When the Honest Answer Is “You Don’t Need a Strategy Consultant”

Most consulting engagements should never start. Here’s how to tell if yours is one of them.

In 2026, the federal government did something unusual. It asked whether it needed all the consultants it was paying for. Across agencies, the answer was often no or, perhaps worse, we don’t really know. Firms handed back billions in expected fees. Deloitte alone lost hundreds of millions in canceled contracts. You can see this as a political story. I see it as a buying story. Somebody finally asked the question that should come before every engagement. Do we actually need this?

Most consultants will never write the next sentence, so I will. A lot of the time, you don’t.

The question nobody asks first

When a CEO calls me, the pressure on them is already built in. To them, something feels off, maybe the board is restless, or a number is heading in the wrong direction. The instinct is to bring in help. But hiring a strategy consultant is itself a strategic choice, and like any choice, it can be wrong. The honest first move isn’t to scope a project. It’s to figure out whether you have a problem an outsider should touch at all.

A wrong engagement isn’t just wasted money. It’s months spent producing an analysis that confirms what you already suspected, while the decision that mattered sits and waits. The real cost is the delay, not the invoice.

Four times why the answer is no

Here’s where I tell people to save their money.

You already know the answer. Sometimes a CEO knows exactly what to do and just wants cover to do it. That’s not strategy work. That’s a CFO conversation, a board vote, or an afternoon of nerves. Paying an outsider to bless a decision you’ve already made is expensive theater. A competent and ethical advisor should know when more internal work needs to be done before asking an outsider.

The problem is execution, not choice. You know where you’re going. You just aren’t getting there. That’s a discipline problem. You need an operator, a project lead, or an honest look at your own follow-through. An execution advisor will hand you a cleaner version of the plan you already have, and you’ll still be stuck. Another point is that some strategies are so poorly formulated that even disciplined execution is challenging.

Two people disagree, and everyone knows who. Plenty of “strategy” problems are really one unresolved argument between two executives. The whole company can see it and no framework will fix that. A direct conversation can sometimes be with an executive coach in the room. Dressing it up as a strategy project just delays the talk.

The bet is small and reversible. If you can test the idea cheaply and back out without much damage, don’t study it. Test it to learn from the real thing. Save the deep work for the decisions you can’t take back. This is what Jeff Bezos introduced in 1997 as one-way (Type 1) and two-way (Type 2) door decisions. You can’t reverse Type 1 decisions (e.g., building a factory), but you can reverse Type 2 decisions (e.g., trying early AWS services).

When it’s actually worth it

So when should you hire someone? Three signs, and they tend to show up together.

The bet is big and hard to reverse. Significant capital, a new market, a new executive team, a merger, or a change to the business model. The kind of move where being wrong costs you years, not weeks, of not the business.

The team disagrees on the choices, not just the details, and there’s no shared logic to settle it. Smart people, looking at the same facts, pulling in different directions.

The plan rests on assumptions nobody has tested. Everyone believes the market wants it, R&D can deliver, or key staff will remain. But none of these assumptions have been explicitly checked. These beliefs, and more, are propping up the whole strategy, and it has never been taken out for a test run.

Picture a company betting a third of its capital on a new product line. The CEO is sold. Two VPs aren’t, and they’ve gone quiet instead of arguing. The whole case rests on one belief: that current customers will buy the new product, and nobody has actually asked them. Or your suppliers, staff, investors, or other stakeholders. Big bet, split room, untested assumption. That’s the engagement worth paying for. Take away any one of the three, and you could probably sort it yourself.

When all three show up at once, an outside read earns its fee. Not because the CEO can’t think. Because the stakes are high enough that a second, structured look is cheap insurance. The rest of the time, you’re better off keeping your money and having the harder internal conversation you’ve been putting off.

Why I’ll tell you not to hire me

I run a short call before any engagement. People assume it’s a sales call. It isn’t, or at least it isn’t only that. Its real job is to sort which situation you’re in. Sometimes we get twenty minutes in and the answer is clear. You don’t need a project. You need a heart-to-heart with your CFO, settle a disagreement, or just decide. I’ll say so.

Some might see this as giving up revenue in the short run. But it’s the only version of this business worth running. The value of a yes depends entirely on the honesty of the no.

An advisor who can’t say “you don’t need me” can’t be trusted when he says “you do.”

The opposite mistake is real too. Some CEOs never bring in help when they should, and they pay for it later with a failed bet in public. Independence is a virtue right up until it turns into avoidance. So the test isn’t whether you’re tough enough to skip the consultant. It’s whether the thing in front of you is really one of the four where an outsider adds nothing.

Your move this week

Before your next instinct to bring in help, run the four-question test. Do I already know the answer? Is this really execution? Is this one argument two people keep avoiding? Is the bet small and reversible? If you answer yes to any of them, you probably don’t need a consultant. You need a conversation, and you already know who it’s with. If you want some perspective, I’m happy to walk through these questions with you.

If you answer no to all four, and the bet is big, the room is split, and the plan rests on something untested, then an outside look is worth it. Either way, the smartest thing you can do is ask the question the government took years to ask. Do we actually need this? Ask it first, and ask it out loud.

Next week: a plan is not a strategy, and your board may not be able to tell the difference. What separates the two, and why the gap tends to surface at the worst possible moment.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark Haas is a strategy advisor to CEOs and boards of mid-market companies, with more than 30 years of C-level experience across healthcare, defense, finance, social services, and biomedical research. He is the founder of Haas Strategy Solutions, a Certified Management Consultant, former Chair and CEO of the Institute of Management Consultants USA, and recipient of the IMC Lifetime Achievement Award. Mark also served as Ethics Officer for 20 years and holds degrees from Colgate and Harvard Universities.

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