Why Does Adding Outside Experts Help Teams Deliver Better Outcomes?

By Dan Martin

In most cases, bringing in an outside expert can help teams deliver better outcomes than if they were to take on the project by themselves. Otherwise, consulting would not be one of the fastest-growing professions in the country.

On the surface, though, the concept can seem counterintuitive. Why wouldn’t an in-house team, made up of people who are often experts in their own right and who have a much stronger sense of the business and brand, be set up well for success without considering expert help? Taking the question further, couldn’t an outside expert actually have a detrimental effect on a project due to disruption of team dynamics and a lack of organizational knowledge?

And yet, it’s a fact that many of the projects in which organizations choose to hire an external expert are deemed successful, and especially relative to what in-house teams internally may have been able to achieve in the past. Why is this the case?

Organization-Wide Investment in Project Success

It’s an uncomfortable truth that, in many corporate environments, being on the same team doesn’t always mean being on the same team. Certain people in certain roles may stand to benefit if projects fail, and they often act accordingly. 

More often than not, projects are not killed in one fell swoop, although that does happen. Instead, failure comes from a thousand different cuts, including unnecessary bureaucracy, last-minute stalling on reviews, sidebar conversations and sudden shifts in prioritization. Regardless of the reasons a person may have for slowing down or upending a project, it can be an incredible source of frustration and affect even the most talented and high-powered in-house teams.

An engagement with an outside expert can eliminate a lot of that bureaucracy and politicking for a simple reason: the money for the engagement is coming from a line item and not from people costs. 

This may not seem like a big difference; in many companies, however, it means that the project receives far more scrutiny. And by extension, there are more internal team members who are invested in its success due to their responsibility for the budget, the referral or a variety of other factors. The organization is paying directly for a positive outcome on an important project, and that alone makes the project more likely to get the resources and support it needs from leadership.

For the fractional expert or freelancer, the investment in success is more obvious. The value of their work, what it’s like to do business with them and their overall reputation is on the line. It will either earn them more business and future clients or it won’t; even an engagement that is “fine” but not Earth-shattering is likely more of a negative than a positive.

And for the internal staff that’s not on the company’s leadership team, while they may truly be invested in the success of the company long-term, their surface-level investment in an outside engagement is more tactical. If a fractional or freelance project fails, it means more work on their plates, which, in the age of ever-leaner teams, is something most employees are desperate to avoid.

Access to (Real) Experience at an Affordable Rate

You can have the world’s most capable in-house team, and they will still struggle without the necessary resources, budget and support. Too often, leadership’s response when looking at an area that’s not performing as well as they had hoped is to assume they don’t have the right people or that their people aren’t working hard enough. While either could certainly be the case, it’s more often that the in-house teams don’t have what they need to be successful. As of August 2024, only 33 percent of U.S. workers in Gallup’s Engagement Survey strongly agreed that they have the opportunity to do what they do best every day, and only 46 percent strongly agreed that they knew what was expected of them at work.

Even if you’re the type of leader who understands your team needs help, you still face challenges. Most notably, adding headcount is one of the most difficult processes in any organization, and for good reason. According to the Paycor, labor costs can account for as much as 70 percent of total costs for a business. Thus, even if you are somehow able to get new headcount for your team approved, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to free up enough budget to hire top talent.

Paradoxically, cost is an area where engaging an outside expert can be extremely attractive. Yes, these outside parties are paid at a higher rate that represents their experience and expertise. They are also paid on a time-bound basis, either by project or hourly, and are not paid benefits like insurance or bonuses. As a result, organizations can afford to bring in higher-level experts at a lower overall cost than a mid-range full-time hire. 

Importantly, if your company works with an organization like Canopy Advisory Group who heavily vets every fractional expert in its community, your company will be bringing on an expert with actual experience in the problems you’re trying to solve. If you choose to scroll through LinkedIn to try to find an “expert,” you risk ending up with a consultant who is good at selling themselves but who has never executed anything at the level you need. 

The best experts will provide value well above their overall cost, in both the work and in their impact longer-term, supporting your in-house team with the guidance and in-the-weeds help that they need to make real progress on key projects.

A Blend of Strategic and Tactical Support

Many in-house teams are composed of employees who are meant to play extremely specific roles. Leaders create strategy and manage large teams, specialists support platforms and operations, junior team members focus on blocking and tackling work – you get the idea.

Once again, there are a lot of reasons for this, and it’s not necessarily the wrong approach. It can, however, hamstring in-house teams when it comes to agility and execution. If, due to hierarchy, approval process and extreme specialization, a team takes three weeks to complete a project that should take one, you have a big problem.

Unlike traditional consultants, fractional experts bring a blend of strategic acumen and execution ability, meaning that they can become a contributing member of the team almost immediately. What often helps in-house teams most is working collaboratively with fractional experts and seeing the output, which then helps them adjust and improve their work. This is the longer-term value of fractional engagements that isn’t talked about enough; the impact of ideas, concepts put into practice and inspiration often lingers long after the fractional expert has completed their project.

Outside Support is Often Necessary Due to Barriers Facing In-House Teams

For the most part, organizations don’t need to bring in consultants because in-house teams are incompetent. They need to bring in outside experts because of how hard it can be for in-house teams to get things done.It’s not an indictment of organizational structures and processes as much as it is a fact of life within many companies. 

Organizations look at hundreds of different metrics to determine business health, prioritization, and the success or failure of projects. Smart business owners and leaders are greenlighting fractional engagements to help solve key business problems for a wide range of reasons. The one that will almost always matter most is better outcomes.

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Are you looking for a better way to get your projects across the finish line, on time, and under budget? Canopy can help you find the right fractional expert, onboard them quickly, and ensure a speedy and successful engagement. 

Tell us about your project today at canopyadvisory.com.