You’ve heard of the McKinsey way but now let’s go inside the McKinsey Mind…
If you haven’t already watched my video ‘The McKinsey Way: Everything you need to know’ then be sure to check that out after this video as the two go hand in hand.
In fact this book is co-authored by Ethan Rasiel who wrote The McKinsey Way. The McKinsey Mind is the practical, how-to guide, for implementing the concepts we learned in The McKinsey Way. If The McKinsey Way is your theory test, The McKinsey Mind puts you firmly in the driving seat. (FIRMly….see what I did there…)
You’ll get 4 things from this book:
1. How to frame a problem so you can tackle it
2. How to come up with a hypothesis to solve the problem
3. How to analyse your hypothesis so you’ll know if you’re right or wrong and by how much
4. How to tell the client
Although this brands itself as being McKinseyeyey, these are essential skills regardless of which firm you work at. I learnt something even after 4 years in Accenture. The core skills of analysing, presenting, managing and implementing are useful at all levels in all Consulting firms.
My summary isn’t intended to replace the book, I still think it’s worthwhile reading cover to cover but this is to give you a taster and help you decide if there’s bits you want to read in more detail.
So let’s get stuck in.
McKinsey’s approach to Consulting is it’s brand. That approach is “hypothesis-based problem solving”.
The first part of the book covers framing the problem. This means taking the problem the client says they have and firstly validating it’s the correct problem you need to solve. Once you know the right problem statement, you can than use techniques like MECE and logic trees to break it into all the lego blocks that make up the problem. What you’re doing in stage one is creating order out of chaos.
MECE and logic trees popped up in the McKinsey Way too – go and watch that video for a detailed description on what they are.
That output gives you a steer on what the high-level hypothesis is and what you need to analyse to prove or disprove it. That is stage 2 in the approach.
Analysing. This was the most useful part of the book. Here they focus on what ‘just enough’ analysis looks like so you don’t waste time over-analysing for no additional value but enough analysis to confidently prove / disprove the hypothesis. They remind us the aim is ‘to get the most important information as quickly as possible’ rather than ‘all the information’. Getting into the habit of this is the secret behind McKinsey consultant’s ruthless efficiency.
How do we do this? Find the key drivers. This isn’t people steering cars, this is the factors which most affect the problem statement e.g. cost challenges, market changes etc. Then focus your analysis on the items in the MECE logic tree that apply.
Stakeholder interviews are often part of our analytical activities so there’s practical advice on interviewing in there two. These can be summarised as: prep your objective and your questions, use your ears and mouth in the proportion they were given to you. And the secret hack: always ask “is there anything I forgot to ask?” at the end. This is where the interviewee reveals their gems.
When this is complete, collate and step back. What are the facts telling you? Don’t force the facts into your hypothesis. If the facts tell you something different, follow them: adjust your hypothesis and repeat the analysis stage until you have a hypothesis you’re confident in.
Stage 3: what do we tell the client? The client receives the final hypothesis. But we don’t just deliver them a theoretical textbook. Put the hypothesis into the client context. For example, if you went to a fashion consultant and they said “generally people of 5ft 3 look good in stripes” you’d say “ok but do I look good in stripes” and the answer to that is what we present to the client.
How do we deliver the presentation?
Have your elevator pitch ready: sometimes clients only want that rather than full presentation and you have to be ready
Always start with your conclusion. Known as deductive reasoning: we believe X because of ABC. No need to ‘build suspense’ by delaying the solution. It just annoys clients.
Secret hack: send the presentation in advance, especially to people that might object to the message so you can be prepared. McKinsey call this ‘pre-wiring’.
Conclusion: if you haven’t read The McKinsey Way it’s ok, you’ll still get something out of this. If you have then you’ll find it’s more practical and applicable to Consulting more generally. Either way, you’ll walk away from this being able to check a problem is the right one, break it down to be manageable and come up with a theory on it, quickly prove / disprove it, and feed it back to a stakeholder. Essential life skills in Consulting and every Consultant should read this.
