![]() I often say McKinsey is the High Intensity workout of the corporate world - and the toolkit is the calories that are burnt, or the reward. You actually use a lot of the McKinsey toolkit, but in a better way: The famous McKinsey toolkit - the problem solving, chart making, page making and speaking in 3’s - apart from many other things is arguably the greatest takeaway from the Firm.There is also no shortage of inspirational leadership outside - it might sound silly, but all you must do is ask! ![]() There were some others that were quite transactional, which is understandable given the consulting environment. There’s inspirational leadership everywhere: I followed a highly inspirational partner to McKinsey - and found a few more that inspired me more than I thought anyone ever would.Its been the exact opposite while I’ve worked in tech though - In a couple of years I’ve run several projects, where we’ve invested in projects with a high risk of failure in entirely new market segments: but then if someone’s doing it for the first time, there’s little chance of any data that already exists. As a consultant, you cannot possibly give someone new, untested ideas - this irritated me at first, but I understood why after I left. Tech in general is way more risk friendly than McKinsey (duh!) and will also give you more responsibility than McKinsey: And you can’t really blame McK for the this.I have never felt as stupid as I did when I was at McK - arguably the smartest bunch of people I’ve worked with on average.However, I found smarter people that don’t work at McKinsey and work in other industries - so leave your assumption about smarts outside the door. On average, people at McKinsey are smarter: But there are heaps of bright, driven and smart people outside McKinsey as well.Here’s a couple of graphs to illustrate what I’m trying to say all of which might have cutting edge topics, but arguably aren’t the most modern industries to work in. I saw most people working on stuff such as utilities, public sector etc. You work on more cutting-edge stuff: Arguably, I was privileged to have the opportunity to work on some cool stuff at McKinsey such as eCommerce and payments - however obviously the bulk of the projects are not in these industries.A combination of this - is a loss of your work life balance If you are unlucky enough to have insecure partners leading the project (which happens), you are going to get lots of last minute changes, you’re also going to work on lots of ‘options’ which will not be presented. Consulting by nature is ‘client service’ - which means that your life is under the client’s control. Work life balance is more under your control: I think this one is a no-brainer.Note that I consider my current company to be by far one of the best places to work at, so this may not resonate for the ‘average’ company out there. Here are some of my reflections on life after the Firm.
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