There are moments in history when someone says something so obvious that the world should stop, stand still, and simply listen. One such moment took place in 1992, when Steve Jobs stood in front of a group of MIT students and explained why consultants never drive innovation. It wasn’t diplomatic. It wasn’t polite. It wasn’t wrapped in corporate vocabulary filled with “alignment,” “transformation,” and “onboarding.” It was raw — as always with him:
“Consultants have no skin in the game. They can never get it.”
It was a statement that still echoes today, perhaps even louder, now that companies are drowning in PowerPoints, external analysis, slide decks with arrows and circles — all those things that promise change but rarely produce it. Jobs’ words have become a forbidden truth of modern work life: everyone knows it’s true, but almost no one dares to say it out loud.
But let’s go back for a moment.
Jobs’ Philosophy: Own It — or Leave It
Jobs was driven by a deep obsession with wholeness. He couldn’t think in fragments. You either built something from first sketch to final screw — or you built nothing. Ownership, for him, wasn’t a management structure. It was a human condition.
He explained it like this:
“The people who make great products are the people who take responsibility from concept to market.”
In Jobs’ eyes, success was born from responsibility, passion, and the courage to stand firm when the storm came. Consultants, by definition, lived outside this world:
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they don’t build for the future
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they don’t remain when the project collapses
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they take no responsibility for consequences
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they move on to the next assignment
Not because they’re bad people — but because the system is built that way. Their job is to advise, not to own.
And that’s precisely where Jobs’ logic hits hardest:
without ownership, real change never happens.
Companies That Lost Their Core
Fast forward to today. Look around and you’ll see it everywhere: companies hiring management consultants for billions. Organizations spending more money on presentations than on the actual product. HR departments outsourcing recruitment to automated systems that barely understand what they’re reading. Strategy teams reading more McKinsey reports than their own financial statements.
It is a culture that has lost the courage to think for itself.
I have seen what happens when a company stops owning its vision. I’ve been inside organizations where thinking had been outsourced for years. No one dared make the tough decisions — it was always easier to hire someone to explain why decisions should be postponed.
“We need more analysis.”
“We need a feasibility study.”
“We need more data before deciding.”
It sounds serious. It sounds structured. But often it’s simply a corporate way of saying:
“We’re afraid to take responsibility.”
When a Consulting Firm Becomes the Company’s Brain
Jobs was allergic to the idea that you could buy your way out of a problem. That you could outsource thinking. That strategy could be imported. For him, this was as absurd as hiring someone to exercise at the gym for you — and then expecting you to get the muscles.
Yet this is exactly what modern organizations try to do.
And the problem isn’t the consultants — many are brilliant. The problem is structural: their job is to describe, not to deliver. They are masters of analysis, but analysis is not action. Analysis is not culture. Analysis is not responsibility.
Jobs said it more sharply:
“If you need consultants to tell you what to do, then you shouldn’t be doing it.”
There is an entire universe of truth hidden in that single sentence.
A Memory From the Real World
I once entered a project where everything was supposedly ready. A company had acquired another. The customer base existed. The processes existed. Everything was “ready to go.”
But when I started digging, I found:
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the customers were already gone
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the contracts were dead
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the systems were outdated
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no one had taken responsibility for two years
It was a castle built of fog. A project buried in PowerPoints and unrealistic optimism. No one had walked onto the floor and looked at the reality.
This situation is not unique.
It is what happens when a company builds its decisions on presentations rather than observation.
When leaders build on reports instead of listening to customers.
When people assume “someone else” has it under control.
Jobs Saw It Coming — Long Before the Rest of Us
Look at today’s corporate behaviors:
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advice to “transform” organizations through processes instead of people
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leaders choosing safety over courage
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visions replaced by KPIs
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long-term culture replaced by short-term fixes
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teams waiting for sign-off on plans no one actually believes in
Jobs realized that the structure itself is dangerous. When a company depends on external experts, a culture forms where people stop thinking. Where courage turns into dependence. Where ownership dissolves.
That is why Apple — during its greatest era — hardly used consultants at all.
They designed in-house.
They built in-house.
They failed in-house.
They learned in-house.
They took responsibility — completely.
The company felt like an organism, not an organization — tightly integrated, fiercely protective of its core.
No external voice could buy its way in.
The Consultant’s Dilemma — and the Company’s Fall
There is an old Silicon Valley joke:
“A consultant is someone who borrows your watch to tell you the time.”
Harsh. But often true.
Consultants are excellent at describing a situation, but only the people living in reality can change it. Jobs said it even sharper:
“You can’t outsource your core competency.”
It is almost poetic how much truth that sentence holds.
You can hire help.
You can hire skill.
But you can never hire responsibility.
And it is responsibility that creates innovation.
When PowerPoint Replaces Courage
The problem of our time is not consultants — it is the companies hiding behind them.
We have created a work culture where:
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decisions are made by those with nothing to lose
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visions are outsourced as services
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leadership buys safety instead of creating it
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projects are built without a feel for reality
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teams hesitate because no one owns the final call
Companies have become so afraid of mistakes that they’d rather purchase maps than start the journey.
But reality always arrives.
Sooner or later someone must act.
Sooner or later someone must stand up.
Sooner or later someone must own the outcome.
And no external analysis can do that for you.
The Best Teams in the World Solve Everything In-House
Look at the companies that changed industries:
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Tesla
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SpaceX
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Supercell
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Patagonia
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IKEA during its golden era
They all share the same principle:
Own the core. Own the vision. Own the responsibility.
They hire experts — yes — but never to decide the direction. Only to help execute a direction already chosen.
As Jobs said:
“We hire consultants when we know the answer. Never before.”
So What Do We Do With Consultants?
There is a place for them — but not as they are used today. They are needed as:
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niche experts
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temporary reinforcements
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technical specialists
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process builders
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external perspectives
But never as the brain of the company.
Never as the vision.
Never as the ones deciding what you should do.
Companies must think again.
Take responsibility again.
Choose courage again.
Feel their own work again.
Especially in an age of AI, where many believe innovation itself can be purchased.
Jobs’ Final Lesson: Courage Is Not a Service — It Is a Decision
The reason Jobs was dangerous wasn’t his intelligence — it was his courage. His willingness to stand by his belief, to take responsibility, to say no, to hold the line, to fire consultants when others relied on them for security.
And here lies his final lesson for our time:
What we lack today is not expertise.
What we lack today is courage.
Jobs saw that responsibility is the mother of creativity.
Responsibility is the foundation of freedom.
Responsibility is the spark that gives birth to innovation.
When no one owns the outcome — everything collapses.
A Company’s Real Strength Is Always Inside — Never Outside
This may be the hardest truth of all.
But it is also the only truth capable of saving companies that have lost direction:
**You can never buy your future.
You must build it.**
With your own hands.
Your own failures.
Your own passion.
Your own responsibility.
Steve Jobs saw this — long before anyone else. And this is why his words are more relevant today than they were three decades ago.
Because in an age of endless reports, processes, transformation plans, and consultant packages, he reminds us of a timeless truth:
Without ownership, there is no innovation.
Without courage, there is no change.
Without responsibility, there is no future.
By Chris...
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