I'm Sorry I Broke Your Company: When Management Consultants Are the Problem, Not the Solution Paperback – January 7, 2013

Remember that businesses are human enterprises people working together to provide a product or service to other people. Don't treat them like machines.I first read this book in 2013 when I was still a consultant. I remember thinking it was mostly right, amusing, but a tad cynical. Now I am retired after 37 years as a consultant and looking back at my career and I think it is entirely right, uses humor to drive the points home, and every consultant and client should read it.Some gems: "Being a good manager is not that different frim being a good person." "General Eisenhower said 'Plans are useless; planning is essential" i.e. the value of a plan is in the talking about possible circumstances and outcomes. Karen's thinking experiment: Use management fads in another context (at home) is hilarious and worth the price of the book by itself.

I liked this book very much. It's refreshing in it's directness and sincerity. There's a real person talking here, with some very relevant perspectives. I am in the leadership development business, and she makes some very accurate criticisms of my industry. People are looking for magic formulas while sometimes ignoring the fundamentals. I appreciate her emphasis on the quality of human development that derives from great hands-on management and not so much from formal or academic training. A good book if you're willing to put aside your own prejudices and preconceived theories- I know Karen has probably made some enemies with this book. Good on her for telling it like it is.

This is yet another anti-consultants book title that does not match the book's content. Maybe the publisher likes to ride the wave of critical books about the consulting industry, fine, but then the book should be specific about how the author "broke the company". Far from it. On page 109, the author states that" I haven't personally broken any companies...". It's one thing to use a catchy title, it's another and quite dishonest to claim something you are not providing.That's the reason I rate this book 2 stars, to make a point that dishonesty should not pay.If the book were marketed as "how management fads cause more harm than good" or "how bad HR tools and performance systems demotivate your workforce", I would have awarded 4 or even 5 stars. Why? It's a very well written, partially funny, and important book that touches upon the core of many problems in Corporate America - the passion for implementing the latest management fad with total disregard for effectiveness and costs. I can only agree with Karen Phelan's observations about crazy HR systems, complicated and untested leadership tools, and other methods of questionable value. How much of the blame should go to management vs. consultants is hard to argue, but both sides have incentives to bring on new tools all the time. I think the book should be a must read for all HR people who really think that their tools and methods are effective and helping the company and its employees. Same goes for consultants, strategy departments, and all executives. I very much enjoyed the author's authenticity in describing her experience, stories, and limits of prescribing alternative approaches. In sum, this contrarian book is worth its money.

Over the last 30 or so years, quality and other Human Resource management systems have done a lot of damage in companies. On the surface, their goal appeared noble, but they resulted in changing behaviors that helped make companies successful into individuals gaming the system for their survival and personal benefit. With each new approach, company workers and middle management would attempt to comply, but would note with dismay the personal toll it took on many of their people. Karen's book finally puts it all into perspective and exposes the consultants for what they really were - well meaning people who thought they were helping companies but who were actually helping to destroy them. All this time, companies thought they were improving their management and people, but ended up burning them out with bad systems, one after another. At worst, ranking systems, for example, destroyed the teamwork that made companies successful. Thank you, Karen!

Managing is hard and it's especially hard to manage people. It is seductive for managers to reach out to consultants offering shiny, super-sounding solutions to make their lives easier. But pause before you buy. Karen Phelan does an amazing job of pulling back the covers on many of these solutions and showing the resulting bed bugs that infect organizations. Yikes. Best, she offers some relief for getting rid of them and trying healthier alternatives. The best part for me was when she takes my field, HR and leadership development, to task. We have unwittingly perpetrated many over-wrought, wooly headed performance management, succession planning and leadership development tools that managers are routinely asked to put up, and sadly, often do. Leaders, if something feels wrong and doesn't make good sense to you, reach for Karen's book. You just might get the insight and courage to "just say no" to nonsense.

Ms. Phelan presents a number of cautionary tales about the management consulting trade. She makes it clear that there is no such thing as a silver bullet. She also points out that management consulting caters to fads, offering elaborate methodologies built on the slightest of foundations, i.e., a kernel of truth. Unfortunately, these methodologies replace human judgement for systems that are by nature very mechanistic and inflexible. So rather than buying into a fad that will leave you underwhelmed or possibly embarrassed ten years from now, she urges organizations to think, listen, and be observant. Being smart and adaptable is far preferable to any rigid, overwrought panacea consultants have to offer. This book should be mandatory for those who intend to hire management consultants as well as management consultants and those thinking of pursuing a career in management consulting.

Interesting and honest take on the art of consulting. The premise is that consultants try to make the client's problem fit a particular 'cookie-cutter' solution rather than finding the right solution for the client's unique problem. A bit too anecdotal but a good read.

What a wonderful book! In an truly entertaining and humour-filled style, Phelan disects in a good mixture of thorough research and personal experience what happens when consultants apply boiler-plate solutions and clients become dependent on the advice os people more interested in bookings and billings than in really helping the client. Not necessarily because they do not want to, but often do not know how to really help, are too focused on their own career progression and on what it takes to make partner to be able to really build a relationship within the client organisation and thus truly influence where it matters.There are two chapters I specifically like. The one where she looks at the impact of making everything measurable and tracking performance along prescribed matrices and skills. As I – and I guess many others as well – have experienced too, this kills all long term focus and skill developments and actually undermines business success. Good (academic) references are given here as well, so worth a read.The second chapter that got me smile was where she disects the innumerable leadership models around, which all try to tell people exactly how to behave or who to copy to become a good leader, with absolutely no success. Instead, she postulates, just being good at establishing interpersonal realationships does the trick. And if I look at the success a training programme had I helped establish with a large consulting firm 15 years ago and that is still running unchanged, which had exactly this as a focus, building stronger relationships, then I must say, Ms Phelan has a point!Worth reading for consultants and clients, who may be able to build better and longer term relationships to benefit of both businesses.

Working in big companies that used the big five consultants i can not agree with the statement. But in medium sized companies and at non profits, indeed management consultants broke often the institution.Please note that i loved Karen's story but you must like her writing style (sometimes elaborating a little bit too much)

Amazingly awesome book must read for those who are in business

I hope I have a chance to meet Karen one day. I share it with any consultant I have the opportunity to converse with. Along with "the THREE RULES" it is one of the 2 best business books ever written.