Why are McKinsey founders so tough to work with?
Context
- Shantanu, Bombay Shaving Company founder has been very vocal on LinkedIn about this.
- Morning context article today on Ashish Mohapatra, OfBusiness cofounder and their bad HR practices
Does it stem from some kind of superiority complex Mc Kinsey consultants have?
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Specifically, culture at all top consulting companies is terrible and this culture carries over when these founders make a company
Generally, it comes from a long history of grinding out and not realising that the average employee doesn’t want to grind for their company all the way to bad physical and mental health
stupid to expect that the average employee will grind it out with you for peanuts pay. incentives drive everything.
Worked at an ex McK founded startup earlier (didn’t end well)
I think it’s a combination of two things:
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They generally don’t have a uniform culture at consulting, it’s driven by your case teams and hence best practices and general way to behave is not known (full of high performing alphas, especially partners that drive the culture downwards)
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They’ve never learnt team building, especially if they’ve only been in consulting and VC. This can lead to some improper structures and ways of working, that only create problems as you grow larger
That’s been my understanding
People who have been brought up in a "no skin in the game" environment play for wins and losses. Their POV is short term. Because they have succeeded in those environment, they think that's the right strategy.
Building things is long term. Different game altogether. Need to unlearn and relearn. The ones who do so generally do well.
I don't think it's anything about superiority complex. Most senior managers/partners at MBB work 24/7 throughout the week and so they expect their employees to do the same... But as you mentioned the average employee doesn't want to grind. And the grindset mentality helps them scale the company initially but it does lead to a toxic culture
May be a false sense of perception that I know what’s right and this should be followed without any questioning