I'm sure they have smart people, but they're not that exceptional imo. Otherwise mid-way through they'd have surely realized the impossibility of the situation, notified the city that the original objectives are unattainable and all presentations, documentation and suggestions clearly stated that their new goal is not to "stem jail violence" but lessen the "contrapositive" (out-of-control violence). I bet none of that happened, not because McK doesn't have smart people, but because they're often not really trying to "solve problems".

Often, I don't think you hire McKinsey to solve your problems - you hire them when your problems are already out of control and you need to deflect the blame. They give it their best shot, if they turn it around then they're heroes, if not, you can blame them and they still get paid.

Suppose they did come to that conclusion:

(1) Partners would gladly communicate that back—the payoff to keeping one gig on track is far less valuable than avoiding public scrutiny

(2) If they did ask to move the goalposts, I suspect the city would have been amenable

Doubling down to bet on moonshots is not McKinsey’s MO. What are managing consultants good for? Starbucks on two corners of the intersection, breakfast menu at your favorite fast food eatery, and many (MANY) restructuring plans (rightsizing initiatives, aka RIFs)

Flip a coin.

Heads we gain credit for giving you an amazing strategy, tails you lose because you don't know how to implement our amazing strategy.

It's a Heads I Win Tails You Lose situation.

Nobody gets enduringly rich being a roulette player.

But it's surprising how lucrative it can be to set yourself up as a Roulette Coach.

That really is the quote of the day. Well played.

The one time I worked with McKinsey, they were "OK." The partner and one of the two associates were sharp. (The other mostly just arrogant.) On the one hand, they didn't come to any conclusion markedly different from what we (the product people) had already concluded.

That said, I'm sure they gave upper management some validation that we weren't just drinking our own Koolaid. And they gave business planning staff a fancy spreadsheet model to play with--which helped keep said staff out of our hair.

Ultimately, the product was fairly successful although the company couldn't really overcome a bad strategic position.

> the outcome would have been significantly more dire had McKinsey’s proffered solution not been implemented

It's the classic can't-be-wrong-no-matter-what-happens situation. Since there is no practical way to re-run the experiment, they can always claim "at least we made it less bad." And the clients are prone to buy into it also, because it makes them look like they didn't make a bad decision to engage the consultants.

Same thing frequently seen with politicians and their supporters.