Blue Chip Consulting Firm: Killers of the American Middle Class
February 6, 2020
After reading “How McKinsey Destroyed the Middle Class,” I wondered if the company’s name should be McKroni & Co. For those who did not read the Akilattirattu Ammanai, Kroni was more evil than the demon Kali of the Mahabharata and Kalki Purana sharing similarities with Lucifer.
Kroni celebrating after closing a big deal for streamlining work flow processes.
If the information in the Atlantic article is on the money, MBAs are manifestations of evil. There are other candidates as well; for example, Bain, Boston Consulting Group, Booz, Allen, SRI, and other blue chip consulting firms. These outfits are more similar than some people understand, including their clients. My information is first hand. I worked for one of these big outfits and did contract work for another. My boss at Booz, Allen went to SRI, and I know that he did not make any significant changes in his thought processes. In fact, one BAH professional told me, “We require that teams fly on separate airplanes. If one plane goes down, we can send in other team members. Most are inter changeable. Heart warming, no?
Now back to the write up:
The main idea is from a journalist who wrote in 2010:
consultants openly sought to “foment a stratification within companies and society” by concentrating the management function in elite executives, aided (of course) by advisers from consultants’ own ranks. Management-consulting firms deployed a panoply of branded processes against middle management.
News flash: The mind set of the major consulting firms was in place and humming along the first time a Booz, Allen person contacted me in 1970. He explained the objectivity and need for data as part of the analytic process the firm practiced. I agreed, but because I was working at a university and had zero “experience” in anything except studying, going to meetings, and fooling around with my analyses of language for Psychology Today magazine, I was not too engaged in the conversation. He said, “We will put you on file. We may come back to you.” By golly, Booz, Allen did. I met with a fellow who would become my boss. Guess what? He explained that the BAH approach was designed to increase efficiency and reshape organizations by reducing layers of management. The BAH charm school made clear that friendly Mr. Booz in 1917 had this very idea, and it was part of the Booz, Allen DNA.
Kiechel was right in the main idea; he just muffed how long the mindset was in play at Booz, Allen and the other firms. McKinsey was founded in 1926, a decade after BAH. In fact, one Booz, Allen professional with 30 years of continuous service under his belt said, “McKinsey borrowed from our method. They changed our dot points to dashes; otherwise, it is a copy of this firm.” True or false? I don’t know, but the date of McKinsey’s founding makes an interesting historical factoid.
The article’s objective is to make McKinsey into McKroni & Company. The inequality evident in the US today is a result of one company. I agree that the thought processes of the blue chip consulting firms lead to inequality. The write up also takes aim at a presidential candidate who worked at McKinsey. The same notions of efficiency help produce Google and other high performance firms as well. Amazon is a case study in efficiency, the blue chip consulting firm way. Warm and fuzzy, not the words I would use to describe Amazon.
Net net: Interesting write up. Not exactly in line with reality, but McKroni & Co. is a convenient peg on which to hang a polemic about the way the real world is.
How does one change this obvious problem? May I suggest calling one of the blue chip consulting firms. You may be surprised how useful their through processes are. But wait. Publishing companies have got this revenue, credibility, and information trifecta figured out.
Begging for dollars is not a business model that inspires confidence.
Stephen E Arnold, February 6, 2020
Comments
One Response to “Blue Chip Consulting Firm: Killers of the American Middle Class”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
I couldn’t resist commenting. Exceptionall well written!