
How McKinsey has helped raise the stature of authoritarian governments - ValentineC
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/asia/mckinsey-china-russia.html
======
strangeloops85
Between their enormous scandal in South Africa, the rather reprehensible work
in Saudi Arabia that likely got some dissidents killed and all of this, it
does feel like many shoes are yet to drop. The article details some pretty
obvious conflicts of interest that are simply not viewed as such:

"McKinsey says it has no knowledge of any collusion between China and Mr.
Najib. It said that of course it would discuss China’s sweeping Belt and Road
plans but rejected the notion that, by representing both sides involved in the
project, the company had a conflict of interest in any way."

As with Silicon Valley, their model requires recruiting reasonably talented
and intelligent people on a regular basis. I suspect that, if anything, may be
the most at risk from the behavior these articles are highlighting.

~~~
fipple
McKinsey ultimately can get away with far more mediocre people than Google.
Google has to keep the website up at the end of the day — McKinsey just needs
to make a slick PowerPoint.

~~~
grandsui
i've heard from a friend who works in MC that they outsource their slides so
they can come in the next day with a completed slide deck

~~~
nnain
It's usually an internal research team, specialised in a vertical, say Energy
or transportation that prepares the material for the consultant. Still, most
good management consultants are good at creating docs, excels and ppts. And
they are good reading/sifting through the data quickly; just like a senior
software engineer can navigate and grasp code more quickly.

The larger issue that I find with management consulting approach though is
that they use the same set of tools to create solutions for ALL problems. They
will throw in some charts, finance numbers, pas research etc. to sell a
'story'. They usually don't work on implementation but to present the first
part of the solution. That's not how every problem should be solved IMHO.
McKinsey et al. can make things easy for bureaucrats or government people to
grasp, but to be honest their suggestions seems pretty ridiculous at times.
Just look at some of the articles they have written about software industry
and how out of touch it seems. Most of their solutions on social issues and
such fields are rather ridiculous too. So I would hire an ex-consultant as an
employee, no problem. But I wonder if I would ever want to outsource work to a
Management Consulting company.

~~~
yukonbound
As it was explained to me the purpose of the management consultant is not to
solve the problem, but to take the blame for solving the problem.

The Internal politics of most reasonable sized corporates are Byzantine to say
the least. Senior management might not have the political capital to drive
change through an organization, don’t want to take the blame if the change
does not work, or just want to signal that they are doing something, without
taking responsibility for said something.

Hence...management consultants... and the pricier and the more prestigious he
better.

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DyslexicAtheist
the _only_ way to deal with these entities is not with leaflet campaigns,
buttons and strongly worded letters. That ship has sailed decades ago. they
operate under the law (read McMafia⁰)

IMVHO (and I understand why I might be alone in these views): people who
sabotage these companies by any means possible are true heroes. We must take
active measures in stopping these crooks from committing their hideous acts
against the environment and against our future generations. Not everyone might
have the stomach to take lives a la RAF but at least don't be a coward by
being complicit. If you see something say something (leaking & exposing can be
the next best thing). Learn about monkeywrenching¹. Don't say _" let's enjoy
it while it lasts"_.

We got one chance, one opportunity and not much time left - and we can't rely
on our incompetent governments to do it for us. In the end Ted Kaczynski is
right. The alternative will be total destruction of the biosphere, nature and
ourselves (tech will not save us because tech isn't neutral).

I remember diving The Great Barrier Reef in the 90ies - I was back there last
year and it's all dead now. We have no right to do this - fuck national laws
that say otherwise. Any means are OK even if that means taking out the whole
godforsaken race. There are many ways to do this. We just got to wake up and
realize that tomorrow won't be better than today. It's impossible on an
individual level and impossible on a collective level.

⁰
[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/apr/06/society](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/apr/06/society)

¹
[http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/Various_Authors__Ecod...](http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/Various_Authors__Ecodefense__A_Field_Guide_to_Monkeywrenching.html)

~~~
KozmoNau7
You are absolutely not alone in your views. Keep fighting the good fight.

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
thanks! that means a lot

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Havoc
They really fucked up a key part of South Africa too. It'll probably take a
decade to undo the damage to the tax collection infrastructure.

Literally broke a country

