What does consulting mean?

Question

What does consulting mean?

Answer 1

Simply put, "consulting" means providing expertise, advice or recommendations to someone else whose responsibility it is to act.  

Good consultants solve problems for their clients.  Good consultants have some sort of expertise that their clients don't have.  

I am a professional consultant but anyone who has expertise of any kind and provides advice to others could be considered a "consultant."  If someone asks you for a recommendation for a good restaurant (and you tell them), then you are serving as a consultant.  

Consultants take a lot of heat from those who make fun of them.  Therefore, we consultants usually have a thick skin.  We don't get our feelings hurt very easily and some of us actually enjoy consultant jokes that are at our expense.  People may say that consultants are a "rip off" but your'e only worth as much as other people will pay you.  

One famous joke that illustrates how consultants work is this... A nuclear power plant was about to blow, so a consultant was called in.  The consultant came in, punched a few buttons in the control room and the situation was fixed.  When the consultant presented the client with a bill for $10,000, they said, "You were only there for 5 minutes and you're charging $10,000??  That's outrageous!"  To which the consultant replied, "The 5 minutes of my time only cost $5.  Knowing which buttons to push to avoid disaster costs $9,995."  

A great book on consulting is "Flawless Consulting" by Peter Block.  If you're interested, I highly recommend it.  

Good luck!

Answer 2

and provides a proactive view of some effects of paradigm shift, social engineering or interal strife.