Are All Consultants Corrupt?

Enron's monumental bankruptcy, Global Crossing's questionable accounting practices, and Wall Street's complicity - if there is a common thread in the scandals of the day, it is the central role played by the nation's elite professional-services firms. McKinsey & Co., the bluest of blue-chip consulting firms, gave Enron its strategy -- and even its former CEO. Jeffrey Skilling's model for Enron was to pattern it after a professional-services firm, to elevate the company above the lesser status of an energy company to the more rarified air of a knowledge-based, asset-light company. Andersen, among the most respected accounting firms, vouched for Enron's books. Enron was chock-full of MBAs and refugees from accounting and consulting firms. A few column inches away from Enron is Global Crossing and its founder and chairman, Gary Winnick, who is an alumnus of Drexel Burnham Lambert. The fingerprints of Wall Street's elite firms appear on some of the questionable transactions that are now under congressional scrutiny. And the world of professional-services firms -- a world to which most high-flying MBAs readily aspire -- is suddenly under intense review.

In that world, David Maister is the recognized expert. For more than 20 years, he has been studying professional-services firms. He has written about them, spoken to them, and consulted for them. A native of Great Britain, Maister holds degrees from the University of Birmingham, the London School of Economics, and the Harvard Business School. He taught at HBS for seven years before striking out on his own. His books (all published by the Free Press) include Managing the Professional Services Firm (1993), The Trusted Advisor (2000), Practice What You Preach: What Managers Must Do to Create a High-Achievement Culture (2001), and, most recently, First Among Equals (2002).

Fast Company sat down with Maister in his home in Boston to gain insight into the state of professional-services firms, their role in the current scandals, and the right way to be a professional.

What's your take on the business scandals that we're seeing today?

The car wreck that we're reading about in the newspapers was inevitable. It was going to happen, because professional-services firms don't practice what they preach. They're filled with smart people who understand what they should do to win. Those people talk about having a strategy with a longer-term view, but the operational reality is vastly different. They want the money right now. In practice, cash is everything.

That's how most professional-services firms operate. But are there fabulous accountants, lawyers, consultants, and investment bankers who do it right? Absolutely. What's missing are whole firms that are built on discipline and strategy. With one or two exceptions, cash is everything for a firm. It's also important to mention that the current scandals are not that special. They're special in size, but not in nature.

Is the problem with professional services due to a lapse in ethics?

The real problem is that people do what they're told. They're simply in compliance mode. What's even more interesting is that there's so much going on that's stupid. People are making the wrong calls on stuff that doesn't even come close to ethics. But that's just common practice. It's what happens inside firms, because that's how people have been raised in business. Before they even get to an ethical issue, they've been taught that if there's cash to be made, then make it. So it's not as if they were wonderful to begin with and then suddenly there was an ethical challenge and they lost their way. The message has always been that nothing trades off against cash.

Too many professional-services firms have never met a dollar they didn't like. The question that they need to ask themselves is, Do we believe in our own strategy and our own standards, even when we're tempted by cash? Good business is about having the guts to stick to a strategy. You can count on the fingers of a single maimed hand the number of professional-services firms that have the courage to stick to their strategy.

So what's wrong with the professional-services firms of today?

The problem is that they've been taught to act like businesses. But they've learned all the worst lessons of business and missed all the best ones. Tom Peters used to tell the story of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc. Someone asked Kroc what his secret of success was, and he answered, You have to be able to see the beauty in a hamburger bun. You might laugh at first, but when you think about it, that's got to be right.

What most professional-services firms don't understand is that to make the most money, you actually have to believe in the product or service that you offer and care for the customers or clients whom you serve. That isn't a religious argument; it's a business lesson. You can't dominate an industry unless you care passionately about what you do and the people you do it for.