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I'm not sure what a big computer consultancy is. Is that like IBM? Accenture? I don't think where I fall in the ranks matters much here. Loaned out doesn't fee

I'm not sure what a big computer consultancy is. Is that like IBM? Accenture? I don't think where I fall in the ranks matters much here. Loaned out doesn't feel applicable here though. There are some consultancies that are primarily just staff augmentation. Like, here are some expensive workers for you to use for a while. That's not really what McK does. McK is doubtlessly very expensive. "pumping people up on the job" sounds like a bad faith way to describe training and investing in your employees. I don't have a way to "prove" that the average net impact of McK consulting is positive, and for sure sometimes it won't be right. My only point is that most if not all of the clients I work with are blunt about not knowing how to do X on their own, and when we're done with the project they say they know how to do X. We do fixed price contracts, not per hour, and are incentivized to keep the scope fixed. Our prices are generally higher than competitors, but we still win bids. I don't need to believe McK is the greatest company in the world, but I strongly disagree that we're not making a good faith effort to help clients do things.

nus07 6y ago
Can you give me a couple of examples where McKinsey’s work was helpful to a society ? Jobs were saved, lives were saved , poverty was eradicated ? Everywhere I look it’s just strategies to increase sales ,lay-off lower level employees and boost executive and shareholder profit .
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  Probably not to a degree that would be satisfying to me as a random external stranger. Most work is very secret, to avoid conflicts of interest. I don't know what others work on. I know of a few high profile things lately that have had positive impact on the world, but it's all NDA'd as well. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analytics/how-we-help-clients/noble-intelligence https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analyti... I guess this group is a decent example of our public things, doing data science stuff to help human trafficking victims and what not. I don't have any experience with this group in particular and cannot speak to it. For my personal work space all I can say is that ~90% of my work felt morally neutral, and 10% felt morally positive. One project was for a similar neutral task in an industry I think is detrimental to society so I declined to do it. That's also a thing which is encouraged and I think is nice. YMMV
  - Frondo 6y ago
    I have to say it doesn't strengthen your case to say "the damaging ones are public, the good ones are private." That's asking for a lot of trust in an organization with a public history of doing damage to societies, like with the opioid thing or the Canadian bread price fixing agreement.
Terretta 6y ago
The price is higher because the logo on the report is better insurance than another logo. In particular, the logo is better because of “The McKinsey Way”. McKinsey figured out how to repeatably and reliably manufacture strategic decision support. Much like McDonalds means every burger everywhere no matter who owns and runs that franchise is predictably decent, the principles of The McKinsey Way and frameworks like 7S and MECE mean every wet-behind-the-ears graduate is going to produce work of sufficient logic, data, and quality to plausibly support the position McK was hired to support.
tclancy 6y ago
Yes, IBM, Oracle, Accenture >"pumping people up on the job" sounds like a bad faith way to describe training and investing in your employees. That's just it: the customers are investing in your employees by letting them learn on their job but never reap the benefit of the experience. It's not a long-term recipe for success.
- Terretta 6y ago
  That said, an ex-McKinsey consultant often ends up getting selected by one of those companies as its CEO. There’s tremendous value in the repeated problem exposures the consultant received, combined with the rigorous framework thinking.

nus07 6y ago

Can you give me a couple of examples where McKinsey’s work was helpful to a society ? Jobs were saved, lives were saved , poverty was eradicated ? Everywhere I look it’s just strategies to increase sales ,lay-off lower level employees and boost executive and shareholder profit .

klmadfejno 6y ago
Probably not to a degree that would be satisfying to me as a random external stranger. Most work is very secret, to avoid conflicts of interest. I don't know what others work on. I know of a few high profile things lately that have had positive impact on the world, but it's all NDA'd as well. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analytics/how-we-help-clients/noble-intelligence https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analyti... I guess this group is a decent example of our public things, doing data science stuff to help human trafficking victims and what not. I don't have any experience with this group in particular and cannot speak to it. For my personal work space all I can say is that ~90% of my work felt morally neutral, and 10% felt morally positive. One project was for a similar neutral task in an industry I think is detrimental to society so I declined to do it. That's also a thing which is encouraged and I think is nice. YMMV
- Frondo 6y ago
  I have to say it doesn't strengthen your case to say "the damaging ones are public, the good ones are private." That's asking for a lot of trust in an organization with a public history of doing damage to societies, like with the opioid thing or the Canadian bread price fixing agreement.

Terretta 6y ago

The price is higher because the logo on the report is better insurance than another logo. In particular, the logo is better because of “The McKinsey Way”. McKinsey figured out how to repeatably and reliably manufacture strategic decision support. Much like McDonalds means every burger everywhere no matter who owns and runs that franchise is predictably decent, the principles of The McKinsey Way and frameworks like 7S and MECE mean every wet-behind-the-ears graduate is going to produce work of sufficient logic, data, and quality to plausibly support the position McK was hired to support.

tclancy 6y ago

Yes, IBM, Oracle, Accenture >"pumping people up on the job" sounds like a bad faith way to describe training and investing in your employees. That's just it: the customers are investing in your employees by letting them learn on their job but never reap the benefit of the experience. It's not a long-term recipe for success.

Terretta 6y ago
That said, an ex-McKinsey consultant often ends up getting selected by one of those companies as its CEO. There’s tremendous value in the repeated problem exposures the consultant received, combined with the rigorous framework thinking.