The paradox of transformation: When the most influential consulting firms block the change they profess.
For decades, elite consulting firms dominated the narrative of organizational transformation. With frameworks like Agile, Lean, Design Thinking, and OKRs, they promised speed, adaptability, and customer focus.
However, many of these implementations failed. And they failed not because of theory, but because of praxis: because of the way in which they were inserted into business cultures without preparation, with hierarchical structures intact and without modifying the governance or the incentive system.
And above all, because of the hybrid that they proposed to implement, focused on agility tools and not on their values, principles, and deep understanding of their application to business.
Today, the same firms that drove that choreographed agility are leading the wave of accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence. Always with million-dollar accompanying proposals.
But a paradox emerges here: AI needs true agility to unleash its potential, not a simulation. It needs adaptive environments, continuous learning capacity and culture, innovation and intrapreneurship methodology, and more horizontal and autonomous structures. In addition to true strategic ambidextricity (dominating exploitation + exploration).
So, the uncomfortable question arises: How to build from an organizational base that they themselves helped erode?
Agility as spectacle and recipe
In many organizations, the advent of "agility" meant the superficial, confusing but demanding adoption of rituals: sprints, daylies, kanbans, scrum, squads.
The consultants imposed these schemes as universal recipes, ignoring the context, the pre-existing culture and the structural power conflicts.
The leaders took advantage of "the transformation" to impose hidden agendas, make changes outside the radar of the board or other actors, make layoffs and other decisions "justified" by the consulting firms in the name of agility.
Teams without autonomy, untrained hierarchical managers terrified of giving up control and directions that demanded results in committees, without changing their way of leading.
In that environment, agility became a new form of micromanagement, not a lever for innovation. Trust was destroyed, turnover increased, and an originally powerful philosophical approach was trivialized.
Consulting firms obtained million-dollar income by standardizing hybrid frameworks (a bit of the same as always, a bit of radically new) without assuming the cultural consequences. And they did it in the name of adaptability.
The arrival of AI and the eroded base
Today, the narrative has changed: the new promise (and in many cases FOMO) is artificial intelligence, agents, automation.
Tools like Lilli (McKinsey), EY's AI solutions, or Deloitte's centers of excellence, promise efficiency, predictive analytics, and large-scale digital transformation.
But all of these initiatives require something that most organizations (including consulting firms) don't have: a culture prepared to learn, adapt and experiment quickly. In addition to clear strategic management tools for ambidextricity, innovation and business models.
Many employees, after years of frustration with failed transformations, now face "prompt anxiety": fear of interacting with tools they are unfamiliar with, lack of context about how and why to use them, and little relevant training. In addition to the terror of the consequences that usually come with these "transformations."
In other words, the organizational foundation is burned. And consulting firms, in their eagerness to bill and have something new to sell that generates FOMO, seem not to recognize their part in that wear and tear.
They attempt to rebuild on unstable foundations without reformulating the paradigm.
The central paradox
What they destroyed is now necessary. Without real (non-ritual) agility, AI fails. Without trust in teams, AI agents don't integrate. Without a clear why, technology becomes decoration.
The paradox is this: consulting firms need the same profound change that they prevented. They need organizations to really experiment, listen to their actors, continually learn, build internal capabilities, question hierarchies, understand the importance of new tools. But the traditional consultative model is not based on that autonomy: it is based on dependency.
Therefore, many of these technological transformations are repeating the pattern: massive implementation from above, generic training, success narratives without in-depth evaluation.
Mass layoffs and replacements by "Agents" or automation are reminiscent of what was faced under the premise "you are not agile enough."
A possible path
The paradox is not technical. It's philosophical. And solving it requires more than intelligence: it requires humility.
If consulting firms want to be relevant in this new era, they must assume their part in history and change their symbolic and operational architecture. They must go from being prescribers to facilitators. From exporting closed frames to co-creating with teams. From monetizing complexity to dissolving it.
And above all, they must stop promising transformation without transforming themselves.
Less reports, more consistency.
Thanks for reading me. Did you have the opportunity to experience this process in your organization? How was it?
