Should Transformations Be Delivered For Organisations — or Built With Them?

In almost every large transformation I have been close to, a familiar question appears sooner or later:

“Should we bring in a consulting firm to run this — or should we build the capability inside?”

The question is usually framed as a binary choice. Either we outsource the thinking and delivery to experts, or we struggle internally and hope people learn along the way.

In practice, this framing is too simple — and often unhelpful.

What matters more is how external support is used, and what remains behind once the work is done.

What Consulting Firms Are Very Good At

Let’s start by being clear: large consulting firms play an important role in transformation.

Research consistently shows that external consultants can bring:

• speed and capacity in moments of pressure

• cross-industry perspective

• structured methodologies

• analytical depth

• political cover for difficult decisions

  
  

For large-scale, time-critical transformations — mergers, restructurings, digital overhauls — this expertise can be invaluable. McKinsey’s long-standing research on transformation performance shows that disciplined execution, clear governance, and external expertise often correlate with faster progress in complex change programmes (McKinsey & Company, 2019).

There is nothing inherently wrong with this model.

The question is not whether consulting firms are useful.The question is what organisations become dependent on as a result.

The Less Comfortable Question: What Remains After the Consultants Leave?

Harvard Business Review has repeatedly highlighted a recurring issue in transformations: results achieved during programmes often fail to sustain once external pressure is removed (Beer & Nohria, 2000; Kotter, 1995).

One reason is rarely technical. It is human.

When change is delivered to an organisation, rather than built within it:

• ownership remains fragile

• confidence does not fully develop

• leaders rely on external structure to think and act

• learning stays implicit rather than embodied

  
  

In other words, the organisation may reach a milestone — but not maturity.

This is where many transformations quietly lose momentum.

Why Capability Building Is Not a “Soft” Alternative

Capability building is sometimes framed as the slower, gentler, less decisive option. Research suggests the opposite.

A large-scale study published by McKinsey found that transformations are significantly more likely to succeed when organisations explicitly invest in building internal capabilities alongside delivery — particularly leadership, change management, and problem-solving skills (McKinsey & Company, 2015).

Similarly, Amy Edmondson’s work on learning organisations shows that sustainable performance depends on people’s ability to reflect, adapt, and learn while working — not after the fact (Edmondson, 2018).

Capability building is not about reducing ambition. It is about changing who can carry the work next time.

Where Coaching and On-the-Job Support Fit In

This is where a different kind of external support becomes relevant — not as a replacement for consulting, but as a complement.

Coaching and on-the-job support during transformation serve a different purpose:

• they slow thinking down where it matters

• they help leaders and teams make sense of ambiguity

• they surface tensions that dashboards don’t show

• they turn real work into learning moments

  
  

Unlike traditional consulting, this work does not aim to “take over”.It aims to strengthen judgement, confidence, and ownership while the work is happening.

Research on adult learning consistently shows that capability development is most effective when embedded in real tasks, supported by reflection and feedback — not when separated into training events (Kolb, 1984; Eraut, 2004).

Change is no exception.

Reducing Dependency Rather Than Creating It

One of the quieter risks of heavy external delivery models is dependency.

When organisations repeatedly rely on external actors to:

• frame the problem

• design the solution

• drive the process

they risk weakening their own internal muscles.

This is not a criticism of consultants — it is a structural outcome of the model.

By contrast, coaching-oriented, embedded support works in the opposite direction:

• decisions stay with leaders

• teams do the thinking themselves

• external input challenges and supports rather than replaces

• confidence grows through use, not instruction

  
  

Over time, this reduces the need for external help — which is precisely the point.

Not Either–Or, but Both–And

The most effective transformations I have seen did not choose between consulting or capability building.

They combined:

• the scale and structure of consulting

• with coaching, reflection, and on-the-job support

• to ensure learning, ownership, and confidence developed in parallel

  
  

Consultants helped move the organisation forward.Coaching helped the organisation become more capable of moving itself.

These are different roles — and when confused, both suffer.

A Final Reflection

Transformations rarely fail because organisations lack plans, frameworks, or expertise. They fail because, under pressure, people revert to familiar patterns and lose confidence in their own judgement.

External support can accelerate change.But only internal capability sustains it.

The real question, then, is not:“Who should run the transformation?”

It is:

“Who will be able to lead the next one — when no one is watching?”

That is where lasting change begins.

References

Beer, M. and Nohria, N. (2000) Cracking the Code of Change. Harvard Business Review, May–June.

Edmondson, A.C. (2018) The Fearless Organization. John Wiley & Sons.

Eraut, M. (2004) ‘Informal learning in the workplace’, Studies in Continuing Education, 26(2), pp. 247–273.

Kolb, D.A. (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Kotter, J.P. (1995) Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Harvard Business Review, March–April.

McKinsey & Company (2015) The Journey to an Agile Organization. Available at: www.mckinsey.com.

McKinsey & Company (2019) Unlocking Success in Digital Transformations. Available at: www.mckinsey.com.