Trumped again: Inevitability takes a beating

It was a few days after the US presidential election, and dear reader, I admit that I was in a state of shock. The inevitable had been thwarted, and the impossible had come to pass. Like about half of my fellow Americans, I felt the world had been turned upside down, and for the first time in a long time, I was experiencing the very disorienting sensation of having no idea what might happen next.

And so, as countless good people across our great nation do every day, I sought solace and guidance from that most stoic and dependable of sources: the management consultant. Unfortunately for the gentleman in question, I wasn’t a paying client—just a Source analyst scheduled to speak with him as part of our ongoing canvassing of the US market. But I was glad to have the opportunity to pick the brain of a highly placed, well-connected thought leader so soon after the election. I was eager to get his perspective on ~*what it all meant*~

“Well, first of all, you have to understand that the ACA is done,” he said before launching into a well-tread explanation of the impact this could be expected to have on the healthcare market. The answer was not merely disappointing; it was almost insulting. Didn’t he understand that I, too, am a highly educated professional with paid-up subscriptions to all the very best newspapers? I mean, obviously the ACA was dead. Obviously, that would be the first thing to happen. Obviously, that’s not what I was asking. His next spiel about the inevitability of a tax overhaul was equally galling.

In retrospect, it seems very unfair to have expected him to have any better grasp on the suddenly hazy future than I or anyone else did. And indeed, he did not: Ten months in, we find that Donald Trump has made fools of us well-read folks again and again. The few things that seemed like sure bets in the uncertain post-election world have not come to pass: The ACA lives; a tax proposal is on the table at long last, but it’s far from a done deal; infrastructure has seen some talk but no action. As with the election itself, the inevitable has seemingly been thwarted. In both victory and defeat, Trump has proven an uncanny ability to blow up expectations and keep that feeling of disorientation going strong.

And so now we must wonder about the reliability of another of our cherished assumptions: Clients may hate unpredictability, but so long as the underlying economy remains strong, it tends to be good news for consultants. After all, clients are eager for guidance in uncertain times, so as long as their revenues look good, they tend to be happy to buy. So far, this assumption seems to be holding up, and the US consulting market remains strong—even in those industries left wondering if Trump will be able to deliver on his pro-business promises. It’s not clear, however, how long the good times can last: If the larger economy starts to crack under the stress of all this ambiguity, clients’ moods could change considerably, and consultants could find themselves among the first expenses cut.

Of course, there is the distinct possibility that any debate about how long consulting can ride a wave of unpredictability could soon prove moot. It is possible that legislative inaction—the one thing no one expected—ends up providing the new normal. It may already be happening.

We’ve been talking to a lot of consultants working in the healthcare market lately as we prepare for our annual report on consulting to the industry, and those we’ve spoken with say the new administration’s inability to get things done has actually helped inject a new sense of stability. They tell us that, despite some hesitancy at the start of this year, their clients are now forging ahead on the assumption that the ACA will remain in place for the foreseeable future—or else be replaced by something that’s functionally indistinguishable. Might clients in financial services, construction, resources, and other industries left dangling ultimately do the same—assume the status quo is set and forge ahead accordingly?

Perhaps this is what we should have expected all along. Politicians promise sweeping change, and people often vote for it. But for better or worse, in modern, mature democracies, it rarely ever happens. Maybe that’s an inevitability we can actually count on.