Unconsulting is a way of giving organizations guidance and expertise that leads them out of dependency instead of deeper into it. It deals openly with conflicts of interest, tries to help as many organizations as possible instead of extracting as much revenue as possible from individual ones, and connects organizations so they learn from each other directly. The term comes from this manifesto. More in What is Unconsulting?
The Unconsultancy Manifesto
Five values and eight principles for Unconsulting, written in 2024 by the founders of int[cube] and modelled on the Agile Manifesto.
Read itThe Unconsultancy Manifesto
We are uncovering more sustainable and reproducible ways of satisfying customers' needs for guidance and expertise.
Through this work we have come to value:
- Impact over ritualized theater
- Interactions over one-way communication
- Scalability and repeatability over unnecessary individualization
- Cooperation and community building over protecting client relations
- Transparency over obscure and/or unfair practices
We follow these principles:
- Our highest priority is to empower our customers to make good decisions and to enable them to implement these. This we call positive impact.
- We strive to develop approaches and build services and products that create positive impact for hundreds or thousands of organizations. This we call scale.
- We try to maximize positive impact per effort invested. This we call impact at scale.
- We believe that the optimal way to get there isn't always a straight line and embrace change whenever it comes. This we call adaptability.
- We acknowledge that conflict of interests and side effects exist and try to make them visible whenever and wherever we identify them. This we call transparency.
- Politics-free projects do not exist. Most client interactions happen at a factual, personal, and political level. Incorporating into our day-to-day work how they relate to each other and influence each other will benefit us and the client. This we call fairness.
- Self-organized, networked organizations and engagements produce better results faster than pyramidal hierarchies. They also allow everyone involved to grow. This we call organicity.
- "Don't be evil" isn't good enough. We are aware of potential harms of Consulting and try to counter them. This we call self-awareness.
Thinking About The Unconsultancy
Consulting Is Done - Long Live Consulting! The Unconsultancy Manifesto
F.A.Q.
An Unconsultancy is an organization that adheres to the Unconsultancy Manifesto and supports the movement.
Yes. The Unconsultancy Manifesto is modelled on the Agile Manifesto and written for consulting and expert guidance. It has five values, such as impact over ritualized theater and transparency over obscure and/or unfair practices, and eight principles, from positive impact to self-awareness. Dror-John Roecher and David Fuhr of the Berlin cybersecurity firm int[cube] wrote it in 2024.
The Unconsultancy Manifesto is inspired in form by the Agile Manifesto. It is inspired in content, among others, by the book "The Big Con" (How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies) by Rosie Collington and Mariana Mazzucato.
The Unconsultancy Manifesto was created by Berlin-based cybersecurity startup intcube. Coming from a background of Consulting, the founders Dror-John Roecher and David Fuhr had the vision that there must be more sustainable and higher leverage ways of meeting customers' legitimate need for guidance.
No, not with the Manifesto. We do run an (Un-)Consultancy over at intcube.io. If you need guidance and/or impact in cybersecurity, (secure) use of ai, or cloud/digitalization, please check us out!
Yes! Although there is no formal way yet of joining the Unconsultancy - there is no legal entity, no club, no cult (yet! ;-P ) - we see this as a movement.
If you click with the spirit, please get in touch!
Version 1.1 of 30 May 2024. Version 1.0 went online on 17 April 2024, and the launch post followed on 14 June 2024. See the manifesto history.
