A new kind of partnership: what consulting should look (and feel) like
The recently published book “The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps Our Economies” makes some pretty damning claims about the consulting industry. The authors suggest that consulting companies actually stunt the clients they purport to serve by denying them the ability to build institutional capabilities. A direct quote reads: “The more businesses outsource, the less they know how to do, causing organizations to become hollowed out, stuck in time and unable to evolve.”
It may come as a surprise that our first reaction was not to cringe, but to exclaim an emphatic “YES! This is what we have been saying all along!” Furthermore, we have been actively working as a firm to engage very differently with our clients to make sure they – and we – don’t go down that road to ruin.
The book also prompted us to put pen to paper to share our point of view and advice to all companies out there – whether they are our clients or not – on how to expect more and get more from their consultant partner. Below we share a recent conversation on this topic and what your organization can take away.
The good and the bad about consulting
Anne: Kathryn, you are a long-time consultant with a deep love of consulting. Why would you want to share with the world what’s wrong with something you care about so deeply?
Kathryn: When I “found” consulting, I was in awe that companies would pay you money to have so much fun helping organizations solve really difficult problems. But over time, I lost faith in the big consulting model. I saw it delivering too little value, creating too much dependency, while consulting firms keep making money doing the same things over and over again because their clients didn’t learn how to do it themselves.
Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that there is a place for consultants. Organizations and leaders need outside perspective, and we bring that from working across many companies and industries. They need someone to hold up an objective mirror to see what is no longer obvious to them. They sometimes need skills in the moment that they won’t need over the long term. Those are all situations where consultants make sense. But organizations need to be careful about what they outsource – they cannot outsource thinking, judgment or accountability for business decisions, leadership, and results.
Anne: You mentioned “over and over again” – isn’t that part of the consulting business model? To turn one engagement into the next engagement?
Kathryn: I love having long term relationships with clients. You learn how to complement each other’s skills and knowledge. You build a strong foundation of trust to try new approaches. You stand on the shoulders of your collective accomplishments. But I never want to solve the same business problem with a client over and over again, because that means they haven’t increased their capability and I’ve failed. If clients are not better off – more skillful, more capable, more confident – after our engagement or initiative, we haven’t earned our money. If they have to hire a consultant one to three years later to solve the same problem, was the problem solved in the first place?
Anne: I am interested in your response to this quote from the book, “The more businesses outsource, the less they know how to do, causing organizations to become hollowed out, stuck in time and unable to evolve.”
Kathryn: Unfortunately, it’s an accurate description of how the industry has evolved. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way. Companies hire consultants for all kinds of services, but here’s the key: Don’t hire someone to make the decision for you or do the job for you. Instead, benefit from external expertise and build internal capability at the same time. This is the best of both worlds, and it’s actually why I came to BTS in the first place.
The founders of BTS and I share a common origin story. BTS was founded by former management consultants who also got tired of making recommendations that never went anywhere in organizations. They started building high-fidelity simulations that their clients could use to help people more deeply understand the new strategic direction. Then, the portfolio of tools and approaches grew from there.
Changing the approach to consulting for the better
Anne: Explain more about the role and power of simulation and practice, and how they help change the consulting game for clients.
Kathryn: I’ve learned over time that you can’t tell anyone about change, but you can help them experience it so that they become owners and authors of the future. BTS’s history of leveraging simulation to make strategy and behavior concrete and practical with real tools, approaches, and expertise is different. I saw breakthrough possibilities in the way BTS created alignment and excitement about a future that felt real and tangible for their clients. It was compelling for me when I first saw it – and a large part of what I saw was missing in the larger consulting space.
The future is never as scary as we think it is when it only lives in our head. When you can simulate the future, when you can “work through it” with others, then it becomes concrete. Even when the future is uncertain, after experiencing it, it feels less scary, and people and organizations can move forward in a more productive way.
