What I learned at McKinsey

After nearly 2 years of total time at McKinsey, I joined Lattice Engines as a senior product manager. And I love my new job! But in the midst of this new job, I have often reflected on what I learned from my time at McKinsey. Was working there after business school really valuable?

Not even counting the network and brand, and the friendships I developed while at McKinsey, I completely believe it was. Just like Business School, I answer this question by the following statement - if the experience significantly changes (and improves) the way I think and act, I believe it is valuable. In particular, there are some elements of the McKinsey culture that have become part of the way I work. I will classify them under two categories: Work style and Communication and Interpersonal skills

Work Style

1. Efficiency and Urgency: I have a sense of urgency to do things faster, more efficiently, that I did not before. At McKinsey, there was a constant emphasis on using the 80-20 rule to have maximum impact with less effort; this was the only way you could actually complete the work assigned to you. That has completely rubbed off on me, though I do sometimes push for getting things done in an unrealistic timeframe.
2. Scheduled PS sessions: We had 2 problem solving sessions scheduled weekly, to proactively think through problems we might face. Having these on the calendar forced us to come up with answers with artifical deadlines, and kep the project moving forward. Also, these sessions gave us a way of stepping back and reviewing the progress as a group, look at the big picture, get input from multiple stakeholders and make better decisions about the future of the project
3. First day answer: There was always a urgency of getting to an early answer. On a first day, it was just a hypothesis; you will spend several weeks proving or disproving the answer. But having to come up with an  early answer makes you focus on what are the things you need to do to come up with a refined answer, and use facts to back it up. In addition, this helps bring around a focus on Iterative problem solving and end-product focus: We began every study with a storyboard; an outline of what the final product (i.e., the final presentation) will look like. This helped us understand and prioritize our analysis, and also help drive prioritization of work
4. Put something on paper: There was also an emphasis on coming in with a perspective, and in particular putting something down on paper which forces people to react. This is a powerful technique because most people are overwhelmed with too many things to handle, and if you ask them something, they might not put too much thought into their answers. Putting an opinion in front of them forces them to react, and either agree or disagree, and produces better results

Communication and Interpersonal skills

1. Bucketing or 'chunking': Give someone a set of six points, and they will not likely remember anything. Give them three points, with two sub-points each, and they will likely remember what you said. This is probably the most useful habits I developed; rolling up points into themes, and communicating in sets of 2-4 themes at a time. This has made my presentations and communications so much more effective, that this alone is worth the time spent at McKinsey.
2. Respect for different personality types: McKinsey lives on MBTI types; people use MBTI as a way of communicating how they work, and to understand how they can work better with others. For me, it helped in two major ways. First, even though I don't use MBTI types anymore, when I start working with someone, I try to get a sense of how they like to work. I also respect people's preferences more, and try to understand what they say based on their personality. Second, MBTI has helped me understand myself better. I know that since I am INTJ, I need time on my own to think through things before meetings, I love to organize things and build plan before I proceed, and that I love to think big picture, but need to watch out for the details when I work. 
3. Team Learning: A unique thing we did close to the beginning of each project was to hold a team learning session, where everyone mentioned their MBTI type, their learning goals, and how they like to work. This session was very valuable, both as a team-building exercise, but as a way to surface information that can help the team tremendously in the future, to avoid misunderstandings, and to support each other in achieveing individual goals
4. Dialogues and handling different points of opinion - At the end of my one year learning workshop, I learned two very valuable frameworks for conversations. One was treating dialogues as a balance between listening and asserting, and techniques to make sure that you do each of these more effectively. Second, I learned a way of handling different points of opinion by getting to an understanding of the facts and assumptions behind each persons arguments, and understanding what assumptions you need to test for everyone to get on the same page

McKinsey: team learning

One of the new things I was exposed to this week at McKinsey was the team learning session. This session is typically done at the start of every new project, and is meant for each team member to give an overview of the following:

1. A little bit about themselves, tenure at McKinsey, family, interests etc.

2. Professional priorities: where they are in their career, what skills and experiences they want to have to get to the next stage etc.

3. Personal priorities: What are their personal priorities like spending as much time with family as possible, keeping weekends free, taking time out for workouts etc.


4. Myers Brigg personality type, which might give an indication of what might it would be like to work with this person.


This sort of session helped us decide what roles each team member should take, how we should work together in terms of where we work from, the timings we work at, and how we should balance being at the client side, and being back in office. The discussion was very useful in establishing teamwork norms; in fact, I believe that it should become part of more organizations' work culture to have such discussions. Not only do these discussions help in learning your teammmates priorities and stating yours, it also help in getting to know a little bit more about your teammates. I had learned the importance of having such a conversation and creating a 'team contract' in our leadership in organizations course at Kellogg. However in this busy life, such conversations are often ignored to save time. My future teammates at Kellogg beware: here come some team learning discussions!

Almost a month at McKinsey

It's almost been a month since I started at McKinsey as a Summer Associate. I thought this was an appropriate time to reflect (by blogging, of course). There have been quite a few surprises for me on joining the firm. But first, let's start at the items that went as expected:

1. My colleagues are very talented, motivated and overall outstanding individuals. Which is expected, given how much thought goes into evaluating each person in the hiring process. As someone suggested 'There are no hiring mistakes here.'

2. It's been fun! My summer class is a lot of fun, and we have a lot of get-togethers in NYC.


But then were were some surprises:

1. It is amazing to see how much thought goes into every consultant's development. A major reason reasons why consultants do tend to do a large variety of projects early on is to get a vast variety of experiences and build up one's consulting toolkit.projects assigned to me.

2. Contrary to popular opinion, most new hires are not necessarily MBAs. McKinsey hires from other masters and PhD programs, as well as hires several experienced people from the industry. There are a surprisingly high number of MDs in the firm, which is something I did not expect at all.

3. Working at McKinsey (or any top consulting firm) would give you a great brand on your resume and open several doors. But as several people have told me, its wrong to assume that it is a passport to any job you might want. In fact, you might get pigeonholed into strategy roles, and glamorous as that may seem, for several sectors, that is just a limited set of opportunities. It is often not easy to just move over the general management roles.

4. While McKinsey might help you learn several great skills, one thing will still be missing: you wouldn't learn how to manage 'normal' people. The theory behind this is that most people at the firm are very driven, and you do not have to motivate them to work hard and produce top quality results. This will not be true in most industry roles, hence that is something one should build through other experiences.

5. Management consulting is not just strategy consulting; in fact, the 'classic strategy projects' form a small part of revenue of most consulting firms. Instead there is a huge mix of projects, including sales and marketing, operations, innovation, growth, new market entry, cost-cutting etc.

6. As I meet different partners and directors, I notice the various qualities that might have helped them reach that position. And they all seem to be very different from each other; some are outgoing, friendly people who thrive on building relationships. Others are just pure intellect; well respect for their knowledge and thought process.


It's hard to believe that a month has already passed. Another six weeks to go, and I will be done - and back to Kellogg! What happens after that? Back at McKinsey, or go some other route? That still remains to be seen.....