The exec does know how to work it out: You hire a consultant to give you an answer.
The job of the executive isn't to know the answer to every question. Their job is to make sure questions get answered. There are an infinite number of ways you can do this and hiring a consultant is a valid option.
As I said, the job is not to know the answer to the question but to work out how. If you are hiring someone from the outside, you are outsourcing basic functions.
If his job is as simple as hiring consultants, why do you need to pay someone $1m+/year to hire a consultant. Just hire a guy on $10k/year who tells you to hire a consultant.
It isn't a valid option. This is one of the reasons why most corporations are poorly managed (right now, I would guess that there are maybe 10 CEOs of US listed companies who will go down as great CEOs...that is being optimistic, almost every CEO is paid like they are a star). Their "thinking" is outsourced to someone hiring a bunch of grads with no experience, that is what consultants are...it is like advertising, churn and burn grads.
A key part of making better decisions is taking those decisions yourself and learning from the outcomes. But the way things happen now, all of the experience is gone and it is just a revolving treadmill of people who move through jobs too quickly to ever see the result of what they did or take responsibility for it. Hiring consultants is an indication that the company lacks executives with the capacity to perform their function correctly (unfortunately, this is the case at most companies now).
I think you're starting from the conclusion you want CEO is bad and reverse engineering a justification along with making up supporting facts.
I hire consultants and outsource activities all the time. It isn't all I do but a key part of it. There's no chance you'd find someone to do my job for 10K a year. There is no chance I would want to hire dozens of employees each time I have a rare off question.
Your example and position make no sense: hiring an outside group is always wrong and hiring inside team is always right. I don't learn anything different either way. You call it a basic function, but what if I wont want to indefinitely keep a team on staff to answer seed questions?
The job of the executive isn't to know the answer to every question. Their job is to make sure questions get answered. There are an infinite number of ways you can do this and hiring a consultant is a valid option.