A Brief History of Management Consultants
Easterbrook, Gregg
A Brief History of Management Consultants Who are these people and why are we paying them so much money? BY GREGG EASTERBROOK NEWS ITEM: FRANKLIN COVEY, THE “life management” firm...
...Drink plenty of expensive mineral water to flush your body of toxins...
...I mean, to read “wisdom literature,” like your brochure says...
...Make lists before you plan to do something, not afterward...
...CLINTON: Well...
...Real work...
...It is a process...
...Here, slip it on...
...Edward de Bono, a management consultant whose success has enabled him to buy a small island in Venice, has advised many corporations, and the government of Singapore, on his theory of “lateral thinking,” which is said to unleash creativity and an outpouring of wealth...
...GALILEO: Torture...
...Its client list boasts the Department of Energy, which has spent at least $500,000 on Covey workshops...
...HENRY FORD: Are you sure we have to do this...
...SCENE: Camp David, Thanksgiving week of 1994...
...Just like businesses and government agencies all over the country have real work they should be doing, rather than engaging in touchy-feely management-consultant mumbo-jumbo...
...COVEY: Mr...
...No value judgments or eurocentric linear comments will be permitted...
...Anthony,” she said with her piercing wit, “why would I want to walk across blazing coals barefoot?’ And I replied, “Highness, the real question is, why would you want to pay several thousand dollars to walk across blazing coals barefoot.’’ Yet hundreds of corporate managers and government officials do this every year...
...very little of what you’ve said makes any sense whatsoever, but since you’ve been promoted on PBS, you must be respectable...
...CLINTON: You see, the Republicans have just taken over the House, and I need advice on - COVEY: Mr...
...The Swiss guards blanch and turn away...
...MALE FACILITATOR: Life training is not something one “gets over with...
...It’s very dark side...
...and President Bill Clinton, who spent a day being privately tutored by Steven Covey during Thanksgiving week of 1994...
...Now nothing frightens me...
...ANTHONY ROBBINS: ait, he’ll come around...
...FEMALE FACILITATOR: CILITATOWRe :c an’t “tell” you anything...
...BRADLEY: That's so judgmental...
...Wear expensive shirts...
...Ford...
...Linda Tripp, a trusted aide, shows in Steven R. Covey...
...You can’t have service industries until you can move goods...
...Robbins, the seven-foot-tall author of the bestseller Awake the Giant Within, is famous for askmg clients to walk barefoot across hot coals...
...the federal departments of Defense, Interior, and Transportation...
...Anthony Robbins pays Navajo flute music on a portable CD...
...Feeling your way to spiritual dissipation of problems is the goal of life management...
...corporations send managers to retreats such as this...
...Make proactive lists...
...What do you say we all adjourn to Hilton Head...
...President William Jefferson Clinton sits in his study, where an intern is assisting him...
...Our business is to do hardly anything and keep everything...
...corporations such as AT&T, Intel, and General Electric...
...NEWS ITEM: Anthony Robbins, a “peak performance coach,” recently had a private session with Bill and Hillary Clinton to advise them on “the power of positive thinking...
...Actual Innovation Network event...
...NEWS ITEM: News and wire reports indicate that corporate and personal training companies are a growth industry, signing numerous contracts with both businesses and government agencies...
...Don’t you see what this means...
...Henry Ford sits with several engineers, poring over design drawings...
...Write on your list, “Deny, deny, deny...
...Generals Omar Bradley, Dwight Eisenhower, and Matthew Ridgway enter, escorted by trainers of the Innovation Network...
...And to sell the Model T in California, we’ll need certification from the State Board of Self Esteem...
...It makes me feel synergistic...
...I can’t prioritize in this atmosphere...
...SPECIAL INQUISITOR STARR: his is not the result I wish to leak to the media...
...Then we’ll all come back for Sparkle Day and tequila tasting by the pool...
...I know you can realize your goal of selling franchised prepackaged ginsana wraps...
...I would have liked to go out to the life-management resort facility your company runs in Sundance, Utah...
...I assume your seminars will help them deal with problems like that...
...BRADLEY: Let’s move out...
...The Ned Hermann Group, which frequently holds seminars for state and local governments, is now marketing its Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument, which “identifies thinking styles and preferred work elements...
...COVEY: Mr...
...Solving problems...
...CLINTON: Should I be scared now...
...Then keep the lists in your pocket in a Franklin Day Planner, as my publicists say with a perfectly straight face that one person in 3.5 in Michigan does...
...LAWYER: To get regulatory approval, yes...
