Erica reflects on how a knowledge gap used to be the way consultants made money, and how that has changed.
Bring in the experts or solve it ourselves?
We’re pretty good at solving problems, in operations. It’s kind of our thing: find it, solve it, rinse, repeat.
Certain problems persist though, despite the best efforts of our people. Frustrations abound as we try out solution after solution — but the issue keeps happening.
It may be very tempting at this point, for an industrial leader to call up an expert to come in and fix it. You know these types of consultants — tons of experience, lots of connections, not a problem they haven’t solved under the sun. They are the expert!
Thing is, these experts may lack the context you have for why these problems matter, and the motivation and ownership to solve them permanently.
What’s more, the knowledge gap that made them valuable in the first place is a lot smaller than it used to be — a little thing called the internet is responsible there!
What if I told you that, even if they are struggling to solve every problem now, your people are totally capable of expanding their capacity? (How? Message me — I’d love to explain!)
When you invest in your people instead of external experts, you build momentum and confidence. You keep the knowledge in-house and you grow your own experts. What do you think of that?