The McKinsey Way: Using the Techniques of the World's Top Strategic Consultants to Help You and Your Business (MGMT & LEADERSHIP) - Hardcover

Rasiel, Ethan M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0070534489 ISBN 13: 9780070534483

Publisher: McGraw Hill, 1999

Synopsis

"If more business books were as useful, concise, and just plain fun to read as THE MCKINSEY WAY, the business world would be a better place." --Julie Bick, best-selling author of ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW IN BUSINESS I LEARNED AT MICROSOFT.

"Enlivened by witty anecdotes, THE MCKINSEY WAY contains valuable lessons on widely diverse topics such as marketing, interviewing, team-building, and brainstorming." --Paul H. Zipkin, Vice-Dean, The Fuqua School of Business

It's been called "a breeding ground for gurus." McKinsey & Company is the gold-standard consulting firm whose alumni include titans such as "In Search of Excellence" author Tom Peters, Harvey Golub of American Express, and Japan's Kenichi Ohmae.

When Fortune 100 corporations are stymied, it's the "McKinsey-ites" whom they call for help. In THE MCKINSEY WAY, former McKinsey associate Ethan Rasiel lifts the veil to show you how the secretive McKinsey works its magic, and helps you emulate the firm's well-honed practices in problem solving, communication, and management.

He shows you how McKinsey-ites think about business problems and how they work at solving them, explaining the way McKinsey approaches every aspect of a task:
How McKinsey recruits and molds its elite consultants;
How to "sell without selling";
How to use facts, not fear them;
Techniques to jump-start research and make brainstorming more productive;
How to build and keep a team at the top its game;
Powerful presentation methods, including the famous waterfall chart, rarely seen outside McKinsey;
How to get ultimate "buy-in" to your findings;
Survival tips for working in high-pressure organizations.

Both a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most admired and secretive companies in the business world and a toolkit of problem-solving techniques without peer, THE MCKINSEY WAY is fascinating reading that empowers every business decision maker to become a better strategic player in any organization.

About this title

Review:

The McKinsey Way, by former McKinsey & Company associate Ethan M. Rasiel, provides a through-the-keyhole perspective on the way this worldwide consulting institution approaches--and solves--the myriad professional problems encountered by its high-powered clientele. His goal, Rasiel writes, is simple: to communicate "new and useful skills to everyone who wants to be more useful in their business." He then does so by explaining the highly structured, fact-based proprietary methodology that McKinseyites are taught to employ with their Fortune 100 clients, complete with details on the entire process from first considering the basic situation at hand through finally selling a solution to the appropriate powers that be.

All of the critical steps (assembling a team, managing a hierarchy, doing research, conducting interviews, brainstorming) are broken down into specific actions and fleshed out with applicable examples that Rasiel has gathered through interviews with dozens of other former McKinsey employees. The concluding sections on surviving the mythically grueling pace at the organization, known simply to insiders as "the Firm," are designed to help readers successfully tackle the similar challenges and obstacles they regularly face in their own work environments. --Howard Rothman

From the Author:

Put McKinsey's Secrets to Work for You
Many books purport to teach the reader about management consulting. With "The McKinsey Way" I try to do something different; after all, not everyone wants to be a management consultant. I want to share with you the strategies and techniques that McKinsey & Company, arguably the world's most successful and influential management consultancy, teaches its people. These are lessons that I and my colleagues learned – sometimes the hard way – during our time at McKinsey, or, as it is known to its employees, "The Firm". For these lessons to be useful to you, I try to make them both accessible and applicable to your business life.

"The McKinsey Way" will show you how to apply the three pillars of the McKinsey problem solving process. You will learn the three keys to effective messaging; which three things you should always take with you when travelling on business; and why everything at the Firm comes in groups of three.

In the business world, the Firm is respected and sometimes even feared. As any McKinsey-ite can tell you, everybody knows somebody who was fired because of McKinsey. "The McKinsey Way" sheds a little light on the inner workings of this powerful, respected, but ultimately secretive organization. The book also describes what it is like to work for McKinsey and how to survive in a company that demands total commitment from its people. If you really do want to become a management consultant, you will even learn how to make it through the recruiting process at the Firm.

I believe "The McKinsey Way" offers a lot of new and useful information, as well as an interesting and fun read. I hope when you read it you will feel the same.

About this edition

• Publisher: McGraw Hill
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0070534489
• ISBN 13: 9780070534483
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208