Need a pain killer?
For executive leaders, the decision to bring in recognised Strategy Advisors becomes most urgent when the stakes are high, time is limited, and internal objectivity or capability is insufficient.
Typical “now or never” situations include:
- When the company faces a fundamental shift in its environment or business model, such as disruption by new technologies, structural decline of core markets or other shocks with a rapid need for pivoting from one strategic scenario to another.
- Performance crisis, when results deteriorate sharply and credibility is at risk. Profit collapse and market share erosion may call for a fast, fact-based diagnosis and a credible recovery plan that stakeholders can all trust.
- Leadership transitions and conflicts. A new CEO or misalignment within the executive team may call for neutral facilitation, strategic clarity and alignment.
- Operational stress in the organisation. If rapid growth outpaces current systems, multiple major initiatives collide or a crisis requires 24/7 capacity, it takes more bandwith.
- Even the simple statement “We know something is wrong, but we don’t know exactly what, and delay is dangerous” requires action. Consultants bring structured problem framing and fact-finding under uncertainty.
In summary, consultants and advisors become most urgently needed when there is a combination of high strategic or financial stakes, time pressure, need for independent judgement and specialised expertise and risk of irreversible decisions. These are moments when leadership cannot rely solely on internal experience, routines, or politics – and must buy clarity, speed and credibility.
The consultant is here to help
Consultants are coming in to solve problems for their customer and create measurable value. Top-tier strategy advisors (The MBBs), Big Four (Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG), other global players like Accenture, specialised consulting companies and even small boutique consultants describe their value propositions in different ways, but the phrase “We help our clients” is the core message.
How does the consultant describe their value proposition? Here are a few examples from leading players:
- Help leaders make better decisions under uncertainty and deliver measurable competitive advantage
- Help clients rethink processes, systems, and data to stay competitive and resilient
- Help clients solve their most critical, high-stakes problems and turn those solutions into measurable performance improvement
If you go deeper into the value propositions, you find key messages like this:
- Helping leaders define the real problem, not just the symptoms
- Bringing cross-industry insight and global best practices into client decisions
- Helping clients execute and sustain change – not just produce recommendations
Even if consultants are here to help companies with an urgent problem, the long-term value lies in the company’s ability to make better decisions under uncertainty and deliver measurable financial results. Leaders and employees need to make decisions grounded in updated insights and implement them into their organisational structure, systems, processes and human behaviour. Of course, consultants have a holistic perspective and they are prepared to help their client with this transition.
From a buyer’s perspective, it’s hard to find the best problem-consultant-fit. Generally, the consultant is a smart person with relevant experience and likeable behaviour. With a high sense of urgency, there may not be time to search for the perfect match, but to choose advisors you already trust or advisors that make the best impression. Let’s make the best out of it!
The value gap
When management consultants are hired by a company in an urgent situation, both parties are trying to get an efficient introduction and collaborate and cooperate as best as they can. Unfortunately, it does not always work as well as planned. When senior leaders and management consultants start working together, friction usually does not come from incompetence, but from misalignment, incentives, and human dynamics under pressure.
Eight common problems are:
- Unclear problem. Leaders and consultants think they are solving the same problem, but different personal beliefs about root causes and “the real issues” are left unspoken.
- Weak sponsorhip. Leaders are not personally engaged, slowing decisions and accepting resistance in the organisation.
- Defensive behaviour. Consultants are seen as auditors or “corporate police” rather than partners, and managers fear evaluation, downsizing or loss of influence.
- Over-intellectualisation. Beautiful strategy decks with little practical execution, and recommendations that ignore organisational realities, do not change behaviour.
- Fancy communication. If consultants use jargon, frameworks and abstract language instead of crisp and clear messages, it creates irritation and loss of credibility.
- Lack of data. When key data is missing, unreliable or politically sensitive, or there is limited time with leaders to validate necessary decision data, it is hard to conclude.
- Not in this together. Some leaders abdicate thinking instead of using consultants as sparring partners, and some consultants cross the line into de facto management, creating role confusion and resentment instead of fostering the team feeling.
- Not invented here. Internal teams resist external ideas, regardless of quality, and implementation fails because ownership was never truly transferred.
Leaders expect immediate, tangible results from bringing in consultants. Return On Investment (ROI) – As Soon As Possible (ASAP). On the other hand, consultants emphasize insight, direction and long-term capability building. Disappointment arises when benefits are hard to attribute or slow to materialize.
