I admittedly haven't had the experience of working with any consultants, so I'm curious for opinions from those who have what happens when they come in during a "typical" engagement of this nature.

The rewards for the consultant are high fees and living a luxe lifestyle of staying at high end hotels, traveling first class, and dining at michelin starred restaurants (all of course on the client's dime). Plus of course guaranteed future work. Even if the project tanks and the executive is fired, they'll be sure to hire McK again at their next gig.

What most people don't realize is that consulting engagements are a careful collaboration between consultant and client. The findings are almost always driven by an iterative process where you go through review cycles with the buyer until you reach your "objective" conclusions, which by the very nature of how the work is performed, is totally subjective and biased. Doubly so for turnaround projects like this one. (not to mention that consultants are constantly trying to recycle previously performed analysis, regardless if it at all fits or applies in the target project).

Management consultant is the biggest circlejerk profession. Even moreso IMO than ibanking. Classic self-serving MBA type job. Management consultants are to entrepreneurs what food critics are to chefs.

>Management consultants are to entrepreneurs what food critics are to chefs.

Eh. Good food critics cut through a lot of trendiness. Of course, a lot of food critics aren't good.

Consultants would draw and describe what they wanted, goto bed, and awake to slides, charts in their inbox.

Same thing with models. Most firms have "rockstar excel jockeys" (usually analysts/associates/etc.) that are pimped out to project teams to serve this singular role (making models, building business cases, etc.).

Management consulting, such a surreal profession...

What is the difference between McK and Deloitte? One has Harvard grads the other has Cornell grads. The analysis is the same, but one is just wrapped up in a prettier package and more prestige.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

Consultants:entrepreneurs = husbands:Kardashian sisters.

I don't believe that if you just throw enough smart managers at the top of a hierarchy, then eventually it will spit out gold. If anything, that can be problematic.

Yahoo, in its current large size, simply may not have the latitude to pivot to the degree required as a publicly traded company, since anything any CEO attempts will draw the ire of activist shareholders. Any major change becomes a large political endeavor.

Assuming either of them was actually given the mandate to do so by the board of directors, etc, I imagine they'd fire like 50-80% of the staff, get rid of anything that's not profitable, and produce one highly refined product at a time, something that hasn't been done well before.

Source: Am both a Jobs and Musk fanboy and have done an unhealthy amount of reading about their histories and decision-making. I particular like this video of Jobs at NeXT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNfRgSlhIW0

"...it seems to me that, in general terms for Steve, he was so passionate about the goal and trying to invent something impossible that everyone had to be on this mission to Mars, and if you weren’t on the mission you didn’t need to be here. It was really a focused approach, so it wasn’t about me or you or hard feelings or anyone. It was about the thing and making the thing better."

Read more at: http://nextshark.com/doug-menuez-who-spent-3-years-with-stev...

Did NEXT manage to execute the plan and sell 50k workstations in 1991?

So I'm guessing more like 20k.

I really doubt either Steve Jobs or Elon Musk could turn Yahoo around. With Jobs's Apple turnaround, he had the advantage of sharing (creating, really) Apple's cultural DNA; he didn't need to "turn around" a company, he needed to cut the fat and refocus it so it could do what it was doing a lot better. Elon Musk has never run a turnaround; his companies have certainly encountered difficulties, but it's easier to take a new organization with a strong mission and make it work than to take an old, sclerotic organization in a market that doesn't exist anymore and somehow make it relevant again.

Fantasy sports.

In much the same way Sega pivoted, Yahoo could.

Edit: is there a story I don't know about? I know a reasonable amount about gaming but I guess I'm drawing a blank on a successful Sega pivot. I remember some cool ads when I was a kid, I suppose.

So Mckinsley consultants are the nursing home cats of the corporate world?

http://nypost.com/2010/01/31/nursing-home-cat-can-predict-im...