In Defense of Consultants: A Punch-Out Based Rant

One of my favorite games as a kid was Nintendo's Punch Out. Yep, I grew up in the 80s when this game was all the rage. While I could never get to Mike Tyson, much less beat him, I was able to get pretty far.

Don Flamenco (pictured above) was one easy victim for even Nintendo neophytes. Just a simple left-right combination repeatedly would quickly knock him out. Hey, Don was no Von Kaiser.

I reference Don because, as a consultant, sometimes I feel like him. What's more, I suspect that I'm not alone. Well, today I'm going to stand up for every consultant unjustifiably raked over the coals.

Now, I'm not completely naive, at least about these types of things. I've known for a long time about the blame game. One of the first things that I learned as a newbie consultant in 2000 is that (insert name of problem) is always my fault. I can document my concerns, write status reports until my fingers bleed, and copy the world on an email. However, after I leave a client site, I won't be there to defend myself against the invariable quips that "he never told us that" or "well, that's the way that Simon told us to do it."