Avoiding 'bad dinner guests': how to find the right consultant.

• Author: Warter, Rick
• Position: Column

It's enough to make business leaders queasy.

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You have a critical project that requires outside assistance, but you've heard of consultants who behave like bad dinner guests. They never finish and leave. Or they show up with a group of young-looking "guests" in tow.

Even worse, they promise to bring dessert and show up with a single slice of pie. When you ask where the rest of the pie went, they offer to bring it--in exchange for a sizable check.

These nightmare scenarios are rare, but they happen. The good news is that you can manage those risks by making smart choices up front. Here are some lessons from the field about how executives can select the best consultants for their businesses:

Begin with the end in mind. If you do nothing else, do this. Define your business problem, establish clear criteria for success and involve key internal players in the discussion. If you haven't done this, then you aren't ready to hire consultants to help solve your business problem. If you hire them anyway, they may go in search of a problem--or get halfway through a project only to find it's not what you needed. Defining your objectives up front saves you money down the road.

Understand when hiring consultants makes sense--and when it doesn't. If you have a project that requires specialized skills that are outside your normal business needs, then hiring consultants works. Consultants also can act as temporary additions to your work force when you have a short-term need for experienced project leaders who can provide objective analysis. You can reap long-term benefits if you hire consultants to lead projects while coaching employees on new skills. Know the difference between coaching and avoiding conflict, however. It's not smart to pay consultants as an end-run around employee performance issues.

Check your communications fit. Your consultants need to communicate well and be open to questions and ideas. They're there to solve your business problems, after all. If consultants use too much jargon or push a solution you don't like, that indicates a problem. Stop and make sure you can talk through the issues. Remember that your consultants will need to motivate and work with your staff. If they're speaking an unfamiliar language or insisting on a rigid methodology or approach, the project won't succeed.

Ask actual case questions. When...