The Firm A behind-the-scenes, revelatory history of McKinsey & Co., America's most influential and controversial business consulting firm. Founded in 1926, McKinsey & Company has become one of the world's leading management consulting firms, helping to invent American business and shaping its course for decades. Ushering in the age of American industrial dominance, McKinsey remapped the power structure in the White House, helped create the bar code, revolutionized business schools, and introduced the idea of budgeting as a management tool. McKinsey consultants have created the corporate behaviours that shaped our world-reinventing our idea of American capitalism and exporting it across the globe. At the same time, however, McKinsey can also be associated with a list of striking failures. Its consultants were on the scene when General Motors drove itself into the ground, and they played a critical role in building the bomb known as Enron. Yet they are rarely blamed for the failures-at least not publicly. McKinsey employees are trusted and distrusted, loved and despised. And far from prying eyes, they are doing behind-the-scenes work for the most powerful people in the world. In The Firm, star financial journalist Duff McDonald uncovers how these high-powered, high-priced business savants have ushered in waves of structural, financial, and technological shifts to the biggest and best American organizations. With unrivalled access to company documents and current and former employees, McDonald reveals the inner workings of what just might be the most influential private organization in America.
Introduction : The McKinsey Mystique
Chapter 1 : The Ozark Farm Boy
Chapter 2 : The Making of the Firm
Chapter 3 : The Age of Influence
Chapter 4 : The Decade of Doubt
Chapter 5 : A Return to Form
Chapter 6 : The Crucial Question : Are They Worth It or Not?
Chapter 7 : Revenge of the Nerds
Chapter 8 : The Money Grab
Chapter 9 : Bad Advice
Chapter 10 : Retrenchment
Chapter 11 : Breaking the Compact
Epilogue : The Future of Mckinsey
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
