Ok so my hypothesis is that a consulting firm is a good place to work at if and only if the partners are involved in day-t0-day business.
Once the partners move on from doing day-to-day work into purely managerial roles – where they only manage their teams and interact with clients, they are no longer concerned about the quality of work, or the career development of their employees. All they are concerned about is the billing, and as long as they can sell their team to the client, and keep the client happy, that is all they care for.
Sooner or later, I hope to start a consulting firm. The basic idea has taken seed in my head, and once it’s firmed up enough I’ll let people know. However, at this point in time, I want to assure whoever will be my future employees that I don’t intend to grow the firm too large. I don’t have that much of a passion for managing people, so the thrill for me will be in doing the work that I want my consulting firm to do. And that way, the proud and arrogant man that I am, I’ll ensure that the quality of work at my firm doesn’t dip.
Interesting! I have a consulting company and also believe that a large firm can never deliver great value to clients. What sort of a consulting company are you thinking about? Might be useful to discuss! 🙂
If you promise not to unleash full on psycho boss level fundaes, in seven years, I’m applying.