McKinsey is a firm that simply does not do good work. I am unclear on what value their clients derive from them and why it has the reputation of being a good place to work at or have on your resume. They're basically opinion guns for hire, who can parallel construct their way to whatever conclusion you want, granting the goals of [your company or government agency] a sheen of legitimacy. They manage to avoid oversight regularly (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/14/sunday-review/mckinsey-ic...). They have a history of of corrupt leaders and fingerprints on numerous fiscal disasters (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-fea...).
They are also very careful to play the PR game well. A good example of their incompetency intersecting with their PR efforts is their spurious claims on diversity (https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our...). The "Diversity Matters" report here has been quoted by virtually everyone - from the Harvard Business Review to corporate HR teams. And it is remarkably deceptive, because it has been bandied about as evidence that more diversity = better outcomes. Their own study at the link above admits there is no casual link here. It states this in an incredibly misleading way:
> While correlation does not equal causation (greater gender and ethnic diversity in corporate leadership doesn’t automatically translate into more profit), the correlation does indicate that when companies commit themselves to diverse leadership, they are more successful.
And now here we are, with corporations normalizing discriminatory practices relating to hiring, promotion, and so forth.
I've worked with them and helped implement some of their recommendations. They do brilliant work and have some very clever people. They also do some very awful things and have some dumb people.
Your starting line is overly reductive and not based in fact.
They are also very careful to play the PR game well. A good example of their incompetency intersecting with their PR efforts is their spurious claims on diversity (https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our...). The "Diversity Matters" report here has been quoted by virtually everyone - from the Harvard Business Review to corporate HR teams. And it is remarkably deceptive, because it has been bandied about as evidence that more diversity = better outcomes. Their own study at the link above admits there is no casual link here. It states this in an incredibly misleading way:
> While correlation does not equal causation (greater gender and ethnic diversity in corporate leadership doesn’t automatically translate into more profit), the correlation does indicate that when companies commit themselves to diverse leadership, they are more successful.
And now here we are, with corporations normalizing discriminatory practices relating to hiring, promotion, and so forth.