Consulting Journal: Techniques

This article is reprinted from The Consulting Journal
http://www.consultingjournal.com

Techniques: Lone wolves

by David Blakey

Do teams always work well, or should we consider the lone wolf?

[Monday 8 December 2003]

Wolves usually live within a pack. Within the pack, each wolf must be able to provide at least its own requirements for food. The strength of the pack lies in the probability that, if one wolf fails to obtain food, the others will provide it. Each wolf may have an occasional period of bad luck and still survive.

Some wolves leave the pack. Old and sick wolves will usually leave the pack. They may be unable to obtain food regularly for themselves. They are a burden to the pack. Other wolves leave because they are good hunters and are low in the pack hierarchy. They may form packs of their own, in which they will be higher in the hierarchy. They may continue as lone wolves, providing for themselves.

Wolf packs do not come together for a single purpose and then disband. They are unlike project teams. There are two analogies with wolf packs. The first is a consulting firm and the second is a permanent team within a client.

The analogy with a consulting firm is a good one. A consulting firm depends upon professional consultants. Each of these consultants could survive as an independent consultant. They choose to work together because a firm probably has a smoother cash flow than an independent consultant. At any one time, some consultants will be engaged by clients and others will be prospecting for clients. Over time, each consultant may be supported by the rest of the firm. This will be because of external circumstances and not because the consultant is incompetent and needs to be supported for much of the time. Some consultants prefer to work as lone wolves and not join a pack. They may form a pack, of which they will be leader.

The analogy with a permanent team with a client is a poor one. It is worth making, however. It is sometimes assumed that a team will achieve more than its members could if they worked as individuals. The assumption can be expressed as ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’. In my experience, this is largely a myth. I have observed that a team is only as strong as its weakest member. If the team were composed entirely of effective workers, then the analogy would work, as it does for a consulting firm. Most client teams contain a number of weaker, less effective members, and these people have to be continuously supported by the rest of the team.

As well this, many clients insist that all their people operate within teams. This stifles the lone wolves. Some people can achieve more on their own than they can as a member of a team. They are natural lone wolves, but they are not allowed to leave the pack and survive on their own.

I believe that one major factor prevents clients from allowing lone wolves, and that is fear that they will achieve so much more than the pack can. These clients simply cannot afford to allow the real value of their teams to be measured against the real value of their individuals.

I have discovered teams in some clients that were the equivalent of packs of sick wolves. The clients' thinking seemed to be that grouping ineffective people into teams would increase the quality or quantity of their output.

This article has two arguments.

First, as a consultant, work in the environment that suits you best. You may work best in a pack or you may work best as a lone wolf. Neither of these is better than the other. It is just what fits each individual consultant.

Second, with clients, discourage them from forming or continuing teams that do not produce optimal performance. Remember that, in some circumstances, teams are the best way of doing the job. In other circumstances, they are not.