What is the cost of failure?
The cost of failed or sub-optimal collaboration between leaders and consultants is usually far higher than the consulting fees. It shows up in several dimensions, and the bill could look like this:
Consultant analyses and reports that are not used or implemented – $ 1
Credibility loss for the CEO, executive team or the board of directors – $ 3
Personal loss of confidence and under/overreaction in future decisions – $ 3
Lock-in cost from commitment to flawed strategic investments – $ 5
Lost learning opportunity from weak implementation or impact – $ 5
Lost opportunity cost from poor or slow management decisions – $ 10
Change fatigue in the entire organisation, from repeated failed initiatives – $ 10
Reputational and brand cost from customers, competitors and investors – $ 10
In other words, the real cost of failure is rarely the invoice from the consultant. It is the compounded loss of time, trust, strategic momentum, and organizational energy at moments when the company could least afford it.
Closing the value gap
The best leaders treat consultants not as vendors of slides, but as temporary extensions of their organisation. They actively shape the conditions for success. Key practices include:
- Explicit about the real problem. They surface the uncomfortable issues early (power, incentives, capability gaps, sacred cows). They distinguish between the “stated” problem and the “true” problem. They align the top team on what question really must be answered.
- Define what value means. They define success in business outcomes (EBIT, growth, cycle time, market share), not only in deliverables. They agree on how impact will be tracked and when.
- Personally stay engaged. They spend real time with the team, not just in steering committees. They make key decisions quickly and visibly, signaling importance to the organization.
- Encourage constructive disagreement. They challenge assumptions, logic, and recommendations. They do not outsource judgment; they co-create it.
- Demand simplicity. They push for a small number of real strategic options, with trade-offs. They insist on “so what?” and “now what?”, not just analysis.
- Invest in communication. They role-model the behaviors the transformation requires. They communicate the story themselves, not through slides. They align incentives and find narratives and pathways for the new direction.
- Not ignore politics. They map stakeholders and likely resistance. They clarify decision rights and escalation paths. They use consultants to surface issues, but take personal responsibility for resolving them.
- Close the loop ruthlessly. They force explicit decisions, timelines, and accountabilities. They follow through on implementation reviews. They terminate or refocus work quickly if it is not creating value.
Successful collaborations happen when leaders and consultants explicitly align on:
- The real problem (not just the official one)
- Decision rights and sponsorship
- How tough messages will be handled
- What “value” truly means in behavioral and financial terms
Raising the bar: Employee engagement make change easier
In a successful collaboration, consultants do not only help leaders making better decisions, but also inspire many people to take an active part in the journey, even if it requires new ways of working.
When consultants deliberately focus on engagement drivers, not just analytical recommendations, results become more than short-term compliance:
- People feel heard and see themselves reflected in solutions
- New ways of working are adopted faster and more sustainably
- The organization builds internal capability for ongoing improvement
How to drive employee engagement?
There are widely used consulting frameworks and principles that top firms apply when the explicit goal is to increase engagement and inspire people to adopt new ways of working. Top-tier consulting firms have their own frameworks, supporting their value proposition and their differentiated position in the market. There are also more common models, like ADKAR, Kotter’s 8-step change model, Agile ways of working and the OKR framework.
The best leaders and consultants deliberately create:
- Psychological safety – People can speak truth, raise problems, and challenge ideas.
- Meaning – Work connects to purpose, customers, and societal impact.
- Ownership – Employees are not “resources” but co-authors of the future organization.
- Momentum – Visible progress builds belief faster than communication campaigns.
- Growth – People feel stronger, not judged, from the evaluation of progress
When consultants truly inspire engagement, they do not “roll out change”; they mobilize a collective learning journey where people understand the purpose, help design the solution, build new skills, and see real results quickly.
Visualising the journey with everyone on board
Transparency, visualisation and communication play a role for making all employees going in the same direction. In urgent situations and change processes, alignment is crucial to succeed. What’s the most efficient ways to succeed?
In urgent situations and major change, alignment is created less by long explanations and more by clarity, repetition, visibility, and shared rituals. The most efficient leaders and consultants focus on a small set of high-leverage practices:
1. One Clear “North Star” Story
Alignment starts with a simple, compelling narrative that answers four questions:
- What is happening? (Reality, not spin)
- Why must we change now? (Urgency)
- What are we aiming for? (Direction)
- What does this mean for me? (Personal relevance)
This story must be short enough to repeat in 2 minutes, emotionally honest and consistent across all leaders. No amount of dashboards can compensate for a confusing story.
