
It is very interesting to work as a consultant. Often you find people don’t want to work on projects now.
Now you might say of course not. They may be busy or not have the time. Except when there is a meeting to find out information, and they don’t want to share the information in the meeting. Often companies want to respond to questions offline instead of during meetings. So I give them a list of questions and then wait for them to respond.
Except often that list of questions is ignored or delayed. Once you bring their attention to it, they answer. However getting them to work on the project is a project in itself.
Which is good for consultants but interesting for companies. If projects need additional overhead to get done, it clearly shows that the company isn’t ready to change.
I have been a regular employee in many companies and I have seen that if you give a person a choice between working and not working they don’t work. Most of the time this is due to management not doing its job. Often it is due to the mixed messages of the work environment that often punish hard workers and reward slackers. It can also be that people aren’t really enjoying their jobs, and so there is no natural passion that makes them curious and want to work.
The sad fact is that most companies I have worked at, very few people are truly hard workers. I can count on one hand people who gave 100% to their job. This is a failure both on a professional and personal level. We really under employ people.