About the Firm
Right Since 1970.
Your Doing It All Wrong is the world's oldest independent wrongness advisory. Approximately 57 years of uninterrupted institutional error, none of it ours to correct.
The firm's name has been reviewed by three committees, outside counsel, and the State of Georgia. It stands.
Our Origins
The Founding
In 1970, founder Emmett R. Doyle filed incorporation papers for a management consultancy in Watkinsville, Georgia. The name on the filing contained an error. It was reviewed by Mr. Doyle, his attorney, and the State of Georgia, and approved by all three.
Rather than amend the filing, Mr. Doyle recognized what his contemporaries could not: the error was the business. A firm capable of committing a mistake on its own letterhead, notarizing it, and proceeding without hesitation was a firm that understood something fundamental about the modern organization.
The firm's first client engagement had concluded two years earlier, in 1968. It went well. We have been unable to repeat this result and no longer attempt to.
What We Stand On
Our Values
Five principles, ratified by the partnership, govern everything the firm does. They are non-negotiable, which is itself the first principle.
Certainty
Conviction, held at full strength, independent of information.
Billing
The value from which the other values are invoiced.
Alignment
We meet until agreement is reached, or until attendance fails.
Escalation
No matter is so small that it cannot be raised.
Plausible Deniability
We stand fully behind our work, at a distance measured by counsel.
Pending
A sixth value was ratified by the board in 2011. It has not been located.
Governance
Leadership
The firm is directed by an executive committee of uncommon tenure and total agreement. Biographies are reviewed annually and approved without changes.
Bartholomew D. Kessler
Mr. Kessler has led the firm since 2009, when he was appointed by a committee he chaired. Under his leadership the firm has doubled in size and halved in accuracy, in accordance with the strategic plan.
Margaret Ellison-Voss
Ms. Ellison-Voss has not revised a position in thirty-one years of practice. She oversees firmwide conviction, ensuring certainty grows annually against a fixed supply of evidence.
R. Prescott Vance III
Mr. Vance convenes the meetings that follow meetings. His calendar is fully allocated through 2031 and is carried on the balance sheet as an asset.
Diane Okafor-Whitmore
Ms. Okafor-Whitmore was unavailable for this biography and, per longstanding policy, cannot confirm her role, her department, or this sentence.
Name Withheld by Request
Appointed in 1987. Reviewed the firm's letterhead once, shortly after arriving, and has made no public statement since. All copy on this website has been approved by this office, including this paragraph.
Douglas A. Trench
Mr. Trench reports directly to himself, an arrangement he has escalated. He joined the firm in 1968, two years before it existed, and considers the matter closed.
Global Reach
A Worldwide Footprint
Wrongness does not observe borders. Neither, in several documented cases, have our invoices.
Figures are drawn from three internal systems of record, each authoritative. The variance between 14,000 and 16,200 professionals is the subject of an active engagement, which has begun billing itself.
Firm Chronology
A History of the Firm
Selected milestones, presented in the order the firm prefers.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1968 | First client engagement concluded successfully. The result has not been repeated and is no longer attempted. |
| 1970 | Firm founded in Watkinsville, Georgia. The name on the incorporation filing is reviewed and approved three times. |
| 1974 | A junior associate questions the letterhead. The position is eliminated. The question is retained and later becomes a service line. |
| 1981 | International expansion begins. Offices open in twelve countries, bringing the total to nine. |
| 1987 | The Office of the Chief Grammar Officer is established. No further statement has been issued. |
| 1994 | Introduction of the billable estimate, a unit of engagement that may be invoiced before, after, or instead of the work. |
| 2003 | The firm is acquired in a hostile takeover by an undisclosed buyer, later determined to be the firm. Neither party noticed at the time. Integration is ongoing. |
| 2008 | The firm advises extensively on the global financial crisis, in both directions. |
| 2016 | First annual report published. The firm is named a Leader in a quadrant of it's own design. |
| 2019 | The button worked. It should of been documented. |
| 2024 | A four-day website outage is reclassified as a deliverable, invoiced, and paid. |
| 2027 | The firm is awarded a federal contract. The agency, the scope, and the reason remain unclear. Work has begun and is ahead of schedule. |
This chronology was audited internally in 2025 and found to be consistent with itself, though not with events. The firm will observe its 60th anniversary in 2027, approximately.
Recognition
Certifications & Awards
The firm's credentials are displayed in the Watkinsville lobby and are available for inspection by appointment. Appointments are not available.
ISO 9001 Non-Compliant
Independently certified non-compliant since 1998. Recertified annually without inspection.
Better Business Bureau: F+
Twelve consecutive years. The plus was awarded for consistency.
Worst Consulting Firm
Winner, Global Advisory Awards, 2021–2026. An honor we except in full.
Wrongness Advisory of the Year
Conferred by the Global Council of Firms That Bill While Opening PowerPoint, of which we are the sole member.
Fully Uninsured and Unbonded
A posture we maintain by choice, and by the choices of every insurer we have approached.
Great Place to Work: Application Returned
Unopened. We have framed the envelope.
Standards of Conduct
Ethics & Independence
Ethics Statement
The firm maintains the highest ethical standards it has been able to locate. Our Code of Conduct is reviewed each year by the personnel it governs and has passed every review it has drafted for itself.
Employees are required to report any conflict between the Code and an engagement. To date, all such reports have been resolved in favor of the engagement, which was in every case larger. We hold ourselfs to the same standard we hold our clients: billable.
Independence Statement
Your Doing It All Wrong is fully independent. Our conclusions are not influenced by clients, regulators, evidence, or outcomes, because they are formed prior to engagement and are therefore uncontaminated by the particulars of your situation.
Since the 2003 acquisition of the firm by the firm, independence has been structurally guaranteed. We answer to a parent company whose judgment we trust completely, because it is ours. Any appearance of conflict between the two parties is reviewed by both, who meet as one.