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Comment by andreilys | Hacker News Reader

”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 exec to make a decision (we just spent $10M on this strategy plan, are we really going to it on it?). It’s genius, if it didn’t highlight the utter dysfunction of a firm.

McKinsey scandals also aren’t confined to Opiod work. It’s also been involved with Enron, corruption in Africa, peddling of mortgage backed securities during ‘07-‘08 crisis and I’m sure many more that they’ve done a great job at hiding from the public.

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Some of the main "controversies" re McKinsey are outlined in its Wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company#Controver...

In the interest of balance, here is what McKinsey has to say about social responsibility in its "about us" section of its corporate website: Our purpose as a firm is to help create positive, enduring change in the world.

https://www.mckinsey.com/about-us/social-responsibility

It seems more likely that it’s a politically expedient way to get cover for a decision

That's certainly one of the reasons you would bring in consultants.

I think critics of consultants are, in general, too quick to dismiss the monetary value of political lubrication. If it's going to get your management hierarchy to admit there's a problem at all, or if it's going to get your management hierarchy out of a deadlock, that's worth something. If your organization is able to actually focus on the problems despite the politics, you are probably not a a typical McKinsey/Bain/BCG/etc. customer.

With maybe one exception, none of the consultants I know ever fit the mold of a fresh-out-of-college generalist who thinks their frameworks and raw intellect will help them come up with better answers than a specialist could. They mostly all understood that their jobs were to escort boring, good enough ideas through the boardroom politics. And that was often something they were good at, and they were often acutely aware that some people in those companies already had the answers but the organization was too dysfunctional to recognize the fact.

That's the core of the problem anyway. But naturally they'll sell you a lot of other promises and products, and those are where I think management consultants are the wrong answer. Just hire real specialists.

The other problem I have with management consultants is that I feel they, both the companies and many of the individuals, are too amoral to be healthy for society, but that's not about their competence.

McKinsey is particularly known for obfuscating experience level and favoring a funnel of new ivy or ivy-like grad (often at graduate level, mind) through an internal bootcamp approach and out into the world as "expert".

I think that's what the GP was poking at.

You aren't wildly wrong on the job as a whole, though reasonably often it's more to escort boring bad ideas through the politics for someones benefit. And on the "amoral" front, they know what side their bread is buttered on.

Yup, freelance software dev here, and I've been that consultant before for a large healthcare company. They had a new VP and he wanted to make changes to the app and org but needed a report from an external consultant to CYA. He already knew what he wanted the report to say and was not subtle on it. I talked to a couple people in the org, wrote a quick report basically signing off on his plan, and got paid handsomely. Thankfully, what he wanted to do was IMO correct, but the whole thing was ridiculous. They tried to bring me back to lead the dev team but I wasn't super interested in dealing with those politics.

I don't think it's ridiculous, it's how things work in many companies. People use various methods and tricks trying to convince others or get what they want from them. Sometimes the CEO is hesitant and needs a push from the consultancy,sometimes it's power games and etc. Most businesses have these things, it's not unique,even though some people would like to believe it.

I hear this one pretty often. I'm sure it happens to some extent. But flip the perspective there. You're talking about a a company that is so dysfunctional its leaders can't make decisions on their own. Getting stuff done there sounds pretty difficult to begin with. If stuff gets done, that's valuable. That's part of what I'm saying. Business is hard.

They parrot back exactly what the business wants to do. I’ve seen it in action. Rarely do they ever say anything that’s truly business changing.

And yet, the business can't actually do those things without them for some reason (well often can't do it with consultants either). Large groups of people have weird dynamics.

"Business changing" in this context would seem to mean "actually getting anything done at all", ie pushing back against the bureaucracy. See also "meets expectations" -> firing line, "exceeds expectations" -> kept on.

Exactly. I called this “decision insurance” elsewhere in this comments section.

> 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...)

Taking a step back, McKinsey can exist in it's current form, as a nurse for these elderly giants, because of the lack of anti-trust.

If we had real competition, there would be more money to be made knocking the giants down than trying to keep them in their walker.

Uhh, I'm not sure what to think of this, but I initially took "walker" to mean "baby walker". The comparison seemed fair for a second, considering old myths about giants and lowered intelligence. Then the "elderly" part properly carried across and I realized, oh.

But still. Hmm.

I was a consultant for ten years, not at McKinsey, but a very small firm that actually was ethical by comparison at least, and actually got some good things done, and then later, at another small company that was completely unethical.

In many cases, there was not any question that your job was to justify a decision that had already been made, or attack another group within the company on behalf of whoever was writing you a check. I was literally told on a number of occasions that regardless of what the SOW said, our job was to make whoever was writing the check look good.

> It seems more likely that it’s a politically expedient way to get cover for a decision

I have not doubt that is true in some cases. However, it might be a a bit too cynical to see it that way in all cases.

I have a developer on my team that is the most senior guy on the team. He is a grey beard on a team full of junior developers fresh out of startup code bootcamp. Sometimes he is thinking about big technical challenges and he just wants someone to talk to that can give him some feedback.

One of the things I miss about working in open offices is being able to turn around and fire ideas off of a colleague. Even if I know I am right, even if I have the ability to unilaterally make a decision, often times I just want a second opinion. I've even heard people here suggesting a paid service so you could get a short amount of principal engineer time to bounce ideas off of.

I mean, isn't that more or less what McKinsey is, except for business people? When I think of it that way ... it doesn't feel as cynical anymore. If I'm a CEO (or any level of exec) and I don't have peers that can provide me valuable second opinions and I have the budget - why not pay someone for that second opinion?

So, does this conflict with the "Bad businesses with bad models are more likely to want help changing" narrative? There's a world in which this squares with McKinsey coming in to help those businesses with the change being pushed on them.

Such business should, you know, bring in leaders who can improve their business. Or train their leaders via executive MBA programs (there are so many). McK touts as being able to transform businesses but all they will do is add more costs and send in clueless consultants who your employees will somehow have to try and get along with.

The correct term is plausible deniability or indirection of accountability. It's an advanced political maneuver.

> It seems more likely that it’s a politically expedient way to get cover for a decision (in other words CYA insurance).

This guy consults

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