Consulting Ripoffs

Some time back, one of Insty’s contributors made the following comment regarding the foul McKinsey consulting company:

In my first hand experience, McKinsey was hired (no doubt at great expense) to “review” and “improve” the faltering Bloomberg TV network. What did they do? First, the “consultants” asked all the employees what they did, and how things worked. Then they created mountains of PowerPoint presentations and simply repeated what they’d been told. Finally, they recommended a “reduction in forces” (corporate-speak for layoffs). This pattern is the modus operandi for McKinsey: “Teach me what you do, and then I’m going to tell you how to do it.” Another pattern is that often consultants convince clients that they ought to be hired “in-house.” McKinsey doesn’t mind that at all because it’s one more “in”, one more tentacle reaching into corporate America.

It’s actually a lot worse than that — and McKinsey are far from the only bad actors in the management consulting business:  pretty much all of them (Bain, Booz Allen, Accenture, Deloitte, etc.) are pretty much the same, and operate in the same manner as McKinsey, as described above.

They are called “process” consultants in that they bring little actual industry experience to the party;  senior partners will make the sales pitches, but once the contract is signed, they’ll send in the freshly-minted MBAs (“junior associates”) who spend an inordinate amount of (billable, of course) time in learning the client’s business and industry mostly by talking to mid-level managers in the company.  These managers not only know the business, but are quite likely to know the solutions to whatever problems senior management don’t know how to address.

This knowledge will then be (stolen) used by the MBAs in drawing up their conclusions, with the caveat that if the client management do not adhere to their recommendations to the letter, then the consulting firm cannot be held responsible for any future failure.  Of course, this means eventual failure of the process as no one can follow a plan to the letter, ever.

The other kind of consultancy, by the way, is called “experiential”, meaning that the consultancy brings actual industry familiarity and a track record of both building and running a particular business practice or system.

I was one of those.  Typically, I would be brought in by a retail company to either help build or rebuild a customer loyalty program, back before there were actual systems designed to run them.  Building from scratch meant designing a reporting stream (first), and then creating the database structure that would enable such a reporting stream to function.  Rebuilding often meant tweaking the existing system to work properly, but to be honest, most of the time the programs were a veritable shit-show of catastrophes because they had been designed and built by the IT department rather than designed by Marketing.  I would come with an actual drop-in-ready reporting system to start with, that management could tweak or enhance (depending on their specific needs), and a database- and table structure to support it — CEO-level overviews, Buying/Merchandising detailed data, Store Operations (down to store-manager level) and Marketing/Advertising.

I never had a system fail on me, despite all attempts by IT to sabotage or delay implementation.  (I have stories, hoo boy do I have stories…)

If I were running a large-ish business today and needed help in a particular area where I had little experience, I would only hire consultants in the latter group, and probably not even then — it’s always better to find someone who knows the problem and has solved it before than to make it a blank-page project.

But the process guys?  Waste of money, waste of time.

I remember once working for a Great Big Company whose management decided that we needed restructuring, and hired Bain & Co. to consult on the project.  Because most of us peons were pretty smart guys, we soon realized two things:  a) the Bainies were scouting for people and functions they could recommend for termination, and b) the Bainies themselves were only interested in recommendations over a two-year period (the time in which they themselves were going to be judged by their own management).  Consequently, whenever “interviewed” by a Bainie, you had to make sure that in showing them your function and your business plan, that plan had to have a resolution date of at least three or (better yet) five years in the future.  Then they’d lose interest in you and move on to greener pastures.  As I recall, this intelligence was communicated company-wide by jungle telegraph (cafeteria lunch table, phone calls to friends in the branch offices etc.) after the first three days of Bain’s involvement.  (When I told my boss this tale — long after the Bainies had left — he just put his head in his hands and laughed for five minutes.)

I don’t know what Bain finally recommended to our senior management, but I never saw any particular change in the day-to-day.  Quite frankly, the Bain money would have been better spent in performance bonuses, but no doubt the Finance department would have had a shit-fit, for all their usual reasons.

Don’t get me started on Finance…

Love Story

In an age when marriage is ignored in favor of “hook-ups”, “partnerships” and “friends-with-benefits”, it’s heartening to see how one couple, at least, started young and over fifty years later, are still making it work:

Devoted couple Harry and Sandra Redknapp admit they love each no less than they did after exchanging vows more than half-a-century ago. 

Redknapp was a promising young footballer with West Ham United when he met apprentice hairdresser Sandra Young on a rowdy dancefloor above Stratford’s legendary Two Puddings pub in 1968.  

Months later they were married, with Sandra supporting her husband as he finished his football career with defunct north American club Seattle Sounders before establishing himself as a much-loved coach and manager.

My Murkin Readers will probably be going “Harry who?”  but the fact of the matter is that Harry is as famous Over There as Bill Parcells, Phil Jackson or Tom Landry ever were Over Here.

