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Is McKinsey and Co. The Root of All Evil? (2011)

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Re: Is McKinsey and Co. The Root of All Evil? (2011)

#41

Post by pawsforthought »

feet wrote: post #37
pawsforthought wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not convinced that worker ownership is necessarily better either, not in a global sense at least, not when we emit into the same beleaguered environment. Consider a worker-owned coal mining operation. It will have the same self-preservation drive that works to the detriment of all the rest of us.

I understand that, but when the decisions are made by more people there is a greater chance of some of them speaking up and saying "hey, maybe we shouldn't destroy the environment" instead of when decisions are made by a few behind closed doors with consultants being paid to provide cover It also allows the workers to have the knowledge of what's going on, in the case that the organization does decide to destroy the…

Fair point. At least some kinds of awful corporate decision-making would surely be much less likely under worker ownership.

For example, 3M and PFAS contamination. It’s a stretch to imagine workers local to the factories and very directly bearing the brunt of it, would go along with it.

Re: Is McKinsey and Co. The Root of All Evil? (2011)

#42

Post by [deleted] »

vsskanth wrote: post #17

McKinsey is doing what they're paid to do - take the blame for bad decisions and deflect attention away from the leadership of companies who actually choose to follow their advice. Even from this article you can see they're doing an excellent job. If I were an executive I would absolutely hire them after reading this article since I can just use them to enact unpopular changes I've always wanted, and wouldn't be blam…

[deleted]

Re: Is McKinsey and Co. The Root of All Evil? (2011)

#43

Post by ClumsyPilot »

asimovie wrote: post #31

McKinsey’s biggest structural issue is extremely decentralized leadership. Senior partners are not accountable to anyone and there’s limited ethics oversight. Combine that with working with a majority of F500s and governments, and it’s a high risk situation. Great initial job training though, so no limit to talent pipeline when they get college grads for 2 years.

thats the basics of how limited partnerships work

Re: Is McKinsey and Co. The Root of All Evil? (2011)

#44

Post by iforgetti »

jsemrau wrote: post #15
iforgetti wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? I would think VCs would be the last to use McKinsey.

Not as a client, more from a hiring perspective.

Got it. Yeah checks out with my personal experience. I am always surprised when I see these ex-Mck hires filling series B and C companies as well.

Re: Is McKinsey and Co. The Root of All Evil? (2011)

#45

Post by rayiner »

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #6

McKinsey is merely a byproduct, if you want to get to the root you have to analyze Capitalism, the system out of which McKinsey-like entities emerged as the best fit for its natural selection.

Capitalism existed for centuries before the McKinsey, which is an outgrowth of the 20th century movement of “scientific management.”

Re: Is McKinsey and Co. The Root of All Evil? (2011)

#46

Post by [deleted] »

notahacker wrote: post #39
civilized wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author doesn't do a great job making the point, but there's more to it than that. In many cases, McKinsey encouraged strategies that harmed either the company, society, or both: - Shady accounting at Enron - Aggressive denial of claims at Allstate - Aggressive marketing of opioids at Purdue Pharma These strategies were not just one-off misfires, but deeply involved McKinsey's senior leadership over multiple years…

That's completely consistent with the GP's point that companies who are struggling or companies that are taking big decisions tend to hire McKinsey to do some reports for them. That applies equally to some really successful clients whose successes McKinsey deserves essentially no credit for. The company that actually advised Enron on how to do its false accounts, Arthur Andersen, was broken up. McKinsey's documented…

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Re: Is McKinsey and Co. The Root of All Evil? (2011)

#47

Post by jacknews »

I'm not sure any of this is specific to McKinsey.

IMHO the current system supports a whole layer of consultants, MBAs, CEOs, and financiers who are either destroying the 'real' economy, or at best sucking all the juice out of it for their own gain.

Late capitalism, financialization, feral capitalism, managerialism. I've seen several terms thrown around, but the essence seems to be something like the profits come from owning and/or tapping into the flowing money; the actual work involved in creating those flows is virtually irrelevant and certainly under-rewarded.

Re: Is McKinsey and Co. The Root of All Evil? (2011)

#48

Post by drumhead »

All management consultants do in my experience is give an impression of authority and rigor to a decision management want to take. Want to relocate the hq, get a big consultant in to create a justification for it. Then you can say " look pwc or whoever, agree with us". Giving your dubious decision the respectablilty and authority it needs.

Re: Is McKinsey and Co. The Root of All Evil? (2011)

#49

Post by spaceman_2020 »

The real damage caused by McKinsey is its promotion of a certain kind of capitalism that prioritizes short term profit and optimization over long term stability and innovation.

Both of these are nice to have, but in McKinsey influenced “MBAized” businesses, optimization is often almost THE end goal. This leads to all sorts of situations innovation centers get gutted and long term bets are eschewed in favor of immediate profits.

Re: Is McKinsey and Co. The Root of All Evil? (2011)

#50

Post by [deleted] »

kypro wrote: post #40

Is there somewhere I can go to understand why McKinsey has almost cult-like status among large corporates? Some of the stupidest decisions I've ever witnessed has been driven by multi-million dollar strategies from McKinsey. At a place I worked previously McKinsey advised in-housing software development to spark innovation and digital transformation. Then three years later in 2020 to it was advised that software deve…

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