...Empty your minds, and the answers will come...
...Career Track, a Colorado company that teaches “critical thinking skills,” has staged conferences for the mchigan Department of Civil Service...
...HENRY FORD: It’s a baseball cap...
...SECRETARY: Mr...
...HENRY FORD: It’s decided...
...Do you focus on your goals...
...Employees of his corporation are required to complete all telephone conversations with the phrase, “Have a great day...
...some 2,900 school districts...
...COVEY: Absolutely not...
...Now, form a circle and hold hands . . . (Several months later...
...If you focus and globalize your thinking, you will see that service industries are the wave of the future...
...COVEY: And I have found that I can empower myself to synergize a spiritual paradigm shift...
...RIDGWAY: This is horseshit...
...President, are you aware that my book The Seven Habits of High4 Effective People was on The New Yo& Times bestseller list for 270 weeks, yet all this book really says is that people should make lists and pursue goals...
...Copernicus has proven it...
...ANTHONY ROBBINS: Oh, no, management consultants are a far greater threat to Western civilization than any medieval force...
...It cannot be measured in restrictive, eurocentric linear terms like “accomplishment” or “product!’ EISENHOWER: Tell us what you can fast, we’ve got to get back to London...
...I did it...
...He may be the first “author” to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, but even when he’s standing on a chair or desk I am taller...
...CLINTON: You mean, cut back...
...CLINTON: That’s mighty fine advice, but - COVEY: Are you aware that major corporations pay my company millions of dollars to have recent college graduates conduct seminars in which they play Native American chant CDs and tell people to make lists and have goals...
...Look at it exactly seven times daily...
...That’s better...
...EISENHOWER : I see by the Internet that our forces wei-e repulse d at Normandy...
...Later, in the Santa Ynez Mountains...
...Actually I like to do things on my desk, too...
...Executive suites of The Inquisition Inc., a Delaware-chartered corporation...
...The earth revolves around the sun...
...The new federal lateral-thinking impact statement law requires it...
...Actual Steven Covey quote.] MONICA: So if I’m subpoenaed I should just say it was a spiritual experience...
...CLINTON: Say, that’s good...
...According to Forbes magazine, some 72 percent of large U.S...
...The firm, which puts its revenues at $50 million annually, is so successful that Robbins now owns an entire Fijian island, plus a California estate with a helipad...
...RIDGWAY: Dark side...
...Each year, Franklin Covey holds seminars for 750,000 people from corporations, government agencies, and schools, and says it has “certified more than 14,000 in-house corporate facilitators...
...CLINTON: (They embrace passionately...
...Your responses will teach teamwork, empathy, and co-awareness...
...What you call “real work” leads to frustration, exhaustion, labor-management disputes, accidents, political controversies, lawsuits, anger, and hard feelings...
...On Hat Day, group members “wear each other’s hats,” building trust or at least exchanging head lice.] BRADLEY: Let’s get this over with...
...My workplace environment is sexually hostile...
...FACILITATOR FROM CAREER TRACK: That would deplete resources...
...Stay focused...
...So just who understands “real” work...
...CLINTON: Well, doesn’t everybody - COVEY: Lists...
...You must resolve this crisis through metaphorical management and mutual co-dependence...
...Sessions may also include meditation and Native American chants...
...There was that regrettable incident when the plutonium canisters were sent by FedEx to the Ben & Jerry’s factory and mixed in with the Rainforest Crunch...
...MALE FACILITATOR : No, no...
...corporate managers relax by an Olympic-sized pool, leering at young women in swimsuits...
...CONSULTANFTR OMV ISION3 60: This is a place of business...
...NEDH ERMANINt is: impossible to analyze throughput: unleash creativity, or acquire unlimited wealth without the Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument...
...Pat Riley, coach of the Miami Heat, charges $25,000 for a one-hour “success motivation lecture...
...With my metaphysical guidance, you will walk the coals unharmed...
...OK, forget that point...
...In the distance the red glow of molten metal can be seen...
...FEMALE FACILITATOR: What interesting khaki caps, are they from The Gap...
...NEWSIT EM: Innovation Network, a management training firm, has begun offering week-long “convergences” at a Santa Barbara resort hotel...
...BY GREGG EASTERBROOK NEWS ITEM: FRANKLIN COVEY, THE “life management” firm founded through Stephen R. Covey’s bestseller, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, announced that its 1997 revenues totaled $433 million...
...MALE FACILITATOR : You are resisting...
...COVEY:(Climbs on desk, stands...