Anne: Another fundamental element of consulting you share is that people are at the heart of an organization’s ability to change and thrive. You have said “you have to pay more attention to the people than the things.” Tell us more about how our clients should think about this.
Kathryn: In almost all cases, strategies don’t fail because they are bad. They fail because people don’t see themselves in the strategy and in the picture of the new future for their organization. Because of the way the consulting industry has evolved, clients think there is a tradeoff between getting stuff done and engaging people. But it’s actually a false tradeoff because at the end of the day it’s people who are doing the work. The paradox is that, the more you try to exclude people from the process in service of speed, the slower you will go. As we saw in stark contrast during the pandemic, while supply chains, processes and systems were challenged and disrupted, people changed, adapted, and improvised to keep thing going. We know this can happen outside of a crisis.
Great consultants work to make sure that your people have more than just an understanding of where they’re going as an organization. They help employees discover the intrinsic motivation to actually work in a new way and make new choices by connecting behavior and strategy, values and vision to initiatives in action.
What it feels like to work with a great consultant
Wondering how to ensure you are getting the most value from your consultant partner? And more importantly setting your organization up for success long term? Consider this checklist.
✔︎ Great consultants don’t make things more complex: they simplify, and help you connect the dots. They go beyond understanding the analytics and economics of your business model, your market, and your strategic aspirations. They bring deep understanding of what it takes to create real change – which only happens through people.
✔︎ Great consultants know how to effectively help your people find meaning and purpose in your organization’s new direction because ultimately that’s what will create progress.
✔︎ Great consultants should make you feel smarter and more capable after working with them. So many consultants have made people feel bad for so long that we almost accept it as a given, which is a shame.
✔︎ Great consultants hold a mutuality mindset. They live out the perspective, “We’re in this together — you bring value and so do we.” Great consultants bring insights AND respect and rely on their client’s wisdom about their organization.
✔︎ Great consultants get to root causes. They get to the underlying limiting mindsets because they come from a place of mutuality, curiosity, and respect.
When should you NOT hire a consultant
At the same time – heeding the learnings from our own experience, and the challenges unearthed in the book – there are instances when you shouldn’t hire consultant:
- Don’t hire a consultant when you want to rubber-stamp a tough decision you know you need to make (layoffs, restructuring, strategy pivots). This is about leadership courage. While it might provide air cover in the short term, in the long term it will damage your leadership brand and organizational trust.
- Don’t hire a consultant to redo consulting work you did with them before. If that way didn’t actually solve the problem, don’t do it over again.
- Don’t hire a consulting company to do something your own employees, or lower priced resources could do – like program management or research.
Check out this podcast if you want to hear more of our conversation on this important topic.
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The middle manager squeeze isn’t easing up—it’s intensifying:
If you want to understand where the pressure is building in your organization, look at your middle managers. They sit at the center of it all—and that center is under strain.
They’re expected to lead strategic change, drive culture, retain talent, and hit performance goals—all while translating executive vision into everyday action. But they’re often doing it without clear direction, real-time feedback, or consistent development support.
And now the data confirms it: the squeeze is real—and getting tighter. In 2025, 45% of middle managers report burnout—higher than any other group. Only 21% say they’re thriving. (Future Forum, Gallup) That’s not just a warning sign. It’s a leadership risk.
The rising cost of holding the middle
Middle managers aren’t just task owners—they’re the force that connects vision to execution. And we’re asking them to do more than ever:
- Lead through ambiguity
- Coach and develop teams
- Champion DEI and hybrid culture
- Balance employee expectations and business constraints
- Prepare for next-level leadership roles
They’re expected to model the organization’s values while delivering results. But the systems designed to support them haven’t evolved at the same pace. They rely on outdated perspectives on learning and capability building, and are often informal at best.
The result? Too many managers are being asked to grow faster than the organization is growing its capacity to support them.
Burnout isn’t a side effect—it’s a signal
When middle managers burn out, business performance suffers.
