Why Spending Money on Continuous Improvement Consulting Is a Horrible Idea (For Most Firms)
- Jake Anderson
- Nov 24
- 5 min read
Most companies that hire a CI or Lean consultant are already setting themselves up for disappointment. Not because consultants are bad at what they do, but because most organizations have no business trying to implement Lean, Six Sigma, or any CI program in the first place.
Here is the uncomfortable truth: the majority of continuous improvement initiatives fail.
You can pour money into certifications, Gemba workshops, software, and external experts, but if your organization isn’t culturally ready for continuous improvement, that investment is going straight into the waste bin.
Before a single consultant sets foot in your building, you should know exactly what you’re up against.
The Failure Rates Are Brutal
Study after study shows the same thing: improvement efforts fail far more often than they succeed.
2/3 of process improvement initiatives are unsuccessful
Up to 70 percent of Lean Six Sigma projects are prematurely terminated
About 60 percent of Six Sigma programs fail to achieve expected results
Around 50 percent of Kaizen events fail to sustain improvements over time
These aren’t fringe numbers. These are widely cited, peer-reviewed statistics from McLean, Sony, Glover, and others.
If a medication had a failure rate this high, it never would have made it out of Phase 1 trials. But in the corporate world, executives will throw hundreds of thousands at CI programs with the same mindset as buying gym equipment in January. The tools aren’t the problem. The culture is.
Why Do CI Programs Fail, i.e., Why Continuous Improvement Consulting is Horrible (usually)?
Hint: it isn't that continuous improvement consulting is horrible. Most companies fail before they even start. Not because they picked the wrong tool, but because they didn’t fix the human and cultural issues required for any tool to work.
1. Inadequate Training
You cannot fix ignorance with a laminated playbook. Leaders and staff need real training, real coaching, and real understanding of the why behind the frameworks.
2. Lack of Cross-Functional Collaboration
You can’t optimize an upstream process and ignore the downstream bottleneck. When teams don’t talk, you’re not improving anything. You’re shifting the burden.
3. Lack of Senior Leadership Support
Executives love Lean when it’s theoretical. They love it far less when it requires uncomfortable changes, transparency, or accountability.
If leadership isn’t actively modeling CI, don’t bother.
4. Failure to Build a CI Culture
Continuous improvement is a culture, not a project. It has to be part of the firm’s strategic plan and daily habits.
If your employees think CI is management code for layoffs, you are already done.
5. Excluding the Shop Floor From Decisions
This might be the biggest self-inflicted wound.
Why would executives or consultants tell the shop floor how to rearrange a machine they’ve never operated? Why would a CI team brainstorm solutions without the people who do the work every day?
The shop floor knows the process better than anyone. If you don’t include them, you will fail.
Here’s the Part Nobody Wants to Hear
Most CI and Lean consulting engagements fail because the company tries to outsource the culture change. You can outsource expertise, training, facilitation, and best practices.
But you cannot outsource ownership, trust, or accountability.
Hiring a consultant is like hiring a personal trainer. If you refuse to change your diet, sleep habits, and stress levels, the trainer can’t save you.
CI consulting is the same. Tools don’t fix culture. Leadership does.
So What Actually Works?
Here’s where companies can save thousands of dollars and actually build a sustainable CI foundation — with or without consultants.
1. Team Member Engagement
Highlight wins. Give credit to the people doing the work. Offer incentives for ideas that actually get implemented.
Why?
It creates buy-in
It builds trust
It shows employees that their knowledge and contributions matter
It builds a culture where improvement feels safe, not threatening
Employee engagement isn’t a warm fuzzy concept. It is the backbone of sustainable CI.
2. Bottom-Up Solutions
Your best ideas come from the lowest levels of the org chart.
People closest to the work see inefficiencies faster than anyone in a boardroom. They know what actually slows the process. They know which steps are unnecessary. They know where the real friction is.
When CI solutions come from the bottom up, they work. When they come from the top down, they usually fail.
3. Real Communication and Stakeholder Alignment
CI collapses when communication collapses.
If your upstream fix creates a downstream bottleneck, you didn’t improve anything. You just moved the pain.
Improvement has to be cross-functional. Everyone has to understand the why. Everyone has to see the impact of their process on the entire system.
This is where VOC, CTQ, KPIs, and actual data analysis come in. Statistical modeling isn’t optional. It guides which improvements are worth pursuing.
4. Leadership Buy-In
Without true buy-in, you’re one budget cycle away from having your project canceled.
Leadership has to:
Sponsor improvement projects
Attend working sessions
Acknowledge mistakes
Celebrate wins that come from the frontline
Approve and protect improvement pilots
Allocate resources
CI dies when it becomes a side project. It lives when leadership treats it like a strategic priority.
5. Culture: The Real CI Engine
You can have every tool, every certification, and every consultant in the world. If your culture doesn’t support continuous improvement, nothing sticks.
Strong CI cultures:
Recognize employees at all levels
Use pilots before rolling out large changes
Encourage curiosity over blame
Make CI part of performance reviews
Create CI teams with process leads
Offer workshops, events, and reward programs
Treat failure as learning, not punishment
CI is a habit. A rhythm. A mindset. A shared expectation.
And culture is the only thing that makes it repeatable.
CI Consultants Are Not the Problem. Misaligned Companies Are.
Many consultants are excellent. They bring structure, clarity, objectivity, tools, and decades of experience.
The problem is that most companies hire a CI consultant without fixing the cultural foundation required for CI to succeed.
If your team is scared to speak up, the consultant won’t save you. If leadership pulls the plug at the first sign of friction, the consultant won’t save you. If CI is treated as a one-time event, the consultant won’t save you. If the frontline is excluded from the decision-making, the consultant won’t save you. If you refuse to measure your process, no consultant can do it for you.
CI is not something a consultant does to you. It is something a consultant can help you build, but only if you’re ready.
So When Should You Actually Hire a CI Consultant?
When:
Leadership is aligned and committed
Culture supports transparency and learning
You’re ready for uncomfortable truths
You want expertise in DMAIC, A3, mapping, or metrics
You plan to involve the shop floor
You will actually measure success
You’re ready to embed CI into your operating system
If those conditions aren’t met, save your money. You’re not hiring a consultant. You’re hiring a scapegoat.
Final Thought
Continuous improvement isn’t something you buy. It isn’t a certification. It isn’t a kaizen event. It isn’t a workshop. It isn’t a consultant.
It is a culture.
Until that culture exists, spending money on CI consulting isn’t just ineffective. It’s a terrible idea.
If you're ready to do the work, together, let's see how I can help ⬇️
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