Comment by lupire
7 months ago
My favorite thing about McKinsey is that they are hated for 2 reasons:
1. Allegedly ruining companies with mismanagement.
2. Making companies people don't like too successful.
That's more an indictment of the business skills of the critics than McKinsey.
The general critique is: McKinsey over-optimizes on short term profitability over meaningful, longer term, harder-to-measure values. Your framing drops the most important aspect of the critique to make it sound contradictory.
That is not a contradiction. There are lots of ways to "ruin" a company, making all the people who interact with it more miserable, while still making that company "successful".
There are plenty more reasons than that - check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company#Controver... for more info.
Just a side note
The main criticisms of McKinsey (and strategy/management consulting firms in general) are:
1) They can (and have/will) consult both sides, even though there's a massive conflict of interest. It's like having the same law firm represent both plaintiff and defendant. This is the most egregious of the bunch.
2) They have deep ties with governments and the private sector, and leverage this bridge to reach their goals. Their alumni network is what keep propelling the firm.
3) They optimize for profits and recurring business (which any business does, so you can't really blame them for that...but:), and will not shy away from giving their clients morally or ethically questionable advices. This one ties back to (1).
Imagine if McKinsey is consulting Google on how to increase revenues related to customer data, while also consulting government regulators on how to deal with customer data privacy - with their own (McK) motives being maximum future revenue and extending their influence.
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