Walt Bogdanich

A Christmas gift from a friend in the UK, I immediately picked this book up to read. My most recent work assignment had me working with McKinsey. I don't know why I hadn't heard about McKinsey in the news before - what an illuminating book!

The book goes through case after case of how McKinsey works. My friend and I agreed that we would never want to work for this company. It was disgusting.

Here's one of the worst things I learned:

Mckinsey suggested to Purdue Pharma, the now bankrupt pharmaceutical company responsible for OxyContin, that it pay distributors of OxyContin a rebate for every OxyContin overdose attributable to pills they sold.

I also learned how they were involved in analyzing social media data collected by Cambridge Analytica identifying those critical of Saudi government policies ('sentiment analysis'). Omar Abdulaziz (a Saudi national living in Canada) was identified on one of McKinsey's slides. Shortly thereafter, Saudi emissaries were sent to Canada to urge him to return home; he declined and then his two brothers were jailed. Abdulaziz was working with Jamal Khashoggi on a project to counter Mohammed bin Salman's army of internet trolls. And we all know what happened to Khashoggi.

And the list goes on:

- Playing both sides - pharmaceutical companies and the FDA, cigarette and vape manufacturers and the FDA, regulators and the regulated all over the world

- Involved with corruption in South Africa

- Supporting China in activities that go against US national interests

- With ICE in the US during the Trump presidency, when they were separating children from their parents and putting them in cages (here's the quote from McKinsey - "We do execution, not policy")

- Advising insurance company executives that they were paying too much for claims, which had created a corporate culture of claimants expecting to be paid for claims (...what???)

You can read about McKinsey's purpose, mission, values and code of conduct on their website; unfortunately, some of this stuff naturally conflicts:

Purpose: To help create positive, enduring change in the world.

Values include: put client interests ahead of our firm’s

What if a client's interest does not help create positive, enduring change in the world?

Well worth reading.… (more)

Having met or worked with a fair number of ex-McKinseyites in my career, I was unsurprised by the revelations in this well-reported expose about the secretive business management consultancy. The firm recruits the creme de la creme of the top US business schools and sells them on the idea that the work offers them unmatched opportunities to do good in the world, pointing to their long-held "values" and "ethics". While the firm may have held fast to its foundational values early on in its history, over the past several decades these have turned into mostly hot air. Their operating mantra these days is: make money for the client no matter who or what is harmed, and of course earn high fees in the process. The list of people they have “helped” and “advised” with their solutions is an all-star lineup of greed, predation, and assault on ordinary people - Big Tobacco, oil and gas, the coal industry, financial services, Enron, health insurance, Purdue Pharma for God's sake, authoritarian governments and on and on it goes. It also turns out that very often their vaunted and very high-priced “solutions” are boilerplate toolkits for cutting costs and eliminating jobs. It might be difficult to quantify, but this one organization has likely made a significant contribution to the current state of extreme income inequality and general impoverishment of the US citizenry. The firm is now larger and richer than ever, and it's prestige has been only slightly dented over the years as some of their embarrassing involvement in scandal after scandal has come to light. I hope this book exposes them further.… (more)

Yikes. McKinsey is a consulting company that huge corporations and even nations have hired to streamline their businesses and increase profits and efficiency. They claim to be values-driven, but the only value that seems to unite their work is keeping those with power in power. Employees will see their wages slashed or jobs outsources, consumers will find fewer protections and options, and basically all us little average people are screwed. I wish there had been more analysis, we were going through story after story of projects they've worked on and then it was just over. But if you haven't heard of this group, you'll be surprised to learn of all the pies their fingers are in.… (more)

“Nothing beckons investigative reporters more than powerful institutions that believe they are exempt from public scrutiny.”

Exposé of what happens when a company’s espoused values do not match corporate actions. McKinsey is one of the most recognized and profitable consulting firms with a worldwide reach. They hire the “best and brightest” and give them the option of declining to work with companies on moral grounds. Many of these people are idealists who want to “do good in the world.” The authors of this book have peeled back they layers of secrecy surrounding McKinsey’s clients and their past consulting work. They have found a disconnect between people on the ground (consultants) and the actions of the executives in charge, where profit has often been placed above all else.

The book examines McKinsey’s involvement in:

• - Maintenance and safety in the steel industry


• - 2008 financial crisis


• - Immigration center cost-cutting


• - Tobacco products and vaping


• - Insurance companies’ payout reductions


• - Baseball analytics


• - Enron


• - Big Pharma and the opioid crisis


• - Advising authoritarian regimes: China, Saudi Arabia, Russia


• - South African contracting scandals

It highlights the importance of ethical leadership, which is always important for any company, and essential for those with wide-ranging global impact. It occasionally wanders far afield from work McKinsey has done into areas where their former associates have been involved, but overall, if you have ever worked in management consulting, it is definitely worth reading.… (more)