~~~
mousetree
Wrong company

~~~
Havoc
Nope. You're thinking of KPMG I'm guessing?

McKinsey provided consulting services to SARS revenue service during a
'restructuring' that damaged the organisation so effectively its hard to see
it being an accident.

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code4tee
McKinsey used to be much smaller and fairly selective with its client choices,
but as the firm got bigger it would appear they’ve let their ethical standards
slip a lot.

There’s been a growing number of questionable activities over recent years
from the insider trading scandal, recent bankruptcy deal scandals, this.
They’ve always traded on their name but increasingly that name is being
equated with scandal and ethics issues so not sure what they’re thinking.

------
wjnc
As a development economist by education I recently listened to the McKinsey
podcast on growth and development [1]. It was akwardly non-political. I was
wondering why they would package the insight of growth economics in that kind
of sauce. This makes sense and I feel naive for not thinking of their
commercial goals.

[1] [https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/innovation-and-
gr...](https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/innovation-and-growth/in-
pursuit-of-prosperity)

------
b_tterc_p
It seems to me that the article’s thesis isn’t well formed. It basically boils
down to whether western companies should be allowed to do business in
basically-hostile states. But that feels like it should apply to major mgmt
consulting firms the least. These firms are privately owned. The contracts
with Chinese state owned businesses were probably landed by Chinese partners
in the company. The majority of work done in China is probably done by Chinese
consultants. Probably the same for Russia. Probably not for some of the
smaller ones mentioned.

I doubt we would raise a fuss if American companies supplied, say, the
materials for chinas artificial land so it feels like the complaint here is
that they view consulting as too valuable to provide?

------
Apocryphon
Started reading Stand on Zanzibar recently. Alphabet/Google could be an
obvious mirror to General Technics, but perhaps a management consulting firm
would be a better fit of a globetrotting corporation meddling in the policies
of developing world countries to build them up.

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jgalt212
Illustrative of the downsides of uncontsrained globalization: during the cold
war, McKinsey would not be doing work for the Kremlin, and could you imagine
ATT (Google) building an automated surveillance system for the Stasi (Chinese
State Intelligence)?

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NotAmazin
Their work is just like any other firm perhaps they cause unfortunate things
to happen but that is the nature of business.

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person_of_color
Has anyone else come across TypeA McK consultants and thought they have come
across as not genuine?

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PakG1
I think this is an example that shows many corporations have their own
interests at heart. They care about making money. They do not care about the
national interests of their home country.

To be honest, it's difficult for multinational corporations to satisfy all
sides. If they want to chase profits and growth (which their shareholders
demand as a foundational requirement to agree to not vote to change the Board
of Directors and CEO), they need to seek growth where it exists. If they
don't, their share price will suffer. The incentives point them in this
direction. I'm not justifying it, I'm saying the system sucks.

So culture matters at a company. A strong culture can help keep a company's
values to be true to itself. Employees matter. That's why stories like
employee pushback at Google against Project Maven and Project Dragonfly are
interesting. But those examples are probably few and far between. Ultimately,
the incentives for profits and growth trump all else. These examples are
probably more common.

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/ciscos-latest-
attempt-...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/ciscos-latest-attempt-
dodge-responsibility-facilitating-human-rights-abuses-export)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust)

It's easy to complain when corporations do things you don't morally agree
with. But where there's an opportunity for money to be made, that problem will
not disappear. Western nations need to decide whether they care more about
their values (and put their money where their mouth is for which stocks their
people buy, as well as enact laws that prevent economic activity that they
believe should be prevented) or economic growth (these corporations do employ
a lot of people and do in fact create a lot of economic value).

Can't have your cake and eat it too. Google employees are lucky in that they
serve a market where they can afford to stand up for what they believe is
right. McKinsey, I honestly don't know how much they have to grow without
completely changing themselves. They may not have the freedom that Google has
to stand for what they believe is right, besides facing the temptation of
money.

edit: Actually, I think Chinese companies do care about their home country
(especially given government involvement and partial ownership in some of
them). If I think about it, they look like they have a patriotic feeling
similar to how American companies probably had a patriotic feeling back in the
1950s. But in the 1950s, American companies were not yet multinational enough
to face a lot of conflicting incentives. It would be interesting to see if
Chinese companies also lose their patriotic feeling as they grow more
multinational over the next 70 years.

~~~
paulcole
> Western nations need to decide whether they care more about their values ...
> or economic growth

Isn’t the answer staring us in the face? We’d rather have a plush Western way
of life than a planet capable of supporting life. Fortunately most of us will
be long dead before the bill comes due.

~~~
drieddust
Growth at any cost was not the capitalistic model of Adam Smith. Modern
capitalism is the Anti thesis of what Adam Smith dreamed. Any unchecked growth
is just cancer.

But West alone cannot be blamed, It is not that people in the East are any
different despite having all the ancient wisdom of . Two big torch bearer of
Eastern values India and China are aping the west. I come from India so have
experienced this change in values personally.

On the other-hand when I arrived in West a decade ago, I was in awe of
luxuries. Slowly I realized how wasteful and inefficient this model is.

~~~
paulcole
All we can do now is enjoy it while it lasts!

~~~
drieddust
That makes me sad for my kids and future generations.

~~~
paulcole
Too late now but more kids is a big part of the problem. Environmentally it’s
probably the worst thing the average person can do.

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time-domain0
McKinsey/MBB, Zerodium, Palantir, KPMG/Big4, offshore magic circle, etc. are
enablers of inverted totalitarian plutocrats to attack their enemies and
defend their power. Does this really come as a shock or a surprise?

~~~
emayljames
And on the other side, you have these damaging western capitalist companies
that ultimately seek to ensure (mostly) US subservience.

------
yogi123
Also, McKinsey’s former hesd Rajat Gupta was sent to jail for insider trading.

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paraditedc
Making sensational news out of nothing. NYT just lost all my remaining respect
for them.

~~~
Apocryphon
Previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17404287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17404287)

