I'm a former tech consultant who manages/ed lots of people since then. A few thoughts: 1) When I was a consultant and had to manage my own staff, they tend to

I'm a former tech consultant who manages/ed lots of people since then. A few thoughts: 1) When I was a consultant and had to manage my own staff, they tend to come from a similar background, are extremely motivated, and a strong desire to do succeed. And if the staff doesn't do good, there's 10 more where that came from. That's a relatively easy situation to manage in; but it doesn't make you good at managing all the complexities that come from managing different levels, different backgrounds, and different levels of motivation. So I got a lot better at managing once I had to do it in a non consulting basis. 2) While a lot of consultants are good at making a project look shiny for 6-18 mos while not dealing with depth; there are a lot of organizations and staff that stare at their own navel for five years and tell me that they're doing depth; and never get anything over the finish line. Which is also not great. So there is some balance there and more organizations than not get stuck in the mud. 3) I've had some run ins with strategy consultants who come up with bonkers solutions to very difficult problems. And then hand it over to me to implement. And I go WTF - there are these 10 major problems with this approach. The strategy consultant tells me those are my problem. So I do the implementation and solve the 10 problems I saw and make it work. While I grouch about the strategy consultant... she had the fortitude to recommend the thing that got the client to the finish line... that I would never have the courage to recommend. That is great in a one off engagement, but probably pretty rough to work for.