...CLINTON: Thank you for coming...
...FEMALE FACILITATOR: Help ! Help...
...Forest Service to stage an employee retreat...
...CLINTON: That millions of dollars a year are going down the drain...
...The sort of work management consultants do leads to high incomes, pleasant accommodations, fine wines, sexual diversion, ego gratification, beautiful locales, easy-going conversation with the rich and famous - and no nagging, actual product...
...Postal Service...
...To me, it’s a $7,50O-a-day consulting fee...
...Cardinal, I refuse to sign...
...It makes me feel fulfilled...
...When not meeting with the Clintons, Anthony Robbins Associates hosts “team consciousness” retreats for corporate managers, and has staged retreats for California state agencies and other government offices...
...COVEY: We are not human beings having a spiritual experience...
...Attendees are coached by “facilitators” and offered such courses as “Learning to Listen Through Drumming” and “Metaphorical Speaking...
...President, actually dealing with problems is old-fashioned, linear thinking...
...There we will be confronted with a simulated crisis...
...The company has sold 12 million books, including The Ten Natural Laws of Time and L$e Management...
...The five of us are going to hike up into the Santa Ynez Mountains, carrying only organic provisions of course...
...GALILEO: What is it you want from me...
...The more people who pay me for this nonsense, the more often I get to fly my Gulfstream to Fiji to lie on the beach with native girls...
...Everyone will realize your link was spiritual...
...EDWARD DE BONO: Think laterally, as I describe in my historic “book,” From Somatic to de Bono Thinking [actual title...
...Special events include outdoor barbecues, riding and windsurfing, and Sparkle Day...
...ANTHONY ROBBINS: ertainly nothing crass or material or commercial...
...CLINTON: Now about those Department of Energy contracts...
...Do you s y nergize...
...RIDGWAY: Now we're getting somewhere-war games...
...Western civilization stands at the gates of its demise...
...My people over there have been having a few problems with little things like managing nuclear waste...
...Malung products...
...ANTHONY ROBBINS: No, you fatuous stargazer, my financial potential...
...No references of any kind to race, gender, age, or disabilities may be made by anyone...
...Keep moving...
...GREGG EASTERBROOK is a contributing editor of The Washington Monthly, the Atlantic Monthly, and U.S...
...EDWARD DE BONO...
...We can only draw out the wisdom you already possess...
...Whoops, that’s a copyrighted phrase...
...President, hugs build synergy...
...PAT RILEY: Look sharp...
...That I have discovered one of the universal laws of mankind - that people will listen to any kind of drivel at all if it gives them an excuse to go to a vacation resort at someone else’s expense...
...NED HERMANN: YOu are so linear...
...The company notes that “one in 3.5 people in the state of Michigan carry a Franklin Day Planner,” a device for keeping lists...
...Galileo Galilei is dragged in by Swiss guards...
...ANTHONY ROBBINS: Look upon me...
...CLINTON: Really, if it’s all the same to you - COVEY: Then hug your intern over there...
...I will die before I renounce the truth...
...News & World Report...
...GALILEO: Soothe, thou art a tall man...
...COVEY: A brilliant young lady...
...RIDGWAY: Our throughput transactional quotient is up again this week...
...An unusually tall man stands near a desk that adjoins a pillory...
...GALILEO: You really are a genius...
...Galileo removes his sandals and walks confidently across the blazing embers...
...His company is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol FC...
...I want you to realize your true potential by walking across these hot embers...
...The cost is $1,595 per person for the sessions alone: Travel, room, and meals are additional...
...They do it because it unleashes potential...
...I’ll mention that to my trusted aide Dick Morris...
...but completes the walk...
...We have an invasion to plan...
...Windsurfers frolic along a beach...
...I shall cross the coals then, and without fear...
...MALE FACILITATOR:Isn't that a glorious sunset...
...HENRY FORD: People need transportation...
...You should have energy-flow contact with this woman once a day...
...Be synergistic...
...Sure...
...Innovation Network clients include the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S...
...COVEY: And now it’s time to get in touch with our synergy...
...Are you aware that the U. S. armed services have hired my company for this purpose...
...Since I mentioned it, you will have to send me an extra $20,000...
...HENRY FORD: what are you taking about...
...HENRY FORD: Yes...
...GALILEO: But I tell you it’s true...
...We have real work to do...
...Your business is to engage in backbreaking labor to build a disputed product and, if very lucky, return 10 percent on equity...
...To unlock your true potential, we have called in a consultant...
...President, are you proactive...
