Our latest White Space quality ratings report marked the first time we’d looked (in any scientific way at least) at consistency in the quality of thought leadership published by consulting firms. Doing so threw up some interesting results.

Consistency on its own isn’t necessarily a good thing of course: it’s possible to be consistently awful. But for any firm which has it in itself to produce high-quality material (which is most firms) it’s critical. Without it there’s always the danger that clients – who won’t read everything – pick up the bad stuff and assume it’s representative of a firm’s entire oeuvre.

We found firms dividing into three groups: the consistently good (a very small number), the consistently bad (a slightly larger number) and the consistently inconsistent (the biggest group by far).

But here’s the thing: the completely inconsistent appeared to be capable of producing pieces of thought leadership that were much better than the consistently good ever did. The consistently good were – well, they were consistently good – but they were never brilliant. Which rather begs the question: is it possible to be consistently brilliant?

Sport provides us with a useful comparison here because we see the same sort of thing playing out: the sportsmen and women that we think of as being truly outstanding are often flawed, either technically or psychologically. Who was a better tennis player: John McEnroe or Pete Sampras? We probably think of McEnroe as being more gifted, more brilliant – more capable of doing something astonishing. But he was also capable of losing the plot completely. By contrast, Sampras was both technically and psychologically consistent. Indeed there’s quite a convincing argument which says that he was better than he seemed precisely because he was so consistent: that in the absence of contrast, the good bits just didn’t look as good. Let’s be a bit hard on him and say that he wasn’t quite as brilliant.

And then along came a trio of players – in the shape of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic – who were not only amongst the most brilliant that the world had ever seen, but who were also remarkably consistent. Why? The answer no doubt has something to do with chance, but I think there may be something else at play here. Tennis players these days routinely employ the services of sports psychologists whose entire profession is dedicated to making sure that bad shot doesn’t follow bad shot, and that their charges are less likely to smash their raquets and hurl a volley of abuse at the umpire.Block it out. Go to your safe place. Find your inner winner. Execute.

So, what’s the equivalent in thought leadership terms? Clearly authors could have sports psychologists standing over them as they fire up Word, shouting “you da man, Alan! Bring it home! Own the debate about regulatory compliance!” but I think the answer might be quite a bit simpler (and considerably less irritating) actually. Imagine if tennis players could ask ATP officials only to consider the matches in which they played well, when compiling the world rankings. OK, so it wouldn’t make it any easier to make it to no.1, but at least everyone would end up appearing to be consistently brilliant. Well, I think consulting firms can do just that: the majority of firms in the biggest “consistently inconsistent” group regularly publish material which is remarkably good and publish a fairly hefty volume of material which is strong. All they need to do to outperform the “consistently good” group is stop showing the world the awful bits and nobody will be any the wiser. It really is that simple. And yes, I really am serious.

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Edward Haigh is a leading commentator on the consulting industry at Source, who provide specialist research on the management consulting market to consultants and their clients.



© Edward Haigh 2014. All rights reserved.
Reproduced by permission.