Welcome back!

No apps configured. Please contact your administrator.
Forgot password?

Don’t have an account? Subscribe now

McKinsey Rhodes Scholar

My best Michael Moment took place after I was placed at McKinsey and 8 months after I left the program.

It was my very first engagement and I felt miserable. Everything was going over my head and I was putting out fires hourly. My planning was shot with holes and my plan was to simply give the engagement manager what he wanted when he wanted it. A bad strategy indeed, but I had no choices.

Michael and I arranged to speak on that first weekend and we had a long chat about the engagement, my role, my planning documents, objectives and so on. We worked out a good plan and Michael explained each step I needed to follow to take control of the work . He stressed accountability at all times, which is different from responsibility – a lesson for me.

The moment occurred when Michael told me about his own first engagement and how badly that went. I was pleasantly surprised by that story.

I had assumed all partners were perfect and had these fairy tale careers. Michael found that funny and said that is how I should distinguish between true seniority/success versus a facade.

Partners don’t need to appear perfect because they are already partners. They have achieved what they wanted to in the firm and do not need to maintain any image. They will openly discuss their failures and weakness with you.

He gave me a few resources to prove this point. He said junior candidates focus on perfection because they think that is what is required. He stressed that I did not have to be perfect, but I should learn from my mistakes. This was a great call for me because he helped me realize making mistakes were fine, provided they were once-off and I could fix them. My philosophy on consulting changed for the better.

I have many other stories but this is the most recent and with the greatest impact.

We have published the most useful client feedback. Our commitment to confidentiality prevents us from disclosing the identity of our clients and other confidential information, and we may alter details to prevent such disclosure. Some client feedback may be lightly edited for grammar, spelling or prose, though we never alter or remove any information. Clients in our consultants coaching program are forbidden from sharing sensitive client data with us.

Want to learn more about how FIRMSconsulting
can help your organization?

Related Articles

Career

Dealing with Fear and Need to Feel Important

Dealing with Fear and Need to Feel Important I would like to discuss today dealing with one of the qualities that rob people of the ability to influence and have gravitas. And you probably guessed already what it is. We are talking about arrogance and the damage to people’s lives when they are…

Career

Affiliate Program – StrategyTraining.com

The StrategyTraining.com Affiliate Program If you enjoy our programs and want to help your peers, we want to pay you for that. You can enjoy a lifetime recurring 33% commission on any of the memberships from our audio and video or reading training libraries via StrategyTraining.com Affiliate Program. You may have gotten…

Strategy

Understanding Risk in Strategy

Every Single Strategy Has Its Unique Risk Start with understanding risk in an investment strategy A business strategy tries to solve a set of problems to increase returns while minimizing risk. The return side is well-covered with numerous tools, analytics and frameworks to more or less accurately estimate free cash-flow,…