When we buy for ourselves, we trust our instincts.
We walk past the department store and step into the boutique. We choose the jeweller who knows our taste, the tailor who notices the detail others miss, the small brand that feels crafted rather than produced.
We do it because quality feels personal. Because care cannot be mass-manufactured. Because we are buying an outcome.
Yet when the purchase is for the business, those instincts vanish.
Faced with transformation, technology change, or strategic delivery, leaders often turn to the biggest names. Not because those firms understand them best, but because they feel safe. Familiar logos act as corporate insurance, a choice nobody ever gets questioned for making.
It is a fascinating reversal.
In our personal lives, we buy for outcomes. In business, we buy for optics.
The irony is that those very choices can quietly hold companies back. Large consultancies deliver exactly what they promise: structure, slides, and scale. But that rarely matches what the business truly needs. The result is comfort without progress, activity without movement.
If we applied the same discernment we show when buying something valuable for ourselves, we might make very different corporate choices. We would seek those who work with us, not on us. Those who adapt to what is real, not theoretical. Those whose reputation is earned through delivery, not brand familiarity.
Leadership is not about buying safety. It is about buying results.
The smartest leaders already know this. They work with partners who make things happen.