McKinsey employee here. There's a lot of things that I think are quite disfunctional at the firm, but most of the criticism I read in the comments seems to me to be pretty wide of the mark and to be rooted in both an understandable indignation and an ignorance of the many realities of the firm.
I share the anger and I would probably point it at the firm too it if I didn't work there and know things from the inside. There is real anger (and a sense of betrayal) inside the firm against the partners responsible for this, as there was over the collaboration with ICE or the South African corruption scandal. Not anger because they put the firm in jeopardy but because what they did was wrong and went against the firm's values. Thankfully they have been terminated.
Some will say I am a mouthpiece for the firm on a PR rampage and I have no way to prove them wrong but I still feel I have to try and provide a bit of perspective from the inside. More of that can be found in my fellow firm member klmadfejno's comments to which I subscribe 100%.
It doesn't help that very little of what happens in the inside is visible publicly. It does not stem from a conspiracy to do evil things secretly but is considered necessary mainly because:
1. the firm serves competing companies and handles sensitive information (think strategic commercial and financial information, not conspiracy to feed on innocent newborns. Even internally we are not allowed to discuss a lot of what other teams do or only a very sanitized version)
2. the firm advises and clients must decide whether they follow that advice or not (they often don't) and not be able to shield themselves behind someone else (particularly when the client is a government) for the decisions they eventually take.
McKinsey is an archipelago where anyone who can convince a team to work with them and a client to pay for it can start an engagement (and I mean anyone).
This means that a lot of shitty things can happen (think advising ICE, the South Africa corruption scandal, Enron or the current Purdue situation).
The leadership has nothing to do with initiating or managing engagements and doesn't have the kind of executive power that you find in a traditional company. However they do have a role in setting the rules regulating how this takes place.
To avoid shit happening engagements must be approved by several committees and it's part of the responsibilities of the leadership to ensure that the policies that these committees enforce are in agreement with the firm's values.
The current leadership has recognized in the last couple of years that these policies were not strict enough and has worked hard to strengthen them (that's my opinion, not fact). It now is not possible to start an engagement that would derive into harm against society, the environment, human rights etc...
An engagement as the Purdue one (dating back to 2017) would not be possible now, nor can we serve tobacco companies, arms manufacturers or start an engagement that would help create new fossile fuel extraction capacity.
To quote the firm's Managing Partner:
"As you know, we have made fundamental changes to our professional standards, policies, risk management and culture over the past two years. These changes include:
▪ Adopting a new Client Service Policy in 2019 that would have stopped us from doing this work on multiple grounds as the epidemic unfolded. It is also what led us to cease all opioid-specific work anywhere in the world.
▪ Introducing a new code of conduct that leaves no room for doubt as to the conduct that is expected of every colleague. We said we would have no tolerance for those who violate our professional standards. In this case, after a thorough investigation, two partners have been terminated for violating our Firm’s professional standards.
▪ Adopting a purpose statement after a year of debate and dialogue and using this to inform the decisions that we make.
But we need to go further. And we will. We must use this moment to bring further energy to the discussions we have around our values and, critically, to the actions we all take to ensure they are delivered without fail every day, everywhere
"
(https://www.mckinseyopioidfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/...)
This means that a hard-left guy like me can work at McKinsey and be very proud of what he does and look at his children in the eye. While policies I am dead against are promoted somewhere else at the firm, as a firm member I can (and do) choose to work on projects that promote policies that I agree with.
The important part is that the control mechanisms that were too weak keep being strengthened as I think the current leadership is doing, but I am looking hard and will keep doing so and hold them accountable, as a lot of my colleagues are. I'd say most but that would be anecdata.
Regarding consultancy value, I can only provide more anecdata. There is a strong culture to overdeliver and bring more to the table than what the client paid for. The young consultant I have seen discussed across the comments is never left alone and is part of a team with experienced subject-matter experts. McKinsey recruits lots of seasoned experts and brilliant minds with amazing skills and working with them is the main part of what makes working at the firm so amazing (along with the challenging problems we are allowed to take a stab at solving).
I have definitely come across buzzword-wielding, smooth-talking McKinsey consultants bullshitting their way through an engagement and delivering little value but in my experience it is not the rule. I cannot discuss what I do but I can say we are very much encouraged to go above and beyond, to share all the knowledge we have and have often seen wizened, experienced, no-bullshit-taking and distrustful engineers ending up genuinely amazed with the new insight and actionable knowledge we have shared with them (and of course we learn a lot in the bargain too)