Pros
1. Great at hiring thoughtful and interesting people. Prime water cooler convo.
2. Consultants get exposure to, if not mastery in, a lot of different aspects of consulting and research. Especially ppt design.
3. Unlike lots of consulting firms, most projects you work on are challenging and/or interesting. They try hard to keep it that way (if sometimes at the expense of demonstrable utility).
4. Pretty offices, free lunches, lots of wine.
Cons
1. On a day-to-day basis, consultants often feel under-supported, over-worked, under-appreciated, and treated as less capable of deep thinking and co-leadership than they are. Management is often incentivized to steamroll and correct, rather than to develop and learn from people. This has disproportionately affected people of color for years.
2. Too much hot air. ReD people are capable of forming concrete, strategic advice, but the firm chooses to distinguish itself by outputs characterized by sweeping theories and design that, too often, clients don’t need, can’t use, and didn’t ask for (aka empty work). Several clients started looking elsewhere for more practical and affordable consulting.
3. They’re a small fish in a big pond, who thinks reality is the other way around. This lack of reputation can be a liability when folks leave. While ReD is premium-branded and charges clients premium prices, that’s rarely how other employers understand the people who work there. In an industry where the average consultant holds a job for two years, they risk gaining professional experience without getting transferable credit for it.
4. Good leadership is undervalued and too often the exception to the rule. People are surprised when they get to work with someone who motivates their team, participates in hard thinking, gives people the benefit of the doubt, genuinely trains junior staff, admits when they’re wrong, and provides psychological safety.
