Review: The McKinsey Way

The McKinsey Way by Ethan M. Rasiel
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have an omnivorous taste when it comes to reading books, and my choice of books is driven by my curiosity. If I want to learn any subject, I have a thumb rule. I would read the best 5 books written on that subject. Recently, I was fascinated by the subject of consulting, and decided to master the subject by reading the best books ever written on that subject. So,when I typed in Google, “ the best books on consulting, the book The McKinsey Way was among the top 5 books. Hence, I decided to give it a try. So, in this blog post, I want to share with you whatever knowledge I have gained from reading the book.

The book McKinsey Way was written by Mr. Ethan M Rasiel, a former consultant who worked for McKinsey. Having been with McKinsey for few years, he enlightens the readers about the so called closely guarded secrets, techniques and concepts which McKinsey has been using for many years to solve the pressing problems of the major corporations and the different governments of the world at large. The McKinsey, among the elite corporate circles, is known as the Firm. It was founded in the year 1926. The firm’s hierarchy is plain and interesting. First comes the client, second the Firm and third are the employees.

To start with, the author introduces the readers to the concept of MECE. It stands for Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive . To simplify it,MECE is a way of thinking about a problem.With the given constraints and taking into account certain incompatibilities, how to arrive at a solution. Anybody who steps into McKinsey, the first thing that h/she would learn is MECE. It is an indispensable tool for solving the problems of the clients.Apart from this there are so many conceptual tools,such as the 80/20 rule being the obvious one, which would help not only an aspiring consultant for instance, but also the business managers and even the individuals with problem solving.

One of the key takeaways from the book is that, what doctors are for the individuals, the consulting firms are for the businesses. Individuals go to the doctors because they have some health issues, organizations too approach consultants because of their inefficiencies and sub optimal productivity, or they just want to grow bigger , or to grab a bigger share in the market. You might be wondering, why not the firms do the analysis themselves instead of paying the consulting firms in millions of dollars. The catch here is that, corporations , just like individuals lack the insight about their problems. Hence, a dispassionate outsider perspective with objective analysis is how the consulting firms help the organizations or the governments in attaining their objectives.To elaborate a bit more, a patient with a headache might think that it’s just a simple headache, but it might be something more serious than that.Similarly, even the consultant’s job is not to just solve the problems posed by the client, but have a look at the bigger picture and point out to them the real problems, which might be in some cases,more serious than they have actually imagined.



That being said, let me now take you through the exact problem solving methodology of McKinsey.

1.Initial Hypothesis- It is how you actually frame the problem or define the problem
2.Fact Based Analysis- Gather data from as many sources as you can for the objective analysis of the problem.
3.Rigid structure- Every problem has to go through a set pathyway of problem solving.

Now, you might be wondering, how does McKinsey gets clients? The obvious answer that comes to anybody’s mind is selling. But no.The firm doesn’t do active selling. The Firm doesn’t sell its services by cold calling or marketing or any other means that you can think of. Rather doing that, it markets itself. And, there is a big difference. What the firm does is , it encourage its employees to actively participate in networking events, become the board members of the organizations,play advisory role to the NGO’s etc. In this way, so much of leads get generated informally. Word of mouth marketing, being the most powerful one, is how business is generated for McKinsey.

It is every MBA grad’s dream to get into McKinsey Firm. To get into the Firm, is not as easy as you imagine it to be. They look for stellar academic record, MBA from a premier university in the world, and yes you need to be of average intelligence to make the cut.But, the story doesn’t end there. Even after you become a part of the McKinsey, you have to prove your mettle, as, the organization is purely meritocratic.You are only as good as your last assignment. There is no room for mediocrity at all. The consultants , known as the Engagement Mangers work in a small team of 3-6 members, and go on to form very close bonds with each other. Working with McKinsey can be an intense learning experience. Astonishingly, the average tenure of a consultant in the McKinsey is 2 years. Need I say more?

This book is over all, a good book, though it didn’t cover all the aspects of consulting. This book would have been even better if the concepts were illustrated with specific case studies, so that the reader would understand the context better. Moreover, this books has routine advice such as the importance of team bonding, active listening, obsession to service among others. That’s why I felt, as the book progresses, only 70 percent of it is actually worth reading. The rest of the content can be found in other business books too.

That's all I have for you now. Keep reading . Sia.







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