...President, I advise empowering your bonds by giving her heartfelt gifts...
...Strategic Success Systems, a Baltimore firm, holds selfesteem conferences for schools, firms, and government agencies, and offers clients a chance to meet with its president, Darlene Butler, who holds the title, The First Lady of Positive TalkTMV...
...I have unlocked my personal potential...
...Franklin Covey products include the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families” audio tapes, a “One Day Getting to Synergy Workshop,” and a “Three Day Time Quest Management Workshop...
...RIDGWAYS:h ow me the son of a bitch who did this to you, and I’ll punch his teeth out...
...SPECIAL INQUISITOR STARR: Your right brain betrays you, Brother Galileo...
...It’s the consultants...
...ision 360, a Florida firm, recently charged the County Commission of West Palm Beach $10,500 for the clerk of the Circuit Court and her aides to attend a three-day retreat at a Vero Beach golf resort...
...Young man you have no idea what the real dark side - EISENHOWER: Matt, the president feels it is necessary that we be exposed to the principles of metaphorical management before we launch D-Day...
...COVEYN: No...
...Breathe in, then breathe out...
...Cancel the Model T I am going into the metaphorical management facilitation business...
...FEMALE FACILITATOR: Oh no, nothing so dark side...
...the US...
...Are you saying that the Inquisition has resorted to torture...
...Global Visions, a California firm specializing in “Real Time Strategic Change,” has hosted conferences for major corporations such as Ford and Marriott, and was recently paid about $500,000 by the US...
...Fixes an evil gaze on Galileo...
...HENRY FORD: ut I‘ve got to make the final design decisions for the Model T COUNSELOR FROM GLOBAL VISIONS: You shouldn’t try to do anything...
...We should hug...
...Galileo lets fly a few “Holy Madonnas...
...MONICA: (Jumps up eagerly...
...Robbins asserts that mystical secrets locked in the right-side of the brain can be unleashed using his techniques, and that in outpouring of creativity and wealth will follow...
...But relax, I’m not in business to hurt my client’s feet, I am in business to pull the wool over their eyes...
...To the untrained eye this may appear to be a baseball cap...
...We are spiritual beings having a human experience...
...Where is your vision...
...Baby, I want you to get a Franklin Day Planner...
...You’ll fit right in, today is Hat Day...
...SCENE: The Vatican, 1633...
...President, do you make lists...
...Nobody gets the tequila unless they follow the rules...
...ANTHONY ROBBINS: Princess Diana, with whom I was very, very close, and who personally credited me with her self-realization [actual claim by Robbins], once asked me the same thing...
...COVEY: No...
...CLINTONG:o ahead...
...A light snow falls on the Maryland mountains...
...SCENE: A factory in Detroit, 1908...
...I am now going to read to you from a chapter of Unlimited Pmer, one of my “books,” about how I realized my own charm and charisma . . . GALILEOI: recant...
...Then, exactly seven times a day, take out your list and look at it...
...GALILEO: Why would I want to...
...MALE FACILITATOR: That's why we're going to send you on a stimulation...
...SCENE: A resort hotel in California, May 1944...
...Maximize time use and billing opportunities by traveling by helicopter...
...A foreman, a lawyer, and a shop steward are nearby...
...Creating jobs...
...Coast Guard, and the Patent and Trademark Office...
...When the going gets tough, the tough hire agents...
...You should just do...
...Now I am much taller than you...
...I’m planning to sell cars...
...I hear that government agencies and major corporations spend tens of millions of dollars per year to send people to your resort, where the food and the snow bunnies are fourstar...
...buses shuttle in and out for winery tours...
...THE FIRST LADY OF POSITIVE TALK: You can do it...
...Now the simulated crisis...
...Covey, once the subject of a PBS documentary, asserts that he has discovered “the universal value system of all mankind...
...Do you mind if I stand on your desk...
...Real” work...
...Don’t foul in the backcourt...
...People are saying the invasion was poorly planned and seemed leaderless...
...GALILEO: Their inner potential...
...I sense negative energy...
...HENRY FORD: All right then, as long as none of them works for the Patent Office...
...CLINTONA: bout this making lists, my point is, doesn’t everyone - COVEY: Mr...
...HENRY FORD: Get these people out of here...
...Just what Native American peoples in their high spiritual awareness used to experience before corporate voracity disturbed Mother Earth to build things like, well, like the resort hotels my company uses...
...It is not a goal or a destination...
...ANTHONY ROBBINS: Much taller than Steven R. Covey...
Vol. 30 • March 1998 • No. 3
