The many faces of McKinsey

By Fiona Czerniawska

For 80 years McKinsey & Company has led the way, at least when it comes to the organisational mindset of the consulting industry.  Championed by Marvin Bower, who took over part of the original firm in 1939 after the death of its founder and remained involved in its leadership and direction until 1992, this philosophy was based on the idea of a single firm with common, impeccable professional standards and a consistent set of values.  McKinsey wasn’t just to be a firm; it wasn't even to be The Firm: it was to be The One Firm.

“One Firm” has been the organisational standard against which most other consulting firms have measured themselves since the Second World War.  If anything, it seems a more important rallying point today than it did 50 years ago, as consulting firms grapple with structures which need to be both global and local, and with propositions which need to appeal to the many but speak volumes to the few.  But just at a time when the industry seems more obsessed with the “One Firm” idea than ever, McKinsey – it would appear – has changed its mind.

The recent article in the Harvard Business Review, Consulting on the Cusp of Change, provides a good summary of the pressures bearing down on the traditional business model of consulting, but I wonder if it explored fully enough the future possibilities.   McKinsey Solutions has, indeed, been offering an alternative to conventional consulting, describing itself as ‘a new kind of service… combining 85 years of industry and functional experience with data science’.  NM Incite is (or was) a joint venture between Neilsen and McKinsey, now apparently focused on SocialGuide, a Twitter analysis service.  The firm’s Center for Business Technology  ‘explores the ways in which technology can enable new business models’. Aberkyn is a ‘partnership of change leadership facilitators… co-founded by McKinsey & Company to deliver large scale transformations that require a change in both mindset and behaviour’. Just a week or so ago Lufthansa Technick and McKinsey launched Lumics, a ‘new consulting firm … [which] specialises in the provision of consultancy services for the optimisation of complex production processes and their practical implementation.’

The One Firm has become many.

So what?  It might be tempting to see these moves as the outward manifestation of internal disagreement.  McKinsey partners, the argument might go, can’t agree on a single strategy, so they’ve started to do their own thing.  But that’s probably to underestimate a firm which has often been one step ahead of the industry.  Perhaps it’s been listening to the same senior clients that we have, the ones who recognise the huge value consultants can bring but are frustrated by the way in which large firms continue to seem like generalist machines, diluting rather than nurturing the expertise clients are looking for.  Certainly, other firms should sit up and take note: McKinsey could be about to establish the paradigm for the next 80 years.