Beyond “it depends” or How Good Consultants Handle Uncertainty Without Losing Trust

There’s probably no phrase more mocked or more accurate in consulting than “it depends.”

It’s the classic answer clients love to hate. Say it, and you risk sounding evasive. Don’t say it, and you risk oversimplifying something that genuinely is complex. Every consultant has been there. You get asked a sharp, binary question: “Should we go big bang or phased?” “Should we insource or outsource?” “Is agile really better than waterfall?” And your brain knows immediately that the real answer is: “Well, it depends.”

But over time, I’ve learned something important: even if “it depends” is true, that doesn’t mean you should say it. In fact, you often shouldn't. Clients aren’t asking questions because they expect a perfect answer. Most of the time, they know there isn’t one. They ask anyway to see what you’ll do with the uncertainty. Can you guide them through it? Will you make it clearer, or just hand the ambiguity back to them wrapped in consulting language?

If all you offer is a shrug and a vague statement that “it depends on a number of things,” you haven’t helped. But if you use that complexity to open up a more structured discussion, you've done your job.

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They know it depends. They want to see how you deal with it.

I often think clients deliberately ask impossible questions. Not to trap us, but to see how we think. They know there’s no easy answer, they’ve been inside the problem far longer than we have. But they ask anyway to test whether we understand the trade-offs. Whether we’ll hide behind complexity or lean into it.

And here’s the key: you don’t have to pretend there is one definitive answer. But you also shouldn’t retreat into indecision. The best consultants I've worked with are the ones who respond to ambiguity not with deflection, but with clarity. Not with “it depends” alone, but with “here are the three things it depends on, and here’s what I recommend based on what I see.” That’s the difference between describing complexity and navigating it.

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Not everything depends — and you should know when

Of course, there are questions where “it depends” is a lazy answer. There are best practices. There are known answers. There are recommendations that, 90% of the time, work better than the alternatives. If you’re an expert, you should know them. And if the client is asking something with a high-confidence answer, you should give it. Quickly.

The mistake some consultants make is to over-intellectualize every decision. To make every path sound uncertain, when in fact one is clearly better given the context. Saying “it depends” in those cases isn’t nuance. It’s a missed opportunity to demonstrate expertise.

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The worst use of “it depends”

The most damaging use of “it depends” is when it becomes a crutch, a way to buy time, to avoid conflict, to stay vague when a point of view is needed. I've seen it in meetings where a client is practically begging for a recommendation and the consultant keeps circling: “It depends on your risk tolerance,” “It depends on the market,” “It depends on your internal culture...”

Yes, all of those are true. But eventually, someone has to say: “Given everything we know, this is the direction I recommend.” Our clients don’t need infinite qualifications. They need judgment.

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When I learned to stop saying it out loud

I remember a project where I caught myself leaning on “it depends” too often. It was a multi-country rollout, with big decisions to be made around sequencing and scope. Every option had upsides and risks. I was trying to be careful, precise, diplomatic. But I could feel the client growing impatient.

Then in one meeting, after I said, “It depends...” for the third time, one of the senior stakeholders said, half-joking: “We know it depends. Everything depends. What do you think we should do?” That moment stuck with me. Since then, I’ve tried to avoid saying the phrase out loud. I still believe in the thinking behind it - deeply. But now I aim to skip the words and go straight to the structure: “There are two viable options. One is faster, one is safer. Your internal readiness points toward Option A. That's my recommendation.”

That’s what clients want. Not artificial certainty. But clarity.

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Final thought: make ambiguity actionable

“It depends” is a tempting answer because it’s always technically true. But the real work is turning ambiguity into action.

The best consultants don’t avoid complexity. They frame it. They break it down. They show what matters and why. And then they offer a point of view. Because clients aren’t paying for disclaimers. They’re paying for decisions that are clearer, smarter, and better supported than they would make alone.

So yes, it depends. But now that we’ve said that, let’s move on to something more useful.

The images used in this blog post are AI generated