Battling the Quiet Resignation

In today's fast-moving consulting ecosystem, the balance between productivity and welfare for the employees is turning out to be one of the hot topics many companies are trying to reach. Burnout has long been considered a major problem, but now another, more covert and overwhelming trend has started to take place: brown-out. The internal resignation of employees in which they lose a sense of meaningfulness about their work is remolding discourses on engagement and performance. It is equally important that consultants think through the nuances of brown-out in complex projects with rising expectations, whether for personal fulfillment or the success of client organizations.

When motivation slips away…

What is brown-out? It is a relatively new concept in workplace dynamics. An employee who continues to perform all his duties and tasks but no longer finds meaning in them falls under this category. The other two cousins, burnout leading to an entire emotional and physical collapse of the individual, and the 'bore-out', which refers to a lack of challenge or stimulation in performing the tasks, can be easily located. There is nothing like that in the case of brown-out. They may look productive, but inside, they have checked out of the purpose and values that used to drive them¹. For management consultants, who generally operate on the basis of their love of the challenge of transformation and change, brown-out is a particular threat: not just to their sense of fulfillment, but to the effectiveness of those organizations with whom they interact.

The silent drift: understanding the causes

As Christophe, a consultant with 30 years of experience in process engineering and change management, puts it: “In a project the biggest challenge isn't the technical issue, it is the human aspect that is the most complicated”. When a major change occurs, the loss of knowledge and skills can be fatal. This resistance to change can generate stress and a loss of motivation very quickly. It is the primary cause of brown-out and it has been a long-standing topic in consulting, dating back to the 90’s. With the ERP systems revolution, tasks were streamlined but, in some cases, they also led to a decline in employees’ skills. Many workers found themselves reduced to content feeders for the system without understanding what they were doing. This led to a wave of sick leave which can be one of the indicators of brown-out.

Another cause is the disconnect between an individual's role and their personal values or long-term career goals. When employees feel that their tasks no longer align with their personal aspirations or the broader mission of the company, their engagement begins to fade. This erosion of purpose can occur slowly masked by continued productivity. But internally, a disconnection from the meaningful aspects of work takes root.

Employees who perform routine tasks without the opportunity for growth or creativity may slowly disengage as their job satisfaction diminishes. In recent years many tasks have been automatised, thus the employee may feel less useful. While burnout is caused by overwork, brown-out often arises from a lack of intellectual challenge or a mismatch between an employee's skills and the tasks they are assigned.

Organizational culture and leadership also play a significant role in the onset of brown-out. Poor communication, lack of recognition, and a failure to involve employees in decision-making processes contribute to a sense of alienation.

What can we do about brown-out ?

Understanding the causes is the first step, but addressing them effectively requires concrete strategies. One of the key factors in countering brown-out according to our interviewee is employee engagement. Employees need to be as involved as possible in their missions, in the company’s internal life, and in the organizational changes it faces. An engaged employee is one who is valued, whose skills are recognized, and who therefore feels useful to the company. As a result, they are productive and invested in their work. This is even more important when we know that, on average, 70% of large-scale transformation projects fail².

The second-best practice in the fight against brown-out is appropriate communication. Each employee has a different job and mission, then we need to communicate with them in a way that is adapted to their needs. During our interview, Christophe mentions that “communicating about quick wins will keep employees motivated and highlight their endeavors”. Again, employees will feel essential to the company and will find more meaning in the time they devote to it.

The last element in countering brown-out is training. Training and supporting employees means staying close to them. This makes it easier to anticipate a loss of motivation on employees' behalf. Moreover, training and support help employees progress, giving them a real sense of satisfaction as they develop their new skills. Training is not taken seriously enough by companies and employees alike. Unfortunately, in organizational change projects, it is regularly a stage that is not sufficiently respected. As a result, employees are left to deal with their various tasks on their own and quickly lose motivation and job satisfaction. Training and support should not only be provided when a change is implemented. They must be provided upstream and downstream, as well as throughout the employee's journey within the company.

Future-proofing strategies: balancing technology and humanity

As organizations keep changing in a world characterized by rapid technological advances and new workplace dynamics, addressing this problem demands forward-thinking strategies. It was pointed out during the interview that automation and the use of ERP systems could further increase disengagement. Yet from the broad view of how matters are, brown-out is not just a product of technological change but also organizational culture and approaches to leadership. This bleak view of automation can blind one from using the full potential of technology such as reclaiming the employee’s time from mundane and repeated tasks. In a future scenario, consultants might leverage AI-driven engagement tools that can analyze patterns in employee behavior. Similarly to digital twins, it could help proactively address issues before they even happen.

Moving forward, consultants must shift from short-term and survival-focused transformations to more proactive, human-centered approaches. The future belongs to the organizations that first can come to terms with these new dynamics and build cultures where both people and processes thrive. Brown-out is more than disengagement, it’s about how to build a resilient and adaptive workforce that finds purpose in the face of continuous change.

¹ Marie Duneau, Personal Development: Why and How Should We Integrate It in the Workplace? College of Management, Mahidol University, 2020.