2. Visualise What Matters
In urgent change and crises, rumors kill alignment. Establish a “Single Source of Truth”, where everyone refers to the same facts: One dashboard – One narrative – One roadmap
The best organizations make priorities, progress and problems physically and digitally visible:
- A few critical KPIs (5–10 max)
- Clear targets and gaps
- Owners for each metric
- Trend lines, not just snapshots
- Red / amber / green status
When leaders have these five elements visible in leadership rooms, team spaces, digital dashboards and town hall meetings, the visibility creates a shared reality, faster problem solving, less politics og more accountability.
3. Leaders are team role models
People align to what leaders do, not what slides say. When leaders act as one team, it creates trust and belief in the rest of the organisation:
- Leaders talk about the same priorities everywhere.
- They use the same language and metrics.
- They make decisions consistent with the change.
- They visibly stop old behaviors.
Leaders are in position to create and communicate visible early wins that inspire the resit of the organisation. Nothing aligns people like success stories, and even tiny moments is sometimes worth highlighting:
- Pick a few battles that matter.
- Mobilize cross-functional teams.
- Deliver results in weeks, not months.
- Celebrate them loudly.
Belief spreads faster than PowerPoint.
4. Frequent follow-ups with two-way communication
Instead of long steering committees and coordination meetings, these arenas are efficient:
- Daily or weekly stand-ups for top priorities
- Monthly deep-dives for strategic themes
- Town halls with real Q&A.
- Small-group dialogues.
- Quarterly direction resets
Each check-in answers:
- What changed?
- What decisions are needed?
- Where are we stuck?
- What will we stop doing?
- Who owns the next move?
In smaller teams, strategic priorities is translated into “Monday Morning behaviour”. Every function and team must answer: What will we do differently next week?
Rhythm beats brilliance, and alignment fails when strategy stays abstract. People must feel “I am part of this, not just informed about it.”
5. Align people with “One Shared Truth”
Complexity is the enemy of alignment. In urgent, high-stakes change, alignment is created by transparency and communication around one shared truth:
- Shared picture – visualization
- Shared rhythm – communication cadence
- Shared ownership – clear roles and responsibilities for committed results
- Shared belief – leaders are role models and share memorable moments
The fastest way to align an organization is to make the truth visible, the direction simple, the priorities few, the progress public, and the leadership behavior consistent.
The digital toolbox for consultants and companies
Across successful transformations and crisis situations, organizations typically use a small, integrated stack of digital tools that support their alignment needs:
- Clarity: Few priorities, clear owners
- Visibility: Everyone sees the same truth
- Cadence: Regular decision and review rhythm
- Consistency: Same story, same metrics, same behaviors
- Dialogue: Continuous two-way communication
Typical tools which are commonly used by companies:
- Strategy & OKR tool – Translate strategy into a small number of measurable objectives and cascade them across the organization.
- Performance dashboard – Make performance, risks, and progress visible in real time.
- Portfolio management tool – Connect strategic priorities to initiatives and resources
- Collaboration & Communication Platform – Enable fast, two-way communication and leadership visibility.
- Digital Whiteboard – Co-creation, workshops, and visual sharing of strategy, processes and change
- Initiative tracking tool – Track milestones, benefits, risks, and owners across large programs.
- Employee Engagement Feedback – Create fast feedback loops during change.
- Knowledge Platforms – Store information as One Single Source of Truth
The most effective digital alignment comes from leaders using a small, integrated set of tools that make direction, priorities, progress, and problems visible to everyone, every day, and linked to real leadership decisions.
The pain, the consultant and the tool
When business leaders feel the pain, the stakes are high, time is limited, and internal objectivity or capability is insufficient, they are calling for help. There is no room for failure.
With the right consultants on board, they get objectivity, expertise and capacity they don’t have, and structured problem-solving to make and implement high-impact decisions under uncertainty. If consultants can’t help them with this, the cost of failure is many times higher than the consulting fee.
Leaders in urgent situations need to see quick results and evidence for their new direction, their changed priorities and their behaviour for change management and strategy execution. How to ensure transparency, clarity and engagement?
Dobee is a loveable OKR tool made for companies, leaders and consultants on a shared mission. With Dobee, everyone has “One Shared Truth” and an easy way to see the progress they are making.
