Vetting Genuine Distance
The seven criteria from Chapter 9, in checklist form. They derive entirely from published research and statute, and they hold for any advisor of any size. An advisor who clears all seven can supply Distance. One who doesn't is selling something else.
Criterion 1 — Follow the revenue model
A firm paid by time and materials on a finders-minders-grinders pyramid profits when scope grows; its advice is tangled up with its billing. Ask how the fee changes if the recommended work grows. (Maister, 1993.)
Criterion 2 — Who actually does the thinking
Distance is pattern recognition across many prior organizations; a first-year analyst has no such library. Name the individuals doing the diagnostic work and vet their personal case history, not the firm's. (Maister, 1993.)
Criterion 3 — A documented willingness to kill
Pushing back only adds value when the person doing it can actually say no, and pushback that's just for show doesn't count. Ask for named instances of “don't do this.” (Schwenk & Cosier, 1980; Nemeth et al., 2001.)
Criterion 4 — Independence from implementation revenue
Advice that feeds downstream build fees is the auditor-consulting conflict in new clothes — biased in good faith, and disclosure doesn't fix it. Diagnosis and implementation should be separately contractable and separately terminable. (Sarbanes-Oxley §201; Moore, Tetlock, Tanlu & Bazerman, 2006.)
Criterion 5 — Tenure and rotation
Distance decays with familiarity — measurably, after about a year and a half. Require an explicit engagement horizon or rotation plan; an advisor embedded for years is an insider with an invoice. (Katz & Allen, 1982; SOX §203.)
Criterion 6 — An outside reference class
Judgment improves when your case is placed alongside a wide range of comparable cases from elsewhere. A deliverable synthesizing your own interviews and metrics has added zero Distance; demand cross-client, cross-industry base rates. (Kahneman & Lovallo, 1993.)
Criterion 7 — Payment invariant to the answer
What they get paid doesn't change no matter what they conclude. A fixed diagnostic fee that pays the same for “go,” “go differently,” or “stop” is the only structure in which “stop” is affordable to say. Contingent pricing, success fees, and land-and-expand pricing all make one answer more profitable than another. (Kunda, 1990; Babcock & Loewenstein, 1997.)
Distance is the one input on the Five-Question Screen that is disqualifying on its own. A redesign with no real outside perspective does not proceed until that gap is closed.
How to use it: Run a specific named candidate against all seven, in writing. Criterion 7 is the one most advisors cannot clear — and the one that matters most. Print this page →