The whole consultancy industry runs on this engine. And cultural consultants (again, should not be a real thing). Not because outside experts are useless, but because a lot of organizations are just structurally incapable of hearing feedback from the people who actually work there. The same words land completely differently depending on who says them. Employees say it, and it becomes a complaint to be managed. A consultant says it in a formal presentation with branded slides, and suddenly it is a strategic insight worth acting on. Same sentence. Totally different font. Completely different outcome.
What makes this situation so exhausting is how thorough the original feedback was. Not vague grumbling. Specific, consistent, repeated observations about progression, credit, meetings, and decision-making. Given in one-on-ones. Given in anonymous surveys. Given directly when leadership asked. And the response was being looked into, which in corporate speak translates pretty cleanly to we heard you, and we are going to do nothing until we find a more expensive way to arrive at the same conclusion.
The all-hands meeting reveal is the real finishing touch. Leadership presenting the recommendations like they had done the hard work of figuring this out, with staff nodding along politely, while at least a few people in that room were sitting there doing quiet math on how many times they had already said all of this out loud.
Anyone would be exhausted working in that kind of place because realizing that the place you work at has to outsource basic listening because it could not manage to do it internally, and that your input only counts once it gets laundered through someone with a deck and a day rate is, how should I put it? like adding a new character to the Sisyphus myth, say a cultural consultant who’s dropped with her own boulder to the top of the hill while you watch your own roll to the bottom before starting all over again.
Author: Kayitsi.com
