Why "It depends" Is Expensive

My first client as an independent adviser asked me what I thought. I gave them what I'd spent over 20 years learning to give: the analysis, the stakeholder perspectives and a recommendation with caveats. As a colleague used to say, "It depends…"

Their response was direct. "No. What do you think? What is your judgement?"

It was a fair challenge, and it's stayed with me. It made me realise how much advice, including some of my own over the years, stops one step short of being useful.

The Problem With Balanced Advice

There's nothing wrong with balanced advice in itself. It's thorough, it's defensible and it rarely gets anyone into trouble. That's exactly why so many advisers default to it.

But think about what it actually does. An organisation brings in an adviser because a decision is difficult. There are competing options, gaps in the data and stakeholders who don't agree. The adviser maps all of that out, sets out the options and the pros and cons, and hands it back. The decision is just as hard as it was before. It's just better documented.

In FM this matters a lot. The big decisions, whether that's changing supplier, moving to a new operating model or re-tendering a long-term contract, are expensive to get wrong and slow to put right. Sign a five-year contract on the wrong basis and you live with it for five years. At that point a client doesn't need another list of considerations. They need someone to tell them which way to go, and why.

"It depends" is usually true. It just isn't enough.

Why Advisers Hedge

Most advisers are perfectly capable of forming a clear view. In my experience, when they hold back it's often for reasons that have little to do with the client.

Liability is one. A firm view can turn out to be wrong, and being wrong can be expensive for the firm that gave it.

Caveats have their place. But they can also become a form of protection, allowing an adviser to explain the limits of a recommendation without fully committing to it.

The next piece of work is another. In a large firm, an assessment often leads to an implementation project, a procurement exercise or a managed service. If the firm stands to benefit more from one answer than another, that can shape the advice, even if nobody intends it to.

Then there are relationships. FM is a small market, and advisers who work closely with suppliers, or whose firms partner with them, have good reasons to be careful about what they say.

Large firms rightly value consistency and process. But in some engagements, the discipline of presenting every option can take precedence over the harder task of deciding which option is best for the client.

I don't think this makes large firm advice bad. I worked with some excellent people. It does tend to make it cautious, though, and at the moment of a big decision that caution has a cost that rarely shows up in the report.

What Good Judgement Needs

Judgement isn't simply an opinion, or confidence expressed without evidence. It's the ability to interpret the evidence, draw on experience, understand the client's circumstances and make a recommendation you are prepared to stand behind.

Experience matters most. You only build pattern recognition by seeing enough decisions play out, good and bad.

After more than 20 years working in FM, I've seen how often a proposed solution addresses the visible symptom without fixing the underlying problem.

It also needs the analysis. Judgement doesn't replace evidence. It interprets it. The data tells you what's happening. Judgement is about what it means and what you should do about it.

You also have to be willing to be wrong. A clear view can be challenged, and sometimes it should be. I'd rather give a client something they can test and push back on than a balanced summary they can't do anything with.

Finally, it needs independence. Advice is only as good as the interests behind it. When an adviser has nothing to gain from the answer, the client can take what they say at face value. In my experience that changes the conversation completely. People tell you more when they know you've nothing riding on the outcome, and you get to the real issue much faster.

Where It Matters Most in FM

Most of the expensive mistakes I've seen in FM were made before anything was signed. By the time a supplier is appointed, the decisions that shape value have often already been made: the scope, the commercial model, the allocation of risk and the operating model.

So that's when independent judgement is most valuable, before the tender, before the contract and before the operating model changes. Not once the problems have started to show.

The questions at that stage are rarely technical. They're commercial and strategic. Is the supplier really the problem, or is it how the service has been specified and managed? Will bringing it in house deliver what the business expects, or just a different set of costs? Can the market actually deliver what we're asking for at the price we have in mind? Data helps answer those questions, but in the end they need someone's judgement.

That's why I set up Altrion Advisory as an independent advisory practice. I don't implement my recommendations, sell FM services or earn success fees. My advice isn't tied to a particular supplier, solution or follow-on project. My role is to help clients make the right decision for their business and to stand behind my recommendation.

Clients will always need the analysis. What they also need is someone prepared to tell them what they actually think.