When you're responding to a request for a proposal from a client and you know the opposition is strong, there is a desperate urge to find something magic within your firm's bag of tricks that can make you stand out.
Which of course there usually isn't. A hypothetical conversation might go like this 'our competitors will have a tool they can deploy to this problem. Do we have anything like that?'
'Well, on a job a bit like this in an industry nothing like this we did put a few questions into a spreadsheet as part of the work'
'Bingo - that's a tool. Let's give it a catchy title and take a screenshot of it so it looks jazzy in the proposal.'
'But it's just a spreadsheet with some questions in it, many of which are irrelevant'.
'Doesn't matter. I love it. Put it in. It's an 'accelerator' now'.
And so comes the task of figuring out a name for something that never existed and will almost certainly not be used if the job is won.
That's consulting. In other firms. Not mine. Of course.
Embelishment is a word that liars came up with to polish their trail. Consultants like to 'embelish' their track record. Part of the deceit is using words that no one really understands - they're designed to obscure, befuddle, bring opacity and make things sound richer than they are.
The sad fact about this trait in consultants is that the secret to real success in consulting is being able to explain nuclear fusion in simple terms to your granny.
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