McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source • Hacker News Board

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#81

Post by mola » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

klmadfejno wrote: post #39

tharne wrote: post #4

Too bad they can't be sued for ruining countless businesses with mindless self-serving "advice" meant to do nothing more than get their contracts re-upped. The whole business is a scam built around sending in some 26 year-old with an Ivy League degree and $100 haircut to regurgitate snippets from articles in HBR.

I'm a 20 something McK consultant with a $10 haircut. Maybe $20 with tip. Or $0 now, because it's done at home. I post this fairly frequently, but here we go again. Business is hard. Change is hard. Consultants get a lot of shit for saying things that someone lower in the org could have told them. That's not evidence of abuse, that's evidence that your org isn't working well. A lot of the time substantial portions of…

No one wants to believe they have a bullshit job. So we usually tell our selves nice little fairy tales to overcome this cognitive dissonance.

Truth is, McK and the like, are there just to give mediocre leaders an extremely expensive psychological crutch needed when human beings face uncertainties.

Now that these consulting agencies are the behemoth they are, it's mainly corrupt leaders that are being "pursuaded" to use their services.

Oh and ppl like you are just cheap "brains" to give the optics of credentials for this sordid affair.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#82

Post by sjg007 » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

raesene9 wrote: post #25

samizdis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be keen to see the specifics wrt advice given on how to "turbocharge" said sales. Reuters article doesn't give any examples/detail.

Articles like https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/business/mckinsey-purdue-... have some details. A quote from that shows some details :- " In a 2017 presentation, according to the records, which were filed in court on behalf of multiple state attorneys general, McKinsey laid out several options to shore up sales. One was to give Purdue’s distributors a rebate for every OxyContin overdose attributable to pills they so…

I mean that logic is just sick and heartless.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#83

Post by alisonkisk » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

A12-B wrote: post #77

klmadfejno wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a 20 something McK consultant with a $10 haircut. Maybe $20 with tip. Or $0 now, because it's done at home. I post this fairly frequently, but here we go again. Business is hard. Change is hard. Consultants get a lot of shit for saying things that someone lower in the org could have told them. That's not evidence of abuse, that's evidence that your org isn't working well. A lot of the time substantial portions of…

> Bringing in consultants is, among other ways, a way to bring in people who can get shit done. I don't think consulting is useless or scammy, but come on, you're not rock stars. Consultants advise a business on how to get revenue, and the business implements changes that generate revenue. This leads to the headline we have before us. There's not much more to consulting. Note: my family are consultants.

You could also say that software devs are just technicians just translate specs into machine language. And product managers are just users who get paid to file feature request. And management just coasts on the real workers' work.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#84

Post by _jal » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

ath92 wrote: post #22

olsonjeffery wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fine stating that engineers from non-elite schools are just as well equipped for the tasks you describe, but that wasn't the GP's contention. The point is that McKinsey make bad recommendations that have demonstrably bad outcomes. Their fingerprints are all over numerous bad decisions in business and government in the past few decades[0]. These are the bare minimum, because there are quite likely many negative ou…

McKinsey has 27,000 employees. That's the population of an entire town. I'm not saying that the things described in the links you posted here aren't bad, but I think it's important to remember with this many employees, there will always be someone doing something that you don't agree with.

This assertion is both true and irrelevant. Try:

"Comcast customer service has a huge number of employees. I'm not saying there aren't jerks in there, but..."

Devolving corporate responsibility (for the bad stuff) to individuals is of course the corporate preference. But at some point you run in to the "only the best people" problem - McKinsey hires them, trains them, assigns them and pays them, no matter how slippery McKinsey PR is, I keep seeing that name, McKinsey.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#85

Post by klmadfejno » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

andreilys wrote: post #58

klmadfejno wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a 20 something McK consultant with a $10 haircut. Maybe $20 with tip. Or $0 now, because it's done at home. I post this fairly frequently, but here we go again. Business is hard. Change is hard. Consultants get a lot of shit for saying things that someone lower in the org could have told them. That's not evidence of abuse, that's evidence that your org isn't working well. A lot of the time substantial portions of…

”Bringing in consultants is, among other ways, a way to bring in people who can get shit done, moving bricks at lower levels of the org with the political mandate of the top” It seems more likely that it’s a politically expedient way to get cover for a decision (in other words CYA insurance). If the plan fails, blame the consultants. If it works, take credit for having brought them in. It also puts more pressure on e…

