Thank you for the article. As a long-time adviser to businesses with a particular emphasis on those in the middle-market I thought you summarized the diversity and value of consultants quite well. "Best Practices" is a term that is routinely bantered about and is too often misused. .

In my experience most "Best Practices" are those business practices that have been adopted by successful Institutional Behemoths and received extensive exposure. Unfortunately, there is common misconception that simply adopting one of these best practices will position the business for superior results.

Chuck, thanks for the post and for mentioning the post to me. I think you cover much of this very well. In my experience with consultants, I think you reference one of the sure-fire ways to fail using consultants.