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The title of this article is "How McKinsey infiltrated the world of Global Public Health" and the straight answer is: "The WHO hired them, and sometimes the Gat

The title of this article is "How McKinsey infiltrated the world of Global Public Health" and the straight answer is: "The WHO hired them, and sometimes the Gates foundation prefers their money is used to hire consultancies" Because management consultancy = conspiracy is the new fad I guess? Hell, they even mention Accenture as one of these "secretive" orgs. Clearly they don't understand the business. The article continues to talk about how WHO hires consultants to do jobs that consultants are typically hired to do, and then states "how these secretive businesses, which mostly profit from serving corporate interests, are shaping global public health is an open question — and one that’s hard to answer." Next breaking story on Vox: "How are these shadowy, secretive [insert private held company in any industry] typically profiting from corporations impacting [other big thing they also do work in]." Hard pass. EDIT: None of the above is saying that consultancies are the best use of this money to achieve impact, of course, or that this model yields out-sized results, or an endorsement. It's on the person that hires them as to what they do with the advice and let them do within your org. My comments are rather an indictment of the tone of the argument for click bait and distraction from the main issues that are really important, like how to effectively eradicate disease with a pile of money.

kyleblarson 7y ago
This is Vox after all, not a news source.
o09rdk 7y ago
So, I shared some of your impressions, but also some of what Vox is conveying. Speaking from personal experience, the problem with large public institutions (maybe any institution?) hiring these consultancies is that there's enormous intrinsic pressure to accept their recommendations. Say, public institution X spends exorbitant fees on consultancy Y. Now they're going to choose to ignore the recommendations? If the recommendations are bogus, there will be hellfire about why the public institution is transferring huge quantities of funds to a private organization that is incompetent or sketchy. If the recommendations are not, then there will be hellfire about why the public institution is ignoring the recommendations. As a result, a lot of times there's suspicion that these consultancies are just cover for administration or management making decisions that would be unpopular, controversial, or self-serving. At least in my experience, they're seen as a power grab for those already in positions of power. That is, the consultancy comes in, asks management/admin what they would like to see, and then they put it in the recommendations. Then admin can say "look, we didn't tell ourselves to [do incredibly controversial thing Z, like cut basic staff and give administration big raises], this fully independent third party said to do this." As a result, I think hard questions about what you're getting from consultancies are actually apropos of the Vox article, and relevant to the perception that shady constituencies are somehow hijacking public services for their own benefit. When you pay large sums of money to a consultancy, whose methods are unclear, and have unclear scientific support, and assumes that, e.g., management of publicly traded for-profit companies and management of non-profit government organizations can be treated similarly, it leads to legitimate questions about whose motives are being served. The WHO would have been better off imho convening a special strategy or reform committee made of inside and outside members than something like McKinsey.
- darawk 7y ago
  I think a more fair characterization of that process might be: Controversial decisions require extra convincing to get done. If you know your organization is bloated and you need to downsize by 20%, you could just do it yourself, but then you run the risk of your organization revolting against you for it. If, on the other hand, you hire a consultancy, and they come to the same conclusion, that represents corroborative evidence for your view. That is to say, another way of looking at this is that tough decisions require extraordinary evidence. If a neutral third party comes to the same conclusion, a cynical way to characterize that is it gives you "cover" to do what you wanted to do anyway. But an equally true way to characterize it is that if you weren't sure before, it allows you to be more confident that that was really the right decision. If I were going to say, fire 20% of my staff, i'd want a neutral third party to come in and evaluate that decision before I just went off and did it too.
  - jaclaz 7y ago
    >If I were going to say, fire 20% of my staff, i'd want a neutral third party to come in and evaluate that decision before I just went off and did it too. I think you have a queer idea of "neutral". Do you call the consultancy firm telling them: 1) I don't know what to do, please tell me what I should do? 2) I know that I have 20% people that I should lay off, what do you think of this? 3) My personnel costs are too high, how can I solve this issue? Expect as a result: 1) Some bogus advice about marketing and growth AND some apparently good, reasonable, data and very good looking graphics leading to a suggestion to reduce personnel by 10-30%. 2) Some apparently good, reasonable, data and very good looking graphics justifying a reduction of personnel by 20%. 3) Some apparently good, reasonable data and very good loking graphics suggesting to cut personnel by 30%.
    - darawk 7y ago
      You call them and ask them to consult with you about how to make your business or organization more efficient. If their recommendations concur with your already-held beliefs, you implement them. If they disagree with you, maybe you reconsider. That's what I would do, and it's what I assume these people are, for the most part, doing.
blablabla123 7y ago
The public health sector is a complete vacuum when it comes to innovation. Of course any big company entering it can have a big influence. Especially on a global scale some of the most influentual actors are WHO, NGOs and church bodies. I'd also add that most traditional businesses rely on some sort of "secret recipe"... The other question is whether these recipes are so interesting anyways

