I always joke that when I start writing and producing Nonprofit The Musical, one of the characters would be a consulting robot. It’s a robot that is a consultant, and it repeats exactly what the staff says, but the board actually listens to it! If you’re a consultant, you might be offended by that joke. But let’s be honest, this is one of the reasons we hire consultants, and effective consultants recognize that this is a necessary role they play.
This is because we have a rampant belief in our sector that people from outside our organization/community/geographic area are somehow more knowledgeable and effective than the people in it. I am calling it the Outsider Efficacy Bias (OEB), unless there’s a better name for it. Here are some ways it manifests:
- Board members insisting on hiring an external candidate to be the ED instead of promoting a qualified person within the organization
- EDs/CEOs doing the same thing, hiring a staff from outside, often neglecting internal candidates
- Foundations hiring people from academia or the corporate world, who have no experience in nonprofit, to be the CEO
- Organizations hiring consultants from outside the geographic area instead of contracting with local consultants who live and work there
- Organizations hiring local consultants instead of just listening to their staff
- Conferences booking national and international speakers instead of working with local speakers
