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

reuters.com

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

#161

Post by asjldkfin »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #154
asjldkfin wrote: post #15

It's funny reading comment here saying how "Consulting is useless BS" whilst also condemning them for "turbocharging Opioid sales"

Interesting that you think the two are mutually exclusive. Personally, I'd consider consulting advice to systematically hook an entire country onto opioids to be "useless BS" much in the same way I'd consider schemes to fix bread prices as "useless BS". Both are cases of rather obvious approaches that are not only legally and ethically bankrupt, but more importantly fundamentally unsound and unsustainable as growth s…

Mcks wasn’t asked for advice on ethics, they were asked advice on increasing sales.

If you go to a Tattoo artist and ask for a portrait tattooed on your face, it might be gauche as hell, but that didn’t change the fact the artist might’ve done a great job.

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

#163

Post by vagrantJin »

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…

> It’s also been involved with Enron, corruption in Africa

This is not past tense.

In South Africa there is a commission (a political farce if anyone cares) to investigate state capture and McKinsey[0] keeps showing up on records and testimonies.

[0](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/06/26/worl...)

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

#165

Post by lotsofpulp »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #145
klmadfejno wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm glad you enjoyed my prose so much. All I'm trying to convey is that my day to day is listening to client problems, looking at data, talking to employees, and presenting findings. It's neither a conspiracy, nor a scheme, nor a world of wealthy indulgence. I make a healthy wage, but its likely lower than I could get in tech. Like almost every company in the world, its a normal company.

Consultancy sounds fancy, but when it comes down to it it's fairly mundane. I used to be in consultancy as a software dev, it's basically same job, higher cost. But these companies use consultants because they have tons of money but aren't sexy enough to attract internal employees that do the same thing.

> But these companies use consultants because they have tons of money but aren't sexy enough to attract internal employees that do the same thing.

Does not sexy mean they are not willing to spend the tons of money they have on internal employees?

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

#166

Post by jaredmosley »

IMTDb wrote: post #27
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…

The problem are not MBA's. The problem is that the incentive of consulting companies are not aligned with the incentive of their clients. Take a big construction project. In the like of the Berlin airport. What do you think is more profitable for the consulting companies : a) A well thought project, done in budget and in time. Where the consulting company gets the whole contract + all the bonuses associated with it.…

Yet, a consulting company that constantly has overrun projects won’t get repeat business nearly as much as the company that comes in and gets things done. PR and marketing may help you land your first project with a client, but it’s only good work that will keep that client coming back to you. Otherwise they’ll replace you with different consultants.

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

#167

Post by rmrfrmrf »

asjldkfin wrote: post #161
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that you think the two are mutually exclusive. Personally, I'd consider consulting advice to systematically hook an entire country onto opioids to be "useless BS" much in the same way I'd consider schemes to fix bread prices as "useless BS". Both are cases of rather obvious approaches that are not only legally and ethically bankrupt, but more importantly fundamentally unsound and unsustainable as growth s…

Mcks wasn’t asked for advice on ethics, they were asked advice on increasing sales. If you go to a Tattoo artist and ask for a portrait tattooed on your face, it might be gauche as hell, but that didn’t change the fact the artist might’ve done a great job.

Not even close to a comparable analogy. A better analogy would be yours, but where the ink disappears after 1 day and the person getting the tattoo dies a day later.

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

#168

Post by i_am_proteus »

jancsika wrote: post #106
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…

Whether this is a bona fide comment or a troll, I love this comment: * quick witted aikido-move-of-a-sentence to accept OP's insult, thereby disarming it * enormous paragraph made up of short, frank, vague sentences with an compelling rhythm of overarching claims that frame the 20-something haircut's ostensible work in a positive light. It's the wrong generation but I'm reading them in Ari Fleischer's no-nonsense, et…

And don't forget: there's always a bald guy standing by to disarm the "$100 haircut" conjecture.

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

#169

Post by NotPavlovsDog »

Terretta wrote: post #148
NotPavlovsDog wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a lot more than that. It's about further enabling power structures at the client organization while diminishing employee and other "lower classes" negotiation and influence possibilities. In essence, it's a turbo-charged manager service, where you pay a flat fee to someone to represent your interest. The fee is high, but for it you buy more loyalty, a deadline to the relationship and avoid labor disputes, employ…

As I read your comment I was thinking “this!” then I saw your book recommendation and chuckled, “Of course!” What an important book. Here’s a purchase link (non-affiliate but the URL that donates to your selected cause): https://smile.amazon.com/Confronting-Managerialism-Business-...

Pleasantly surprised to meet someone else here that has read it! My management department at a major university has not!

It is somewhat telling that this book mostly gets cited by practitioners of CMS, Critical Management Studies, with a citation index in the hundreds.

Perhaps the explanation lies, as CMS luminary Alvesson puts it, in the basis of mainstream management research seeing itself as in the service of industry.

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

#170

Post by jancsika »

klmadfejno wrote: post #120
jancsika wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether this is a bona fide comment or a troll, I love this comment: * quick witted aikido-move-of-a-sentence to accept OP's insult, thereby disarming it * enormous paragraph made up of short, frank, vague sentences with an compelling rhythm of overarching claims that frame the 20-something haircut's ostensible work in a positive light. It's the wrong generation but I'm reading them in Ari Fleischer's no-nonsense, et…

I guess I'm glad you enjoyed my prose so much. All I'm trying to convey is that my day to day is listening to client problems, looking at data, talking to employees, and presenting findings. It's neither a conspiracy, nor a scheme, nor a world of wealthy indulgence. I make a healthy wage, but its likely lower than I could get in tech. Like almost every company in the world, its a normal company.

> It's neither a conspiracy, nor a scheme, nor a world of wealthy indulgence.

The article points to McKinsey's task to "turbocharge" opioid sales, for a company that sold them for "improper use." So there are obviously a few outstanding questions attorneys general are currently asking about what people at McKinsey knew from "listening to client problems, looking at data, talking to employees, and presenting findings" on that campaign.

If you're simply saying that your day to day isn't that, point taken.

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