Whatever Happened to the Idea of Professions?

Sometimes, out of the blue, something gets my goat that on other days wouldn't bother me at all. Today it's those people who self-classify as 'professionals', but whose yardstick of success has only one calibration point - $$$. The number of disciplines that classify themselves as professions has expanded over the years, with my own - management consultancy - being one of the more recent aspirants to that status. When professions first evolved I guess that they were a kind of white collar version of the craft trades, and sought to achieve a delicate balancing act between vocation, expertise , service and making money. Apparently, Max Weber saw them as an admirable form of collective authority, which may strengthen the value of the concept in some people's eyes.

Marvin Bower, the primary force behind the development of McKinsey as a major consultancy was absolutely clear that consulting should be a profession, with service to clients being of primary importance. He believed the money would follow from good work. As an idea it was powerful and, indeed, the firm he devoted himself to over the years is a force to be reckoned with, so maybe the power of the idea actually proved itself in this case. Indeed, the language of client service has been almost universally taken up and imitated by others, including other consultants, marketers, estate agents, in fact it anyone who provides a service to some kind of a client.

Unfortunately, although people love to speak the language of professionalism, it strikes me that many have no emotional sense of what it means or intrinsic commitment to the idea. Sure these folk find their work interesting, and love the challenges presented by the problems they are asked to solve. But if conversations with many of my colleagues are anything to go by, they still have some way to go to live up to the words. Sadly, all too often the first reference many of them make to any client work they have, is the size of the fees involved. It's sad because if fee size drives their focus, then that means the importance of the project to the client is at best secondary, and the question of how interesting or stimulating the challenge is also comes further down the list of interests.

If we accept for one (disputable) moment that consultants generally pride themselves on the quality of their experience and intellectual capabilities, then this represents a disappointing perspective on what happens to the idea of professionalism when confronted by the desire and opportunity for financial gain. We might expect it of our bankers, but it's sad to think that the original values of professionalism may all be following the same direction and undermining the opportunity for the special satisfactions that can come from developing rare skills and deploying them on behalf of a client who can benefit from them.