically, the real feedback is destroyed in the company.

Without adequate feedback, there is no real control. However, this does not mean that top management loses control over financial outflows.

This means that as the system is autonomous from the rest of the company, the top management essentially stops performing functions useful for the life of the company. Moreover, inevitably begins to harm the useful work that linear management and employees perform.

Specific examples will be considered in the second part of the article.

7. Noticing traces of negative consequences in reporting

If you hired consultants, paid them a lot of money and start complaining that nothing happened, then this is not a question for them, but for you ... I can not complain that the consultants gave me some kind of not such advice. Well, if it is bad - do not apply. G. Gref.

And if the advice is not just advice, but a list of cases about 100% success at 100,500 other enterprises? How can you resist its implementation , if the top management is “unanimous for”, full of enthusiasm, and “always ready”?

Then, when something does not go as well as it was alleged in 100,500 other companies, then who is to blame? It is clear that inert Krivorukov subordinates who did not grasp the great intention and resist change are in addition not skillful enough and too lazy. They need to cut the premium.

So the chain of reasoning starts from "the case was certainly good," and comes down to the "bad people got."

But the premium to lose the desire does not even have a “bad people”, so that the whole Company, with all its might, will seek out the achieved positive effect of the “changes”, be they wrong.

No one inside the affected company is interested in unbiased research and publicizing the consequences of the implementation of the advice of Western consultants.
Instead, the case will be decorated next success .

Colleagues tell me: For research, resources are needed, and they were optimized first of all. In addition, “think” hired consultants, the rest are supposed to “work” within their official duties, and, moreover, without asking the authorities uncomfortable questions.

And, in turn, top management will rightly judge that there is nothing to spoil your reputation with bad cases, they will have to get a job later in other companies. In addition, competitors also do not hurt to put in the same position in which they found themselves.

We have inflated with you - great inflated! But we, I think, do not want to be the laughing stock of the whole city, so that they scoff at us all their lives. Here's what: let's get out of here calmly, let's praise the show and fool the whole city! Then we will all be on equal footing. So or not?
- Of course, so! Good judge! - shouted all in one voice.
(Mark Twain) .

8. Difference of medicine from poison

Although I criticized the advice of the consultants all the way, please understand me correctly. Changes and innovations are often necessary. (Especially they are necessary after changes made at the prompting of the consultants - it is necessary to correct something spoiled).

Therefore, it is not always advisable to completely abandon consultants, since they are one of the sources of information about someone else's experience. Although it is necessary to remember about the possibility of misinformation, maybe even unintended.

The principle here is the same as in the report on scientific research - it begins with a critical review of who did what earlier on this topic.

The main thing is to properly use the advice of consultants, so as not to cross the line between medicine and poison.

The same idea can be spoiled, and it is possible to improve the situation - it’s all a matter of implementation nuances.

The prevalence of business advice from those who “do not know how to do anything with their hands” is a long-standing problem and touched us, one might say, the last. So already the books are written “as it is not necessary” and “as it should.”

As an example, in the books of E. Goldratt from the “Purpose” series, the “correct” consult does not say to the director “they did this, but these things do, and you will make something an average of this.” The director himself and the employees explore their company, turn on the brain and really think of it, and discover for themselves in their company what they didn’t know before, or didn’t notice.

The role of the “right” consultant is, if necessary, to bring to the attention of the director some principles that he did not know due to gaps in his education. Moreover, these principles in fact - the laws of society, nature, or even more so - have the power of mathematical theorems. Those.things unrelated to random luck, cases of the type " survivor's mistake ", or someone's authoritative opinion.

For example, sequential optimization of the work of each division of a company, and not of the entire company at once, generally leads to a guaranteed non-optimal result .

There is a lot of talk about this, even on Habré , but in the form of the opinion of a top manager, even if based on a wealth of experience. But the image of a cut elephant is not proof yet.

For Goldratt, this is proved, even if it is “on the fingers” - in an adapted form, at a level understandable for top managers with knowledge gaps in the exact sciences.

Suppose the general director himself cannot penetrate deeply - there is no time, and the company is too large. How then can he know if there are drawbacks in the activities offered by the consultants?

Of course, he will ask the opinion of his subordinates - top managers, heads of departments.

But if the general director leads the consultants and presents them as his friends, superprofessionals in the business world, who will help introduce the best world practices ... Will there then be a free discussion of the shortcomings of the proposals of the consultants? Will any of the top managers dare to criticize the friends of the CEO, and thereby cast a shadow on him? Yes, this stupid case cast aside.

In fact, everything can be much softer than my words, but the essence is - no, no one will a priori look for flaws in the proposals of the consultants.

To get a free discussion, you need to at least lower the point of contact of the consultants to the level of subordinates of the general director. Who, after receiving advice, should “digest” them and submit as their own .

It is then that the CEO can be an independent arbiter in the process of discussing among the top management the advantages or disadvantages of the proposed measures.

If you lower the point of contact with the consultants to a lower level, then when discussing, top managers will no longer criticize each other's proposals, but the proposals of their subordinates. This is even better.

