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Consulting is a flaw in free market capitalism. The key idea behind free market capitalism is that if you make poor decisions, there are negative consequences f

Consulting is a flaw in free market capitalism. The key idea behind free market capitalism is that if you make poor decisions, there are negative consequences for those poor decisions, regardless of your size. Now there is a way to avoid accountability in big companies: hire consultants. If they screw up, the decision-makers at big companies can always point the finger at the highly paid and highly credentialed consultants and say 'Guys, we did our best and hired the best. Who could have seen all this coming?'. The consultants are also free from accountability because technically, they only 'provide advice'. It's a win-win for both management and consultants. The losers are only (a) Investors, but they are often passive investors with no power to change management power structures. (b) Customers, but they often are captive to monopolies because of network effects, moats, etc. (c) Employees, but they usually are captive due to asset-specificity, etc. We should all get MBAs and enjoy the gravy train.

Voultapher 2y ago
I'm increasingly of the opinion that corporations are an elaborate scheme to provide some people with money and status without them actually providing value to society. Mainly the MBA class. "You know what this rowboat with two people rowing and six managing needs? Another management layer." Leeches like McKinsey are right at the heart of it. If you add enough indirection and shared responsibility, the most atrocious outcomes become palatable. Another way to view them, is as slow AIs directly driving the sixth mass extinction event.
jncfhnb 2y ago
As someone who works at McKinsey I get kind of irritated by this meme. It is objectively and obviously not true for external blame because all work by McKinsey is NDA’d. you’re almost never allowed to share that McKinsey helped on anything because we want to maintain firewalls between teams working for competitors / vendors / customers internally and externally as much as possible. I don’t really buy it for internal blame either.
- arethuza 2y ago
  I thought the advice was NDA'd to hide the fact that exactly the same advice was being sold to different organisations?
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    No, not at all. It should not surprise anyone that hiring the same people to solve the same problem at different places will result in similar outcomes frequently.
    - arethuza 2y ago
      Having the same project name and having pretty much the same materials with different customer names was apparently a bit of a give away...
      - jncfhnb 2y ago
        I’m not clear what you mean by project name. Perhaps you mean “product” name? In which case… well yeah. Of course.
- angoragoats 2y ago
  I have several decades of experience as a software engineer and have worked at several different companies that hired management consultants to rubber stamp decisions they had clearly already made. In each case, the company proceeded to deflect blame to the consultants internally, when employees got mad about the decisions. I have heard similar stories from friends and colleagues. So at least your skepticism about internal blame is unfounded. I urge you to consider the ethics of your current employer and consider seeking employment with a different company.
  - spopejoy 2y ago
    Are you sure your experience really maps to McKinsey? There are countless garden-variety Office Space bean counter management consultancies that are called in as RIF shock troops etc. My experience with McKinsey is them being strategic consultants to C-suite where nobody is looking to "shift blame" or a docile rubber stamp. They're far too expensive if that's what you're looking for.

Voultapher 2y ago

I'm increasingly of the opinion that corporations are an elaborate scheme to provide some people with money and status without them actually providing value to society. Mainly the MBA class. "You know what this rowboat with two people rowing and six managing needs? Another management layer." Leeches like McKinsey are right at the heart of it. If you add enough indirection and shared responsibility, the most atrocious outcomes become palatable. Another way to view them, is as slow AIs directly driving the sixth mass extinction event.

jncfhnb 2y ago

As someone who works at McKinsey I get kind of irritated by this meme. It is objectively and obviously not true for external blame because all work by McKinsey is NDA’d. you’re almost never allowed to share that McKinsey helped on anything because we want to maintain firewalls between teams working for competitors / vendors / customers internally and externally as much as possible. I don’t really buy it for internal blame either.

arethuza 2y ago
I thought the advice was NDA'd to hide the fact that exactly the same advice was being sold to different organisations?
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  No, not at all. It should not surprise anyone that hiring the same people to solve the same problem at different places will result in similar outcomes frequently.
  - arethuza 2y ago
    Having the same project name and having pretty much the same materials with different customer names was apparently a bit of a give away...
    - jncfhnb 2y ago
      I’m not clear what you mean by project name. Perhaps you mean “product” name? In which case… well yeah. Of course.
angoragoats 2y ago
I have several decades of experience as a software engineer and have worked at several different companies that hired management consultants to rubber stamp decisions they had clearly already made. In each case, the company proceeded to deflect blame to the consultants internally, when employees got mad about the decisions. I have heard similar stories from friends and colleagues. So at least your skepticism about internal blame is unfounded. I urge you to consider the ethics of your current employer and consider seeking employment with a different company.
- spopejoy 2y ago
  Are you sure your experience really maps to McKinsey? There are countless garden-variety Office Space bean counter management consultancies that are called in as RIF shock troops etc. My experience with McKinsey is them being strategic consultants to C-suite where nobody is looking to "shift blame" or a docile rubber stamp. They're far too expensive if that's what you're looking for.