Four Criteria for Evaluating Organizational Consultants
You'll know a consultant and the extent to which the advice they give you is flawed by the underlying theoretical models that their advice is based on. So argues Chris Argyris in his powerful and eye-opening book, " Flawed Advice and the Management Trap ." Argyris analyzes representative examples of over 100 books and myriad articles published by the world's most respected business gurus, and then uses his own theoretical model (theory of action) to evaluate the advice they give readers. His study includes the likes of Stephen Covey, John Kotter, Jon Katzenback, Peter Drucker and other business-literature experts. He concludes that much of the advice given by these authors is appealing and even compelling, but most of it is not actionable . In other words, even if a manager could fully implement the advice these business luminaries give them, the resulting corrective actions would not lead to the kind of positive change and sustainable improvement that the author