The Mckinsey Way

As I had nothing better to do this weekend (apart from watching a couple of movies on my laptop), I read this really insightful book – The McKinsey Way by Ethan M. Rasiel. Mckinsey of course needs no introduction. McKinsey is to management as Cartier is to jewellery! Personally, I think it’s a must read for consultants or anyone working in similar functions. This book has a lesson or two for everybody – from people working at the Director level right down to the analyst/associate level.
Though EmPower is not an out-an-out consulting company, we can learn quite a few things from this power pack and try to apply them.
I’ve picked up a few topics, which I really liked, to elaborate on. The first topic is the ‘Rules to live by’ as discussed in the book. These are the rules which McKinsey consultants find very useful for problem solving.
Rules to Live by:
1. 80/20 Rule – this one is a well-known rule. E.g. 80% of sales come from 20% of the sales force. This one is a universal rule for most businesses. By keeping eyes open to this, businesses can come up with ways to improvise.
2. Don’t boil the ocean – like boiling the ocean to get a handful of salt. The mantra is to work smarter, not harder. When problem solving for a client or your own company, don’t try to analyze everything. Be selective and figure out the priorities.
3. Find the key drivers – there can be 50 different factors affecting the sale of your product, but you should focus on the most important ones – let’s say X, Y, Z and ignore the rest. This saves you from boiling the ocean.
4. The Elevator Test – know your solution so well that you can explain it to the client in 30 seconds. If you can do that then you understand what you are doing well enough to sell your solution. To know why this is known as the ‘elevator test’ and how you can encapsulate months of hard work in 30 seconds ... read the book.
5. Hit Singles – this rule says – you can’t do everything, so don’t try. Do what you are supposed to and get it right. The author gives three reasons for this:
a. It’s impossible to do everything single handed
b. If you do it once, you raise impractical expectations from those around you
c. Once you fail to meet expectations, it’s extremely tough to regain credibility
6. Look at the big picture – “perhaps the most valuable thing I learned during my time at the firm was to think about the big picture – to take a step back, figure out what I’m trying to achieve and then look at whatever I’m doing and ask myself, ‘Does this really matter?”, former McKinsey professional.
These are some of the rules given in the paperback. There are a few other good ones too.
Another very resourceful technique which I found was the way of ‘doing research’ as discussed in this volume. Any problem-solving exercise starts with research. One should, however, avoid reinventing the wheel. Whatever the nature of the problem is, chances are that someone has already done something similar. The key then is to look at such previous studies and if possible learn from those who worked on similar problems.
The volume also gives out a few tried-and-tested research tips to jump start your research process. Apart from this it also touches upon - PDNet; an electronic database the firm maintains; the commercial databases McK subscribes to and the excellent business library the firm maintains. All of these aid in the very vital research process.
Other interesting topics include – team building/managing, selling a study, managing hierarchy, work-life balance, and conducting interviews.
The book emphasizes on the fact–based structured thinking culture at McK. I would definitely like to dig into this further and try to understand what structured thinking actually is and how to go about developing it in me for tackling complex managerial problems (of course, this is for the future).
All in all, a great read for self as well as for business improvement!!

By Sakshi Prakash

Reference:
The McKinsey Way by Ethan M. Rasiel