I know that to people of his generation, such loyalty, devotion and fidelity might seem nothing special, but here’s the difference:  his and Sandra’s marriage has been a celebrity one, subject to all the scrutiny and limelight that only the awful British press can bring.

Stories of his devotion to Sandra are legion (some of which are contained in the above article), but it should be known that Harry would have been a juicy target for all the fame groupies (step forward, Ulrika Jonsson) for whom his notch on their much-chiseled bedposts would have been a noteworthy one.

But he never strayed, and as he’s got older, that loyalty has made Harry Redknapp all the more beloved to the people of Britain since his retirement from football management.

Well played, mate.

THE Top Xmas Movies

The Daily Mail  has weighed in with their (predictably modern) list:

Die Hard
Home Alone
It’s A Wonderful Life
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Love, Actually

…but mine (probably to no one’s surprise) leans towards the more traditional, in that I’ve applied the Christmas test:  Could the events in the movie have taken place at any other time than Christmas?  and Did the movie not make you cry?

If the answer is “yes” to either or both, then it’s not necessarily a Christmas movie.  So my list (and sorry, but I could not keep it to only five), and in no specific order:

Remember The Night
It’s A Wonderful Life 
The Polar Express
The Bishop’s Wife
The Shop Around The Corner
White Christmas
Christmas in Connecticut 

…and special (“modern”) mentions because they make me laugh, not cry:
Scrooged (Carol Kane, with a toaster, in the face — classic)
National Lampoon’s Vacation

I love Home Alone, by the way, but for its comedy and not for its Christmas message, such as it is.

Feel free to add your favorites in Comments.

Gratuitous Gun Pic – Pioneer Arms AK-47

While idly wandering through the halls of gunny goodness, I happened upon this variant of the AK-47:

Okay, it’s as ugly as a pig’s ass in springtime — although “pretty” is not a word oft associated the the AK-47 — and that green laminate wood looks like it was on sale in the decking section at Home Depot.

But hold on just a minute.  Why would one use green laminate wood for a deck?  Why, to protect it from the elements (sun, rain etc.);  and if that works for decking, why not for a utilitarian rifle such as this one, to be used in all kinds of stinking weather when battling the Forces Of Darkness?  (If you know wot I mean nudge nudge wink wink…)

Of course, the price ($720) makes my nose twitch, but as so many people remind me, this isn’t 2004 anymore, when an AK could be picked up for a couple-few hundred bucks — and at least the gun  is priced well below the $1,000 mark, which really makes my nose twitch when it comes to the AK-47.

For a stocking stuffer, you could do a lot worse, but you may have to deal with a few sniggers at the range when you unbox it.

Alt-Disney

Yeah, this kinda makes sense:

Children should get lessons in school on how to build strong relationships to counteract ‘Disneyfied’ portrayals of love

Ask any child their favorite film, and there is quite a high chance they will name a Disney movie, like ‘Beauty and the Beast’ or ‘Aladdin’.

However, experts believe that these films are giving them the wrong idea about what a healthy relationship looks like.

In ‘Aladdin’, the hero whisks Princess Jasmine away from restrictive palace life, while ‘Cinderella’, ‘Snow White’, and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ all involve a young girl being saved by a ‘handsome prince’.

Yeah, in real life, Jasmine’s father’s security police would hunt down the couple, shoot the insolent little pup and take the now-deflowered houri  back to her father’s palace where she’ll be whipped for her adultery and beheaded for bringing shame to the family name.

Let’s not even talk about the “handsome savior prince” scenario.

Me, I think that Disney shouldn’t stop at “happily ever after”, but use their characters for some real-life advice, e.g.

Dealing With Nosy Room-Mates

 

Workplace Sexual Harassment

 

Everyday Grooming Tips

 

Building A Relationship With Your Step-Family

 

Finding That Perfect Sugar Daddy

 

Seeing as we’re living in modern times, and given that it’s Woke Disney:

Inter-Species Relationships

 

Sharing The Great Outdoors

 

Things To Do While Waiting For Your Prince To Come

 

When Your Prince Finally Comes

 

There ya go.  Coming soon [sic]  to a screen near you.

For the Brits: A Lose-Lose Outcome

here’s an example:

Argentina defeated France in the World Cup final in Qatar on Sunday in a penalty kick shootout following a 3-3 tie.

I know, I don’t care about this either (I follow club football, not international), but for our cousins Across The Pond, it’s one of those situations where, to paraphrase Henry Kissinger, it’s a pity that both sides couldn’t lose.

France (old enemies) vs. Argentina (enemies since the Falklands War in the 1980s).  No wonder the Brit response to the above was just a national shrug.

Oh, and for those Murkins who think that “soccer” is boring:  this one was a thriller.