Should discuss:

- Proof (numerical calculations) that the proposed activities will work well in the specific conditions of this company.
- Additions and proposals for the adaptation of activities.
- Risks and compensating their activities.
- Organization of continuous monitoring of the process of change.
- Criteria by which it will be possible to judge that things went according to the "bad scenario."
- Action Plan for the occurrence of a “bad scenario” - a rollback plan.

But if the discussion will be conducted only among those who, like the consultants, (quoting G. Gref) “do it themselves, do not know how to do it themselves,” there will be no sense.

The "astronauts" should descend from their Cosmos to Earth and discuss their Great Ideas on a Cosmic Scale with those who work, and not hold meetings all day long.

The point of contact with the consultants should be in the place where they are able to treat the information from them critically, where they are ready to process it and adapt it to the real nuances of the functioning of a particular Company.

Thus, the normal development of the Company leads to the appearance of its own specialists, who understand all the subtleties of its structure and functioning. Able to prove the need and effectiveness of the proposed changes, and responsible for the resulting result.

With the normal development of the company, the degree of influence of external consultants on management should decrease over time.

Just as it was with the role of foreign specialists in the process of industrialization in the USSR.

If, while solving a business problem to expand their business, consultants seek to increase their influence on management, then we are no longer talking about the normal development of the Company.

And we turn to the next paragraph of our article.

9. How to harm good advice

So, we are in a situation where consultants have a great influence on their clients, but they are not responsible to them for failures in applying their advice.

But it is wrong to assume that they have no responsibility to anyone. Local branches of consulting companies are responsible to their Western owners. Those, in turn, are in front of the authorities of their countries, i.e. in front of the big business of their countries, which is protected by the relevant special services.

Although, what is really there, looking at the vigorous organized entrance of the consultants into the collapsing USSR, let's face it:

Western consulting companies are part of Western intelligence services.

Attention!!!!
Now slowly move the mouse away from the "minus" button to not accidentally click.
I have already been criticized in comments for a surplus of "conspiracy."
But do not rush to find a conspiracy where there is none, first read my explanations:
habrahabr.ru/post/312702/#comment_9882098
habrahabr.ru/post/312702/#comment_9882112
Later I will expand the idea in more detail.


Let's continue ...

Western consulting companies are part of Western intelligence services, but not in the sense that they are commanded by some department of the CIA.
Perhaps all the more interesting - the consultants are part of the brain center, part of "Soft power . "

Let’s look again as an example “as it was in the USSR”, i.e. before everything here is turned upside down:

… . . — , «, ». , , - . , , , .

This “was allowed to leave”, but someone could have been maliciously prevented from leaving - it creates the impression that the KGB turned the scientists “as they wanted”. Yes, at the level of specific people - the KGB-Schnick confirmed the reliability of the individual scientist.

But it should be understood that at the level of organizations, the Academy of Sciences formulated an order for what exactly needs to be explored, and scientific and technical intelligence only fulfilled it. The Academy of Sciences is the brain, and the scouts are the muscles, the performers.

Alas, I lost the reference to the interview whether Philip Bobkov, or Yuri Drozdov, where it was directly said. Instead, I found an interview with Evgeny Primakov , which will be in the subject:

— , , , , .
— , .
— ?
— — , , . , , . . . . , — . , , .

Pay particular attention to the last two sentences of this quotation about “helpers” and breaking the feedback channel. Who are these “helpers”, where did they learn to “help” ...

So, the creation of an alliance of local branches of consultants and top managers from golden youth who “do not know how to do anything with their hands” and who do not accept feedback from who just “can and does” is in itself a victory for unfriendly special services.

This union alone will ruin any good idea; it is usually not necessary to give them additional sabotage advice from abroad.

If, nevertheless, an imperceptible introduction into the minds of directors of companies of a geopolitical opponent of concrete ideas leading to a bad outcome is required, the following principles are used:

1. To give advice that seems to be sound and correct, theoretically sound and practically tested, but which are in fact inapplicable and harmful for a particular situation, as they relate to other types of business, other company conditions or the external environment.

2. Good ideas can be ruined by “incomplete implementation”, that is, an attempt to implement it without the obligatory auxiliary measures.

However, in a number of knocks you can do without these subtle manipulations, and to make recommendations directly opposite to international practices , the main thing is not to forget to combine them with small incentives .

And here I declare a break - the text is already too large in volume.

Specific practical examples of “incomplete implementation” and harmful advice that at first seemed so good to top management will be in the second part of the article.

10. Additional materials

The previous articles of the trilogy "The Immanent Inefficiency of Big Companies in the Russian Federation":
1. Properties of the vertical of corporate power.
2. How new managers destroy the companies entrusted to them.

Required to read the article:
1. "Unica" - the sad story of the destabilization of production, set out in a humorous form.
2. "The Age of Enlightenment" - "... enlightenment of the natives in the colonies of the new type - that is, in the spaces of the former Union and the" socialist camp "- are not included in the plans of the Host, and the system works different here."

Materials not required for reading:
1. Anecdotes about consultants - there is no smoke without fire, and in anecdotes there is only a fraction of a joke ...
2. A.I.Doronin. Business intelligence.
This book focuses on the theme of the military-industrial complex, not civilian business, but still worth a look:
Chapter 11. Active events: Information and psychological impact.
Chapter 12. Informational and analytical work: Disinformation.