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Cherry picking bad examples is not how to evaluate how often McKinsey "make bad recommendations that have demonstrably bad outcomes". Any company the size of M

Cherry picking bad examples is not how to evaluate how often McKinsey "make bad recommendations that have demonstrably bad outcomes". Any company the size of McKinsey around as long as McKinsey will have success and failure stories. The proper way to evalaute is to take all things McKinsey did, normalize for background, and see how it performs compared to other methods of solving the same problems. Cherry picking to make a claim is the 2nd worst form of evidence, outranked only by outright lying.

GreeniFi 6y ago
Great comment. I might go further and say that cherry-picking is either an attempt to deceive the listener or oneself. I’d put it on the same pedestal as lying.
olsonjeffery 6y ago
"We can never criticize something unless we can contemplate the totality of it" isn't constructive or helpful and has (from my interpretation) the net effect of stating the the status quo is fine. Is that what you're contending? Firms like McKinsey, for reasons of trade secrets, confidentiality wrt their client book, discretion because of the nature of their work, etc don't have data available about the completeness of their outcomes. In fact, their white papers focus exclusively on successes. What about instances where their contribution has a not-zero impact (we could even include and offset the cost of their consultations against the total impact of advise offered, assuming it's followed)? Do you have a proposal for how to conduct such an analysis? Furthermore, I would offer that much of the nature of their impacts isn't something we can know with mathematical precision and exists in the realms of the social sciences (a broad domain known to have major skew problems when measurements are taken, if at all). So we are left with optics and moral/ethical assessments of the work they have done. Taking this into account, I am content with this approach and the conclusions I have arrived at.
- ChrisLomont 6y ago
  >"We can never criticize something unless we can contemplate the totality of it" isn't constructive or helpful But you're ok with cherry picking events to suit a narrative when advocating for change? Did you even try to find examples where they were successful in your eyes, or did you simply pick the examples that suit your claims? >Do you have a proposal for how to conduct such an analysis? Simply looking at how many customers are repeat customers shows that they're at least doing something their customers are willing to pay for. That's easily a vastly better metric then simply cherry picking examples on one side of an argument. I'd suspect that current customers are vastly more aware of what value they provide than you'd pick up from news stories, especially if, as you contend, there's no way to know these details from outside views. They've been around 95 years, 27k employees, 10B in annual revenue, a client list that is incredibly diverse, among every sector of society, among all political parties, and including a huge number of worldwide governments and companies. That alone should make you realize perhaps there is value in what they do, that thousands of customers think so, and that trying to paint them as "McKinsey make bad recommendations that have demonstrably bad outcomes." is probably vastly short-sighted. You then double down and claim it's probably even worse if one could see inside. I would weight the opinions of their customers over those obviously cherry picking examples then making un-nuanced and sweeping generalizations. I am content with that approach. Seems more evidence based.

GreeniFi 6y ago

Great comment. I might go further and say that cherry-picking is either an attempt to deceive the listener or oneself. I’d put it on the same pedestal as lying.

olsonjeffery 6y ago

"We can never criticize something unless we can contemplate the totality of it" isn't constructive or helpful and has (from my interpretation) the net effect of stating the the status quo is fine. Is that what you're contending? Firms like McKinsey, for reasons of trade secrets, confidentiality wrt their client book, discretion because of the nature of their work, etc don't have data available about the completeness of their outcomes. In fact, their white papers focus exclusively on successes. What about instances where their contribution has a not-zero impact (we could even include and offset the cost of their consultations against the total impact of advise offered, assuming it's followed)? Do you have a proposal for how to conduct such an analysis? Furthermore, I would offer that much of the nature of their impacts isn't something we can know with mathematical precision and exists in the realms of the social sciences (a broad domain known to have major skew problems when measurements are taken, if at all). So we are left with optics and moral/ethical assessments of the work they have done. Taking this into account, I am content with this approach and the conclusions I have arrived at.

ChrisLomont 6y ago
>"We can never criticize something unless we can contemplate the totality of it" isn't constructive or helpful But you're ok with cherry picking events to suit a narrative when advocating for change? Did you even try to find examples where they were successful in your eyes, or did you simply pick the examples that suit your claims? >Do you have a proposal for how to conduct such an analysis? Simply looking at how many customers are repeat customers shows that they're at least doing something their customers are willing to pay for. That's easily a vastly better metric then simply cherry picking examples on one side of an argument. I'd suspect that current customers are vastly more aware of what value they provide than you'd pick up from news stories, especially if, as you contend, there's no way to know these details from outside views. They've been around 95 years, 27k employees, 10B in annual revenue, a client list that is incredibly diverse, among every sector of society, among all political parties, and including a huge number of worldwide governments and companies. That alone should make you realize perhaps there is value in what they do, that thousands of customers think so, and that trying to paint them as "McKinsey make bad recommendations that have demonstrably bad outcomes." is probably vastly short-sighted. You then double down and claim it's probably even worse if one could see inside. I would weight the opinions of their customers over those obviously cherry picking examples then making un-nuanced and sweeping generalizations. I am content with that approach. Seems more evidence based.