² Jon Garcia, Common pitfalls in transformations: A conversation with Jon Garcia, McKinsey, March 29, 2022.

AVARVARI Vlad, BOUAT Antoine & POCHY Gaspard

Dans le cadre de leur MSc Business Strategy & Consulting, les étudiants d’Audencia participent à un concours d’articles portant sur les enjeux liés à l’organisation des cabinets de conseil et aux carrières dans ce domaine. Chaque semestre, le sujet est différent. 
Lucie Noury, responsable de ce cours et spécialiste du conseil, invite les étudiants à développer un point de vue réflexif sur les tendances du secteur, en lien avec les apports du cours. Les étudiants sont appelés à trouver un angle intéressant et original sur le thème qui leur est imposé, à interviewer un ou plusieurs professionnels du conseil sur ce sujet et à en tirer des conclusions argumentées pour y porter un regard nouveau. L’objectif est double : aider les étudiants à développer un point de vue critique sur les actualités du secteur, et mûrir leur projet professionnel. 
Ce semestre, les étudiants ont été invités à s’interroger sur le sens dans le conseil à travers le thèmes « meaningful consulting ». C’est un sujet particulièrement d’actualité dans ce secteur, que ce soit à travers des enjeux de renouvellement des pratiques de travail et de management dans le but de rester attractif et de retenir les talents ; ou bien à travers la question de l’impact du conseil sur les organisations clientes et les parties-prenantes externes. 
Les six meilleurs articles ont été sélectionnés. Trois d’entre eux seront publiés par le Management Consulting Journal, formidable vitrine pour les travaux de nos étudiants :
•    Rita Dakkoune, Elie Barakat & Lily Atteia, for their article entitled “How to: Keep your head up in public and find meaning in your consulting work “
•    Noah Malka & Guillaume Rogeau, for their article entitled “Independent Consultant: Myth of Freedom or Reality of Overwork?”
•    Marion Grange, Quentin Hoang & Inès Rambaud, for their article entitled “Big Three or NGO? When the quest for meaningful work becomes a dilemma…”
Trois autres sont publiés ici :
•    Oussama Tannous, for his article entitled “The Giga-Project Maze: Can Consultants Really Lead the Way?”
•    Manoli Arora, Christopher El Khoury El Melki & Julia Jankovic, for their article entitled “Consulting’s Dilemma: Loving the Craft, Loathing the Game”
•    Antoine Bouat, Vlad Avarvari & Gaspard Pochy, for their article entitled “Battling the Quiet Resignation: How consultants confront brown-out in client organizations”
Tous articles abordent le sujet sous des angles variés, allant de la question de l’image du conseil et des consultants, à celle de l’impact des cabinets de conseil en stratégie, en passant par la réalité des consultants indépendants, les enjeux liés à la perte de sens dans les organisations ou encore la difficulté de faire sens de projets de très grande ampleur à l’échelle individuelle. 

As part of their MSc in Business Strategy & Consulting, Audencia students are taking part in an article competition on the issues surrounding the organization of consulting firms and careers in this field. Each semester, the topic of the competition changes. 
Lucie Noury, head of the course and a consulting expert, invites students to develop a reflective point of view on trends in the sector, in line with the course content. Students are asked to find an interesting and original angle on a given theme, to interview one or more consulting professionals on the subject and to draw well-founded conclusions for a fresh perspective. The aim is twofold: to help students develop a critical viewpoint on current events in the sector, and to mature their career plans. 
This semester, students were invited to consider the theme “meaningful consulting”. This is a particularly topical issue in this sector, whether in terms of new work and management practices to remain attractive and retain talent, or in terms of the impact of consulting on client organizations and external stakeholders. 
The six best articles were selected. Three of them will be published by the Management Consulting Journal, a great for our students to showcase their work:
•    Rita Dakkoune, Elie Barakat & Lily Atteia, for their article entitled “How to: Keep your head up in public and find meaning in your consulting work “
•    Noah Malka & Guillaume Rogeau, for their article entitled “Independent Consultant: Myth of Freedom or Reality of Overwork?”
•    Marion Grange, Quentin Hoang & Inès Rambaud, for their article entitled “Big Three or NGO? When the quest for meaningful work becomes a dilemma…”
Three others are published here : 
•    Oussama Tannous, for his article entitled “The Giga-Project Maze: Can Consultants Really Lead the Way?”
•    Manoli Arora, Christopher El Khoury El Melki & Julia Jankovic, for their article entitled “Consulting’s Dilemma: Loving the Craft, Loathing the Game”
•    Antoine Bouat, Vlad Avarvari & Gaspard Pochy, for their article entitled “Battling the Quiet Resignation: How consultants confront brown-out in client organizations”
All the articles tackle the subject from a variety of angles, from the image of consulting and consultants, to the impact of strategy consulting firms, the reality of independent consulting, the issues linked to the loss of meaning in organizations, and the difficulty of making sense of very large-scale projects from an individual perspective.