---
id: "prereq-consulting-business-model"
type: "prereq"
source_timestamps: ["\\\"§ Breakdown 1: Learning is informal", "while delivery is relentless.\\\"", "§ Breakdown 2: Incentives reward the wrong behaviors."]
tags: ["business-models", "consulting"]
related: ["concept-triple-burden", "action-adjust-incentives"]
reason: "Required to understand why managers cannot simply 'make time' for AI experimentation without structural changes to their incentives."
sources: ["reskilling"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-reskilling"
originDay: 10
articleStem: "hbr-sig-50-adoption-overloading-managers"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/06/ai-adoption-is-overloading-your-middle-managers"
sourceTitle: "AI Adoption Is Overloading Your Middle Managers"
---
# Consulting Business Model (Utilization & Billable Hours)

**Prerequisite knowledge.** The text assumes the reader understands how knowledge-intensive industries — particularly consulting — operate on a model of **billable hours and utilization targets**. Utilization is the share of a professional's time billed to clients; it is the primary performance and profitability metric, and the basis of most incentives and promotions.

**Why it matters.** Without this context, the friction of 'lowering utilization targets' ([[action-protect-learning-time]]) or the conflict between 'learning time' and 'delivery pressure' cannot be fully grasped. It is also why the second of the [[framework-three-breakdowns]] bites so hard: because pay and advancement track utilization, the unrewarded legs of the [[concept-triple-burden]] (experimentation, coaching) are perpetually crowded out — the exact problem [[action-adjust-incentives]] tries to fix.

**Enrichment context.** Salesforce and Built In corroborate that delivery pressure and legacy productivity metrics dominate managers' incentives, making 'just make time' structurally impossible without changing what gets measured and rewarded.


## Related across articles
- [[prereq-billable-hour-model]]
- [[prereq-consulting-economics]]
- [[prereq-partner-track-leverage]]