kyleblarson 7y ago

This is Vox after all, not a news source.

o09rdk 7y ago

So, I shared some of your impressions, but also some of what Vox is conveying. Speaking from personal experience, the problem with large public institutions (maybe any institution?) hiring these consultancies is that there's enormous intrinsic pressure to accept their recommendations. Say, public institution X spends exorbitant fees on consultancy Y. Now they're going to choose to ignore the recommendations? If the recommendations are bogus, there will be hellfire about why the public institution is transferring huge quantities of funds to a private organization that is incompetent or sketchy. If the recommendations are not, then there will be hellfire about why the public institution is ignoring the recommendations. As a result, a lot of times there's suspicion that these consultancies are just cover for administration or management making decisions that would be unpopular, controversial, or self-serving. At least in my experience, they're seen as a power grab for those already in positions of power. That is, the consultancy comes in, asks management/admin what they would like to see, and then they put it in the recommendations. Then admin can say "look, we didn't tell ourselves to [do incredibly controversial thing Z, like cut basic staff and give administration big raises], this fully independent third party said to do this." As a result, I think hard questions about what you're getting from consultancies are actually apropos of the Vox article, and relevant to the perception that shady constituencies are somehow hijacking public services for their own benefit. When you pay large sums of money to a consultancy, whose methods are unclear, and have unclear scientific support, and assumes that, e.g., management of publicly traded for-profit companies and management of non-profit government organizations can be treated similarly, it leads to legitimate questions about whose motives are being served. The WHO would have been better off imho convening a special strategy or reform committee made of inside and outside members than something like McKinsey.

darawk 7y ago
I think a more fair characterization of that process might be: Controversial decisions require extra convincing to get done. If you know your organization is bloated and you need to downsize by 20%, you could just do it yourself, but then you run the risk of your organization revolting against you for it. If, on the other hand, you hire a consultancy, and they come to the same conclusion, that represents corroborative evidence for your view. That is to say, another way of looking at this is that tough decisions require extraordinary evidence. If a neutral third party comes to the same conclusion, a cynical way to characterize that is it gives you "cover" to do what you wanted to do anyway. But an equally true way to characterize it is that if you weren't sure before, it allows you to be more confident that that was really the right decision. If I were going to say, fire 20% of my staff, i'd want a neutral third party to come in and evaluate that decision before I just went off and did it too.
- jaclaz 7y ago
  >If I were going to say, fire 20% of my staff, i'd want a neutral third party to come in and evaluate that decision before I just went off and did it too. I think you have a queer idea of "neutral". Do you call the consultancy firm telling them: 1) I don't know what to do, please tell me what I should do? 2) I know that I have 20% people that I should lay off, what do you think of this? 3) My personnel costs are too high, how can I solve this issue? Expect as a result: 1) Some bogus advice about marketing and growth AND some apparently good, reasonable, data and very good looking graphics leading to a suggestion to reduce personnel by 10-30%. 2) Some apparently good, reasonable, data and very good looking graphics justifying a reduction of personnel by 20%. 3) Some apparently good, reasonable data and very good loking graphics suggesting to cut personnel by 30%.
  - darawk 7y ago
    You call them and ask them to consult with you about how to make your business or organization more efficient. If their recommendations concur with your already-held beliefs, you implement them. If they disagree with you, maybe you reconsider. That's what I would do, and it's what I assume these people are, for the most part, doing.

blablabla123 7y ago

The public health sector is a complete vacuum when it comes to innovation. Of course any big company entering it can have a big influence. Especially on a global scale some of the most influentual actors are WHO, NGOs and church bodies. I'd also add that most traditional businesses rely on some sort of "secret recipe"... The other question is whether these recipes are so interesting anyways