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

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.

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.

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...)

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.

But still. Hmm.

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.

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?

This guy consults