The Nazareth Syndrome

Written by Null Null

The “Nazareth” Syndrome

Consultants Are Not a Threat to Your Job or Reputation

Remember what you had to do to get your job? You had to fill out all those applications and get through reference checks and inter-views to convince someone you were the best-qualified person for the position.

It wasn’t easy, and the competition was pretty stiff. You felt like you had really accomplished a great deal when you were selected and hired as a public procurement professional. Let’s not forget that first “honeymoon” year on the job. You were new and filled with fresh ideas, enthusiasm, and energy. Everyone was “happy as frog’s fur” with your work and promise.

Then the honeymoon was over, and you became a regular member of the full-time staff. Your recommendations and ideas were challenged, instead of accepted as gospel.

What happened? You became a victim of the “Nazareth” Syndrome— also known as “Nobody has any faith in the hometown kid!”

It is an intriguing phenomenon of human nature, and it occurs in all professions and aspects of our lives. We’ll take the advice of a stranger, even if it is the same advice we rejected from our family and friends. Bring in someone we’ve never met, an out-of-towner with a briefcase and an expense account and you’ve got a credible expert—a consultant. But there re-ally is more to it than that. Once we understand and accept this phenomenon, we can make it work for us.

Consultants provide government (or any organization) with the objective viewpoint and expertise it lacks in a particular area at a particular time of need. Consultants are used for an occasional special project or to provide a fresh look at an old problem. Sometimes consultants are necessary to validate the value and wisdom of the hometown kid!

The challenge is obtaining the right consultant to do the right job: no more, no less. That means clearly defining what is needed in the way of specific deliverables and consultant qualifications. A common mistake is assuming that a big name firm is automatically qualified to do the best job. If they don’t have the specific professional expertise you need, don’t hire them. For example: hiring an accounting firm to provide consultant services for procurement is ludicrous. How would finance feel if a procurement firm was hired to consult them?

Hiring the wrong consultant is an inexcusable waste of time and money. You end up paying the wrong people for the time it takes them to learn (from you) what they should have known in the first place. Don’t let that happen to you.

One other word on the Nazareth Syndrome: It has happened to the very best!