When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm

by Walt Bogdanich

By the end of the century, Gary had descended into a landscape of abandoned office buildings, stores, and churches. Rather than spend money it didn’t have to tear them down, Gary rented the locations to crews filming postapocalyptic and horror movies, including A Nightmare on Elm Street and Transformers. Even a scene from the miniseries Chernobyl was filmed there.

John J. Lawler, who taught in the University of Illinois’s School of Employment and Labor Relations, believes management consultants mainly serve to legitimize the goals of their clients. “Clients like to be told they are doing the right thing,” Lawler said, adding that management techniques viewed as best practices “are very often propagated by consulting firms and thus these techniques become largely institutionalized in the business world.”

Rosenthal, the consultant who started in McKinsey’s Houston office, said the dictum to prioritize client interests sounds selfless but should not be mistaken as public service. “The language around client service makes it seem like serving a client, in and of itself, is valuable without regard for what that company is doing,” Rosenthal said. “I found it jarring that client service is so high at the top without any qualifications.”