I hear this one pretty often. I'm sure it happens to some extent. But flip the perspective there. You're talking about a a company that is so dysfunctional its leaders can't make decisions on their own. Getting stuff done there sounds pretty difficult to begin with. If stuff gets done, that's valuable. That's part of what I'm saying. Business is hard.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#86

Post by ChrisLomont » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

olsonjeffery wrote: post #16

alexpetralia wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's fashionable to hate on MBAs, but I am not entirely convinced engineers are any better equipped with skills such as: requirements gathering, scoping, presenting, project management, competitive research, financial modeling, memo writing, and strategic planning. I don't believe these are truly vacuous activities, and - loathe as I am to say - MBAs may be the best trained to do this. (Disclosure: I do not ha…

I'm fine stating that engineers from non-elite schools are just as well equipped for the tasks you describe, but that wasn't the GP's contention. The point is that McKinsey make bad recommendations that have demonstrably bad outcomes. Their fingerprints are all over numerous bad decisions in business and government in the past few decades[0]. These are the bare minimum, because there are quite likely many negative ou…

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.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#87

Post by jimbokun » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

0goel0 wrote: post #55

Maybe ethics and morals should be mandatory trainings?

I think "training" is a misnomer, as its not actually the case the people doing shady stuff will change their moral compass based off of clicking through a few slides.

However, if the "training" includes explaining how employees breaking these rules will be held accountable and how it will affect their continued employment, it could influence behavior of potential bad actors.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#88

Post by frankbreetz » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

sharkweek wrote: post #10

The absolutely most fascinating part of this is learning how McKinsey has long argued that making recommendations that businesses may or may not act on does not create legal liability (until this). I’m trying to see that argument applied in any other instance and it becomes totally ridiculous. “You see, your honor, I merely suggested to my client that he kill his neighbor in order to take his land, I didn’t think he’…

>>As part of the settlement, McKinsey admits to no wrongdoing. https://www.npr.org/2021/02/04/963864747/consulting-giant-mc...

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#89

Post by alisonkisk » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

pm90 wrote: post #70

klmadfejno wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a 20 something McK consultant with a $10 haircut. Maybe $20 with tip. Or $0 now, because it's done at home. I post this fairly frequently, but here we go again. Business is hard. Change is hard. Consultants get a lot of shit for saying things that someone lower in the org could have told them. That's not evidence of abuse, that's evidence that your org isn't working well. A lot of the time substantial portions of…

> 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” thei…

The 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.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#90

Post by nsomaru » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

klmadfejno wrote: post #39

tharne wrote: post #4

Too bad they can't be sued for ruining countless businesses with mindless self-serving "advice" meant to do nothing more than get their contracts re-upped. The whole business is a scam built around sending in some 26 year-old with an Ivy League degree and $100 haircut to regurgitate snippets from articles in HBR.

I'm a 20 something McK consultant with a $10 haircut. Maybe $20 with tip. Or $0 now, because it's done at home. I post this fairly frequently, but here we go again. Business is hard. Change is hard. Consultants get a lot of shit for saying things that someone lower in the org could have told them. That's not evidence of abuse, that's evidence that your org isn't working well. A lot of the time substantial portions of…

The reputation of your country is thoroughly ruined in South Africa.

Paying the money back (as was agreed, and even then my understanding is that not all of it will be repaid, no interest was offered and no criminal charges have been proffered) will never cover for the gutting of essential skills in key state owned enterprises under the cover of a McK “restructuring”.

South Africa is in a perfect storm right now and big consultancies and accounting firms all had their fingers in the cookie jar. They all had a part to play. It makes me sick to think what these consultants might achieve in less democratic states as it’s evident their reach is global and they are legion.

In my university days many bright eyed youth wanted to work for these companies. I hope people are waking up!

Edit: For anyone interested “Zondo Comission McKinsey” or “McKinsey South Africa Guptas” should get you quite far.

Edit2: I’ve just given a brief summary. It’s enlightening to dig into the role of Bain, McKinsey and KPMG especially, their relation to Gupta enterprises (common cause) and their enabling of deals, cutting really good people at key state institutions like SARS (Revenue Service), Eskom (electricity), Transnet (commercial rail). And that’s only what’s in the public domain. The scale of the rot is enormous. Their executives spin corporate speak at our commissions of inquiry (Nugent and Zondo) and do not take any accountability!