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> Opiod work was bad though, let's not avoid that. Sorry that’s all you have to say about your employer quite literally supercharging the opioids pandemic caus
by pm90 6y ago
> Opiod work was bad though, let's not avoid that.
Sorry that’s all you have to say about your employer quite literally supercharging the opioids pandemic causing unimaginable pain and destruction across America? “It was bad though.”
Let me tell you some hard truths. If you’re 20 something you don’t know Jack shit about running a business and the only reason you’re there is because the C Suite wants to “de-risk” their decision making, or the board member heard about McK during golfing with his buddies.
If Senior Leaders can’t do X, they should, you know, get training. Go to online schools, get executive MBA training. Why don’t they do that? Because that’s not really the real reason you’re there.
McK and other consultancies have been a cancer on corporate America, creating chaos in the name of “digital transformation” or whatever buzzword is new. They capitalize on most companies’ fear of being left behind and get inserted into corporations where they make the jobs of regular employees (you know, the people who you went to school with but decided not to go to McK but get a real job and who are familiar with the same types of things that you are) incredibly difficult with inane processes from “the manual”.
- alisonkisk 6y agoThe point is that you can't say that McKinsey are incompetent and not worth the money, while at the same time saying they are so competent that they created the opiod epidemic. It makes you look silly. Doing good economic work for bad people is a (gigantic) ethical flaw, but not a problem with the economic quality of the work and skillset.
- spamizbad 6y agoOpioids pretty much sell themselves. You just need permission to sell them more loosely.
- ramraj07 6y agoHere's a non-contradictory summarisation: 1. McKinseys advice is for the most part useless , often their advice is just politically motivated within the clients offices 2. They have zero morals, they will advice how to optimize the gas chambers (probably not too off the mark, they probably are advising something related to uighurs somewhere, maybe how apple can hide traces of genocide fueled chips from their product lineup) if they can make a couple mills. 3. The despots/murderers recruiting them are still going to go ahead with their addiction rings/gas chambers irrespective of what McKinsey tells them. The argument isn't that McKinsey made the opioid problem worse. Maybe they did but they probably will conveniently agree with us that they were not really consequential. Still doesn't mean everyone from McKinsey shouldn't be considered a dick though.
- gshubert17 6y agoAre consultants something like lawyers, in that they will do "good" work for ethical clients and "bad" work for unethical ones? Lawyers can point to the higher values of truth and justice. What are the higher values of consultants, to help them avoid "bad" work?
- klmadfejno 6y agoWhatever superlative you want to throw on "bad", go ahead. It was very bad, I just wanted to throw that onto the end of what was otherwise an unrelated point. There's no expectation that I know how to "run a business". That's not how it works.
- RandomLensman 6y agoI suppose, it could also have been a bunch of 20 somethings pushed to the brink of total exhaustion forced to come up with ways to "mitigate" certain "business risks" and "enhance" positioning. The "cancer" is not that there is demand and willing buyers for consulting services, but shareholders, executives, media etc. running a very self-referential and reinforcing environment. Effectively, you will present "solutions" (for a lack of a better word) that you know that the a company knows that you expect the company to expect to see... (institutional isomorphism is a strong force)
- hindsightbias 6y ago> creating chaos in the name of digital transformation I wonder how many at HN make their living on digital transformation.