Is management consulting just a fraud?

While trolling other blogs recently, I came across an old post (Nov, 2006) at joelonsoftware.com by Joel Spolsky wherein he gives a great, generic example of why management consulting is a fraud and a game. I also came across a paper from 2007 on the consultant-client relationship (Seidl and Mohe) which contained the following quote from the former CEO of Volkswagen:

"If you want to ruin a company, you only have to try fixing it with the help of external consultants".

Ouch, that really hurts. It also reminds me of that famous line about consultants, "A consultant is someone who takes your watch, tells you what time it is, then charges you $200."

Well, from what I have witnessed in my time as a consultant, much of it is a fraud with the watch analogy being very apt. I have seen consultants:

1) copy content from a previous consulting report produced a few years back, present it as their own findings, then charge the client for two weeks of work,
2) make up fake quantitiative data and gleefully submit it to the client as real,
3) cite content from the client's strategic plans and other documents as their own findings and conclusions,
4) launder money through a fake contract with an accomplice who was a manager in a government agency, and
5) engage in all other sorts of unethical and unbelievable behaviours.

The longer I stay in this field, the more of these ethical lapses I observe, and it causes me no end of concern. There are rotten apples in this field just as there are in other fields. Unfortunately, due to the esoteric nature of the work, consulting is a field ripe for con artists whose only skill is talking a good game. By the time the client discovers that there is no substance behind the talk, the consultant or firm has already made their money.

But I am here to testify that there is a portion of consulting that is not fraudulent, which does bring value to clients, and a proportion of consultants that really are skilled and sincerely care about their client's success. Future posts will discuss traits of this consultat sub-set.