- Middle managers are 3 times more likely to leave (Future Forum, 2025)
- Their teams underperform or disengage
- Innovation, development, and inclusion efforts lose momentum
Burnout isn’t just about wellbeing—it’s about organizational readiness.
It’s not just about removing pressure. It’s about reinforcing strength.
The most common response to manager burnout is to “lighten the load.” But that doesn’t address the structural issue. You can remove a few books from the shelf. But if the structure was never designed to hold the weight, it still bends under pressure.
Managers don’t just need less work. They need better support systems.
What effective support looks like in 2025
The most forward-looking organizations are shifting away from ad hoc fixes and leaning into investing in structured, measurable capability-building. It’s not about more content. It’s about developing real, sustained leadership capacity. The organizations who are embedding development into the flow of work are developing managers who don’t just cope, they grow.
What’s working:
- Co-created goals between managers and senior leaders
- Ongoing reflection and feedback loops that build self-awareness
- Development experiences that stretch leadership capability in real time
- Targeted support that improves coaching, communication, and decision-making
When support is consistent and measurable, managers build the adaptability, clarity, and presence needed to lead through complexity—not just react to it.
Coaching interventions
Managers who are truly effective aren’t just trained—they’re supported by coaching that strengthens behavior change over time, connects individual development to real business goals, and builds a sustainable leadership pipeline. It’s massive part of how organizations move from check-the-box training to actual transformation. For years most organizations have understood the value of coaching their senior executives. It’s those enterprises who have figured out the power that coaching unlocks at the manager level are ahead of the game now.
Building stronger foundations, not just lighter loads
The middle manager squeeze isn’t going away, but it can be addressed.
That shift starts when organizations move beyond burnout mitigation toward embedding strategic development systems that build real leadership capacity—and track progress along the way.
Because when you strengthen the center, you strengthen the whole organization.
Want to see how leading companies are building manager capability at scale?
Now part of BTS, Sounding Board brings a clearer, data-backed view of what’s working—and where high-performers need to grow next via:
- Goal alignment – See progress tied to your strategy
- Behavioral growth – Track real shifts in how leaders show up
- Self-awareness – Build reflection through feedback and assessments
- Cohort insights – Spot trends, surface gaps, and scale what works
From top-down to judgment all around: The AI imperative for organizations
Each business revolution has reshaped not only how businesses operate, but how they organize themselves and empower their people. From the industrial age to the information era, and now into the age of artificial intelligence, technology has always brought with it a reconfiguration of authority, capability, and judgment.
In the 19th century, industrialization centralized work and knowledge. The factory system required hierarchical structures where strategy, information, and decision-making were concentrated at the top. Managers at the apex made tradeoffs for the greater good of the enterprise because they were the only ones with access to the full picture.
Then came the information economy. With it came the distribution of information and a need for more agile, team-based structures. Cross-functional collaboration and customer proximity became competitive necessities. Organizations flattened, experimented with matrix models, and pushed decision-making closer to where problems were being solved. What had once been the purview of a select few, judgment, strategic tradeoffs, and insight became expected competencies for managers and team leads across the enterprise.
Now, AI is changing the game again. But this time, it’s not just about access to data. It’s about access to intelligence.
Generative AI democratizes access not only to information, but to intelligent output. That shifts the burden for humans from producing insights to evaluating them. Judgment, which was long the domain of a few executives, must now become a baseline competency for the many across the organization.
But here’s the paradox: while AI extends our capacity for intelligence, discernment, the human ability to weigh context, values, and consequence, is still best left in the hands of human leaders. As organizations begin to automate early-career work, they may inadvertently erase the very pathways and opportunities by which judgment was built.
Why judgment matters more than ever
Deloitte’s 2023 Human Capital Trends survey found that 85% of leaders believe independent decision-making is more important than ever, but only 26% say they’re ready to support it. That shortfall threatens to neutralize the very productivity gains AI promises.
