Everyone Hates McKinsey
The junior employee who says:
“Managers are a complete waste of money - they just sit around doing nothing while others work.”
The first-time founder who says:
“Big-firm lawyers are a total rip-off. I’m paying $700/hour for a contract that should just be a free template.”
The nursing student who says:
“Ugh, doctors don’t know ANYTHING.”
The independent consultant who says:
“Those jerks at McKinsey are a scam. People pay them millions and all they do is create a PowerPoint and walk away.”
Here’s the thing:
This is what I call the Everyone Hates McKinsey Fallacy-
When people at a lower skill level dismiss the value of people at a higher one,
Because they don’t have the perspective to see what is really happening.
And we've all been guilty of it.
I was reminded of this recently talking to a firm that mostly provides bookkeeping and accounting.
When clients occasionally ask about fractional CFO support, they will contract one in
But internally, they usually tell clients, “CFOs don’t really add much value for startups.”
But of course it looks that way to them.
If you're a hard-working bookkeeper with limited exposure to strategic finance education,
A CFO looks like someone just sitting around observing the numbers your produce.
They seem totally unnecessary.
You don't see the nuanced forecasting, the capital raised, the team management, the board alignment, the ROI estimation, or the make-or-break strategy decisions happening behind the curtain.
You don't see that without strategic vision, there's no purpose to those numbers you're tracking.
It is the same everywhere:
To a junior employee, managers look like professional calendar blockers
To a first-time founder, lawyers look like glorified copy-pasters
To a med student, doctors look like people who know theory better than patients
And to the outside world, McKinsey looks like a very expensive clip art subscription
But the market is not dumb:
Managers exist because decisions are harder than they look
Lawyers exist because contracts are landmines.
CFOs exist because CEOs know finance is more than counting cash.
And McKinsey exists because -slides aside- companies keep paying for billions in value.
The higher the skill, the easier it looks.
The easier it looks, the more likely someone is to assume it does not matter.
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