Dimon is vocal about his antipathy toward much of the consulting used by large corporations today, with the notable exception of McKinsey & Co.
“It’s substitute management,” he says.
“A Good Housekeeping seal of approval. It’s political, so if you make a decision you can say, ‘It’s not my fault, it’s their fault.’
I remember at Citigroup when we hired a consulting firm to do a study about how our capital was deployed. I thought, ‘What is wrong with us? Shouldn’t this be the job of management? Shouldn’t we understand capital?’
I do think consultants can become a disease for corporations, and I don’t say that lightly, because I really do believe it.
We do still use smart people to do consulting for us. But it has to be with a very senior person and there is no phase two. By that, I mean at the end of the project, I have the brain and they have the money. I don’t need anyone to implement anything.
That’s a joke. You can’t have outside people implement stuff inside companies. It doesn’t work. And by the way, if that’s going on, what the hell are your own people doing?”