If employees can’t question, challenge, or contextualize AI’s output, then intelligent tools become dangerous shortcuts. The organization stalls, not from a lack of answers, but from a lack of sense-making.
What organizations must do
To stay competitive, organizations must shift from simply adopting AI to designing AI-aware ways of working:
- Build new learning paths for judgment development. As AI replaces easily systematized tasks, companies must replace lost learning experiences with mentorship, simulations, and intentional development planning.
- Design workflows that require human input. Treat AI as a co-pilot, not an autopilot. Embed review checkpoints and tradeoff discussions. Just as innovation processes have stage gates, so should AI analyses.
- Make judgment measurable. Assess and develop decision-making under ambiguity from entry-level roles onward. Research shows the best learning strategy for this is high-fidelity simulations.
- Start earlier. Leadership development must begin far earlier in career paths, because judgment, not just knowledge, is the new differentiator.
What’s emerging is not just a flatter hierarchy, but a more distributed sense of judgment responsibility. To thrive, organizations must prepare their people not to outthink AI, but to out-judge it.
BTS acquires Nexo to strengthen its position in Brazil and Latin America
P R E S S R E L E A S E
Stockholm, May 5, 2025
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN – BTS Group AB (publ), a leading global consultancy specializing in strategy execution, change, and people development, has agreed to acquire Nexo Pesquisa e Consultoria Ltda., Nexo, a boutique consulting firm headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil.
Nexo has been growing continuously since it was founded in 2017. With revenues of approximately 12 million Brazilian Reales (approx. 2.1 million USD) in 2024, and a highly capable team of 21 members, Nexo has built a strong reputation for delivering transformative projects in strategy, innovation, leadership, and culture.
Nexo collaborates with a great portfolio of clients across sectors such as financial services, consumer goods, and technology, assisting both local and global companies in navigating uncertainty, unlocking creativity, and activating strategy through people. Their work encompasses culture transformation, leadership development, employer value proposition, innovation culture, and vision alignment – supported by proprietary methodologies and frameworks.
BTS currently operates in Brazil servicing both local and multinational clients with a team of 13 employees. By acquiring Nexo, BTS not only increases the Group’s footprint in Brazil but also adds significant capabilities in culture and transformation services. Nexo’s client base has limited overlap with BTS, creating strong growth potential and synergy opportunities.
“Nexo is known for helping leaders and organizations tackle some of the most complex, human-centered challenges with creativity, empathy, and strategic clarity and the Nexo team is loved by their clients,” says Philios Andreou, Deputy CEO of BTS Group and President of the Other Markets Unit. “Their products and services complement and elevate our existing offerings, especially in culture transformation, and we are thrilled to welcome the Nexo team to BTS.”
“We’re excited to join BTS. We’ve long admired BTS’s approach and unique portfolio to support large organizations and leaders in connecting strategy with culture across the organization,” says Andreas Auerbach, co founder of Nexo. “Becoming part of BTS, allows us to scale our impact and bring more value to our clients while staying true to our values and culture,” adds Mariana Lage Andrade, co-founder of Nexo.
Upon completion of the transaction, Nexo’s business and organization will merge with BTS Brazil. Nexo’s founders will assume senior management roles in the joint operation.
The acquisition includes a limited initial cash consideration. Additional purchase price considerations will be paid between 2026 and 2028, provided Nexo meets specific performance targets. A limited portion of any such additional purchase price considerations will be paid in newly issued BTS shares. The transaction is effective immediately.
BTS’s acquisition strategy continues to focus on broadening our service portfolio, expanding our geographic reach, and enhancing our capabilities to support future organic growth in a fragmented market.
For more information, please contact:
Philios Andreou
Deputy CEO
BTS Group AB
philios.andreou@bts.com
Michael Wallin
Head of investor relations
BTS Group AB
michael.wallin@bts.com
+46-8-587 070 02
+46-708-78 80 19