Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor

#281

Post by sailfast » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 3:21 AM UTC

luma wrote: post #247

sailfast wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But... it’s not your shared idea. It’s their idea, and the company didn’t have a process in place to let them present it except through your consulting engagement. Sure, if it’s a good outcome for the employee to work with you to get things implemented fine, but it still stings a bit that someone from the outside was trusted more than an invested employee before any traction occurred. See also: “let’s hire a consulti…

I don't control the situation I've walked into and the events preceding, but I can control the outcomes. I'm not there to take credit for other people's work, but if management isn't on board with their ideas, I can oftentimes help to frame the message so it will be better received. If the "rank and file" is willing to work with me, I'm going to bend over backwards to make sure they have a seat at the table and that…

I understand why you’re there, and I’m with you having worked as a consultant in this role a number of places. Once you’re in the seat there’s a way to do it right.

The OP’s point about morale impact,however, still stands regardless of a consultant’s intentions, I think. Further, the fact that shorter engagement consultants will not really understand your org even with outside experience which is hugely exasperating for “human capital”, “change management” or “just do X” IT improvement decks.

So many organizations go straight to the outside instead of trying to establish some healthy internal dialog around improvement. To me this is an anti-pattern, and happens to be hugely profitable for consultancies.

Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor

#282

Post by kube-system » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 3:35 AM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #265

kube-system wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many projects where the build vs buy decision itself is politicized. Political rifts between business and IT is a story that is just as old as business software itself. Super common scenario: * The business thinks IT is too slow to implement, and doesn't understand business needs * IT thinks the business changes priority too much and doesn't even understand their own business processes, and it's leading to…

Yeah... I don't really subscribe to this viewpoint. I think it's a meme at this point. "Politicized" is a trope in my opinion.

Are you saying that you don't think office politics ...exists?

Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor

#283

Post by sjg007 » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 3:46 AM UTC

thundergolfer wrote: post #269

sjg007 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a reference? I’d be interested to read more about it.

Here it is: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/a-long-talk-with-dem... I originally came across these comments of his when reading the piece written about him in Current Affairs.

The latest article in the NYTimes says he is under an NDA so that may explain it.

Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor

#284

Post by taneq » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:04 AM UTC

braythwayt wrote: post #36

z3ugma wrote: post #21

I was a technical project management consultant for a long time. The value that most orgs get from a consultant isn't really in the advice the consultant gives them, it's the political cover to make changes they knew they should make all along, but didn't have the social capital or the focus to make those changes until they had a person in a chair across from them.

This. I have done lots and lots and lots of enterprise sales and consulting, and a big part of bringing in outsiders is to provide the illusion of social proof. "Well, we had the experts in, and they found..." That sounds really, really terrible when put so cynically, but the flip side of that is to view it as insurance. If you bring the consultants in, hoping that they will recommend Plan A, and Plan A is truly terr…

Another big part of it is liability management. If you're a high level exec and you make the wrong call, it's on your own head. If you hire a reputable expert and they make the wrong call, you're in the clear, even if it's what you would have done anyway.

Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor

#285

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:06 AM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #265

kube-system wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many projects where the build vs buy decision itself is politicized. Political rifts between business and IT is a story that is just as old as business software itself. Super common scenario: * The business thinks IT is too slow to implement, and doesn't understand business needs * IT thinks the business changes priority too much and doesn't even understand their own business processes, and it's leading to…

Yeah... I don't really subscribe to this viewpoint. I think it's a meme at this point. "Politicized" is a trope in my opinion.

[deleted]

Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor

#286

Post by sjg007 » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:07 AM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #282

sjg007 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... I don't really subscribe to this viewpoint. I think it's a meme at this point. "Politicized" is a trope in my opinion.

Are you saying that you don't think office politics ...exists?

I think it is important to avoid figurative language and stereotypes and develop an argument based on specific examples. To clarify my original comment, the assumption is that if you have to have clout to bring in the consultant (either by fiat or consensus) that does not absolve negative consequences nor provide political cover if a project fails.

Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor

#287

Post by Aeolun » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:08 AM UTC

luma wrote: post #247

sailfast wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But... it’s not your shared idea. It’s their idea, and the company didn’t have a process in place to let them present it except through your consulting engagement. Sure, if it’s a good outcome for the employee to work with you to get things implemented fine, but it still stings a bit that someone from the outside was trusted more than an invested employee before any traction occurred. See also: “let’s hire a consulti…

I don't control the situation I've walked into and the events preceding, but I can control the outcomes. I'm not there to take credit for other people's work, but if management isn't on board with their ideas, I can oftentimes help to frame the message so it will be better received. If the "rank and file" is willing to work with me, I'm going to bend over backwards to make sure they have a seat at the table and that…

I think it’s much more often managers trusting the advice that they paid $3 million for more than the advice that they’re paying $100k/year for.

It doesn’t matter that the $3M advice is given by someone barely more than an undergraduate. McKinsey wouldn’t still be a company if they fucked people over like that would they? (hint: They would)

Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor

#288

Post by Aeolun » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:11 AM UTC

agiamas wrote: post #234

alistairSH wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right up until you realize the 23 year old snot who made the recommendation billed ~$3 million against your ~$100k salary.

McK will bill $3 million, the 23 year old may get at best same as your $100k salary. Which makes everyone feel sour, esp the youngster for getting 3% of what their boss charged the client...!

I think the snot is pretty happy with his ‘all expenses paid’ little vacation.

Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor

#289

Post by thkim » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:19 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #107

crazygringo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's exactly this. Within any organization, you can have 3 or 6 important people pushing in completely different strategic directions. And it can be clear to any unbiased observer that there's only one good, responsible choice, but within your org that gets met with essentially "but that's just your opinion , man". So you call in a consulting firm and they deliver what most of the people already know. The consultants…

>Also, this lets the CEO appear unbiased to all the people who "lost". So they can get on board with the new policy but not feel like the CEO shot them down personally, which is bad for morale, can lead them to quit, etc. The flip side is that it is also bad for morale for someone to be recommending a solution for some time, the recommendation is ignored, a consultant is hired, the consultant recommends the same solu…

When you are a junior staff you don't understand why decisions are made rather inefficiently. You only come to understand as you move up the ladder in the organization.

There is nothing stupid or evil about how "organization" behaves. It's exactly same as the society we all live in, just at a smaller scale. When you are in the position to make the call, you see that someone's idea may be as good as someone else's idea. How do you decide which idea is right? Do you choose one and fire the other with another idea? What happens when a wrong decision is made? This is the exactly reason why CEO or executives make compromises. They have responsibility to make sure that the organization survives no matter which scenario pans out. Junior staff often don't understand this because they can always move onto another opportunity when things collapse. As their career progresses, they also come to understand that you can't torch the field just because you don't like the crop growing there - it's much harder to find fertile land to begin with.

Re: Why Taxpayers Pay McKinsey $3M a Year for a Recent College Graduate Contractor

#290

Post by theresAppleBias » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:26 AM UTC

gowld wrote: post #65

z3ugma wrote: post #21

I was a technical project management consultant for a long time. The value that most orgs get from a consultant isn't really in the advice the consultant gives them, it's the political cover to make changes they knew they should make all along, but didn't have the social capital or the focus to make those changes until they had a person in a chair across from them.

This is why consultants hire Ivy League graduates. To create a myth of "Ivy League" "quality" justifying the decisions they are hired to recommend. The other thing management consultants do is industrial espionage -- they go into a company to learn how it work, and then advise other companies on how "industry leaders" operate.

The longer I live, the more I've realized it's a myth.

The person/human is significantly more important.

After working with duds from top schools, I'm not sure why it happens. How do they get accepted? How do they graduate? How did they get past interviews?