Do Consultancies Create Dependencies?

Sometimes being a consultant feels like providing advice, but also chasing the raw materials needed to give it. As I approach the four-year mark of my current job helping high school students with their college applications, I have, unfortunately, become a bit more cynical about what "helping" entails. As much as the job seems to be rooted in collaboration between the knowledgeable advisors and youngsters motivated to absorb the knowledge and put it into action, the reality can sometimes be a bit different. Specifically, the amount of following up I do as part of the job is surprisingly high.

Had previously pointed out that college applications can sometimes involve manufacturing motivation where none exists. But even to fake something, one needs to be motivated enough by the ideal results. What if the counterparty cares so little about the results at all that they don't even bother to put in the minimal effort to keep lines of communication open? But somehow the consultants are still ultimately on the hook for providing the results? Then the advisor becomes a chaser and scheduler, pushing and pulling for anything, and sometimes just creates the results without any input. 

This sort of behavior no doubt sends the wrong signals to some students. They start to see payment as the replacement for effort, and the hired guns as responsible for output. They learn to become dependent and feel no guilt, believing that when push comes to shove, the consultants are there to deliver the results, independently if needed. Students are understandably busy juggling schoolwork with extracurriculars. If they can completely outsource the college application and essay writing components of their tight schedules, why would they rationally not?

The answer is the danger of dependency and how the mind normalizes it. Once admitted to college, life will not suddenly become less busy. Schoolwork only becomes more complicated and time-consuming, extracurriculars now have a real stake in exploring future careers, and building relationships with mentors now means much more than just getting a recommendation letter at the end. Used to outsourcing college applications, some instinctively find themselves dependent on a whole new set of consultants, this time for careers, graduate school applications, and finishing research papers.

Businesses are only too happy to see these dependencies become entrenched. Why just help students with college applications when there is much more to be helped? Why not create business models that maximize the lifetime value of each customer by handing them from one specialist to another, task after task, year after year? Consultants are no longer incentivized to get the students to think and work for themselves, but to ensure that they doubt their own capabilities and to conclude that they cannot live without the convenience of outsourcing whatever work they need to do to experts.

But not even the wealthiest families can pay for lifelong consulting. Plenty of college graduates can advise on applications, driving down the price of service. But as high school students turn into researchers and professionals in specific fields, there are fewer and fewer experts knowledgeable enough to help. They will ask for a premium to help out, if they can even be found. The cost of such help eventually no longer justifies the returns, measured in the form of future salaries or other quantifiable benefits to career and academic development.

So what happens when someone so used to depending on consultants for help is suddenly taken off that support, expected to swim or sink in what school or field they have gotten themselves into through the help that they had received before? Those who have been motivated and collaborative with their consultants will adapt quickly. After all, mentors with valuable advice can be found elsewhere without having to pay for the advice. The relationship just needs to be built based on mutual support, not a one-way street.

But the more dependent ones, I'm afraid, will struggle. Just like many struggle to think for themselves without validation from an AI-powered chatbot today, they will struggle to decide what and how they will focus on and prioritize without people feeding them the answers. The advice they receive today has become the guidelines for how they live, behave, and produce results. Being chased and asked for information is the structure they rely on to move forward. In a world where everyone thinks first and foremost about moving ahead of others, that isn't a recipe for success.