Right now, Diary, there are around 50 people working on a dozen projects. Off these around 30 are from Dufresne and the rest are Lederman staff on loan. If you remember we started with around 10 projects in January. But over time the whole project plan has been drastically changed. Mostly this is because of Tom.

Now as you know I am a big admirer of Tom. If it weren’t for him Dufresne would have fired me months ago. I’d probably be working now in a call centre in Gurgaon or in a stupid IT company in Bangalore along with all the other mediocre non-school-toppers. Or even—I can feel puke bubbling up in my mouth when I say this—in marketing or sales for some Indian company.

But then even the best people have good and bad sides. For instance look at me. I am a management guru. A lot of people look up to me. But I am sure I have some weakness or the other which is currently not apparent to me.

Similarly Tom is a stickler for profitability. He just refuses to do anything unless he sees a clear cash benefit from doing it. In most cases this is a good thing.

But profitability is the worst possible way to look at the benefits from management consulting. Consulting is about much more than making money for the client. In fact, in my experience, high quality world-class strategic management consulting and advisory services, is seldom about making money for the client at all. It is much more than that. It is about changing the entire way in which the client operates. It is about rejuvenating the soul of the organization.

You just cannot put a price on soul rejuvenation.

Or as Boris once said in an All-Hands Asia meeting, management consulting is yoga for the organization. It may not always make you lose weight, but it will make you happier and more flexible.

Unfortunately Tom refuses to understand any of these things. So over the last couple of months he has mercilessly slashed several projects. The teams in charge of Competitive Risk Management and Disaster Strategy, Holistic Corporate Rebranding, People Pareto and HR Frameworks, Collaborative Consumable Correctsourcing and Sustainable Social Outreach all got cancelled within two weeks of starting. He said not one of these would make even a pound in additional revenue.

It is so frustrating to see chief executives not think even an inch outside their balance sheets and profit and loss statements. Great companies like Ford, General Motors, Microsoft or the Manorama Group were not built by just looking at money.

But it is impossible to argue with Tom. Time and time again I tried to tell him face-to-face, one-on-one, in as direct a manner as possible, in the form of powerpoint slides and monthly reports that Lederman has issues invisible to the financial reports. Not I specifically but other people in our team.

Tom doesn’t even pay attention.