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> 3. Family Counselor. Surprisingly often, I told organizations what other people inside the same organization were thinking, saying, or doing (and what customers or partners thought of that). The degree of insularity, siloing, and parochialism in large organizations is hard to overstate. I was almost like a counselor, helping internal teams see, understand, and appreciate their peers, and put what they were doing into a larger perspective that would have otherwise been overlooked.
For example some people may tend to catastrophize, or blow things out of proportion.
I wasn’t ratting people out—I was translating. Reminding siloed teams why other groups mattered, why customers cared, and why that business still went ca-ching.
If that feels like snitching, maybe the problem isn’t the messenger.
And the kind of trust from your employees that you need for them to answer you honestly is really easy to loose, especially the larger the company gets.
Those same employees will bitch about it all to each other all the time. But mostly nobody will actually ever speak up.
"Manager X is a fucking incompetent who should neve....ohh, wait youre going to tell him I said this arent you? Whoops!"
Yeah, not happening. Theyll be just as circumspect around consultants.
So, it's the truths which they would have told anyone who asked which consultants are getting.
Imagine getting fired over things you have little control over when you are responsible for bringing food to your little children and aging parents.
Unless you are a blue haired social activist with parents to bank roll your existence and you having nothing to lose, outrage is a luxury.
Thus why the other person suggests that being rude under the guise of "straight shooter" isn't always worth the risk of losing your income stream for your family.
That's a soon to be ex employee.
Personal anecdata from a software team in a non-software company:
New project idea comes in. Developer asks for outline of specifications. Management replies with nebulous desires.
Developer insists over half a dozen "planning" meetings, where desires are mentioned but requirements not defined, despite all petitions and cajoling. Management fires developer for not being a team player.
From what I hear, that project has yet to happen a year after the aforementioned events.
And that's without criticizing, only with explaining the value of specifications before developing business critical applications.
So, yeah, employers get what they pay for: either sheep or conscientious employees, but can't have both.