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Hiding from the facts is a prescription for failure—eventually, truth will out. You must not fear the facts. Hunt for them, use them, but don’t fear them.
Overlap represents muddled thinking by the writer and leads to confusion for the reader.
A good McKinsey issue list contains neither fewer than two nor more than five top-line issues (of course, three is best).
The essence of the initial hypothesis is “Figure out the solution to the problem before you start.”
even though your initial instinct may be—and probably is—right, take enough time to verify your gut with facts.
As a consultant, you bear the responsibility for knowing the limitations of your client;
an initial hypothesis is not a prerequisite for successful problem solving.
no business problem is immune to the power of fact-based analysis.
politics is the art of the possible, and it’s no good devising the ideal solution if the client refuses to accept it.
McKinsey gathers enough facts to prove or disprove a hypothesis or support or refute an analysis—and only enough facts.
Sometimes in the middle of the problem-solving process, opportunities arise to get an easy win, to make immediate improvements, even before the overall problem has been solved. Seize those opportunities!
sitting down for half an hour at the end of the day and asking yourself, “What are the three most important things I learned today?”
me, “Perhaps the most valuable thing I learned during my time at the Firm was to think about the big picture—to take a step back, figure out what I’m trying to achieve, and then look at whatever I’m doing and ask myself, ‘Does this really matter?’”
DON’T ACCEPT “I HAVE NO IDEA”
Just as you shouldn’t accept “I have no idea” from others, so you shouldn’t accept it from yourself, or expect others to accept it from you.
Just be there, at the right time, and make sure the right people know who you are.
If a team is going to bond, it will mostly bond through work.
If the team isn’t bonding, how is a fancy dinner going to help? Will it make a bad work experience good?
at McKinsey, the best team dinners were at lunch—they showed that the EM knew the associates had lives.
If you make your boss look good, your boss will make you look good. That’s the quid pro quo of hierarchy.
in a meritocratic organization at least, you can assert your equality until shown otherwise—
Whatever the problem, chances are that someone, somewhere, has worked on something similar.
an interview should start with general questions and move on to specific ones.
When deciding on which questions to ask, you might want to include some to which you know the answer.
“What are the three things I most want to know by the end of the interview?”
When you’ve asked all your questions, or you’re running out of time, put away your guide and ask the interviewee if there’s anything else he’d like to tell you or any question you forgot to ask.
If you want people to say more than they have, if you think they have left out something important but you’re not sure what it is, say nothing.
if the person you are interviewing is more senior than the person who authorized your project, you will probably have to back down when challenged.
ALWAYS WRITE A THANK-YOU NOTE
The cardinal rule of brainstorming is that you cannot do it successfully in a vacuum.
A presentation reflects the thinking of the person or team that put it together. If your presentation is sloppy and muddled, your audience will assume that your thinking is also sloppy and muddled—regardless of whether that is the case.
Before they hold a presentation or progress review, a McKinsey team will take all the relevant players in the client organization through their findings in private.
The more complex a chart becomes, the less effective it is at conveying information. Use charts as a means of getting your message across, not as an art project.
A good business message has three attributes: brevity, thoroughness and structure.
