Speech #3 "Me, See" --> MECE --> McKinsey and Company

My fellow TMs, who do you call when you have a problem. If you're like me, you can make do with the handyman, the landscaper and the auto mechanic. If you need a CPA because you make too much money, congratulations. That's a good problem to have. What about the big guns, who move our economy? Who do you think they call when they need help with a difficult business problem? I didn't want to give too much away in the title and that's why I picked something weird. If you guessed what it really is, well done! - it's really - MECE - or McKinsey - or as they refer to themselves, the Firm.

Why talk about McKinsey? Amazon.com's summary for Duff McDonald's book "The Firm: The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business"  says : "If you want to be taken seriously, you hire McKinsey & Company. Founded in 1926, McKinsey can lay claim to the following partial list of accomplishments: its consultants have ushered in waves of structural, financial, and technological change to the nation’s best organizations; they remapped the power structure within the White House; they even revolutionized business schools." During the 2012 presidential election season, when asked how he would reduce the size of government, Mitt Romney said, and said that he was serious, that he would bring in McKinsey.

When you study their approach to problems, you pick up tools you can use. Seven minutes isn't enough to cover everything about them, but three takeaways you can start using immediately are related to communication skills. 1) When presenting results, start iwth your conclusions and use inductive reasoning. 2) Pre-wire everything - have meetings with key stakeholders before "THE" meeting so you don't drop bombshells or get blindsided by objections 3) Always memorize the first three sentences of your presentation. I'll say more about each of those.

McKinsey is a management consulting house. But what are their people like? Let me give you an anecdote from one of the books. TWo consultants who had received a preliminary briefing were flying out to meet the client. As soon as the plane reached cruising altitude, one of them took out his laptop and started making the final presentation to the client. His co-worker asked him how he could start on the final presentation when they hadn't even had a face-to-face meeting with the client yet. The first person said, "Based on what I know about the issue, this is what I think it is. If it turns out that I'm right, then I would have wasted this time to not have prepared my final presentation." I'll confess to being a McKinsey junkie - I try to read anything about them that I can get my hands on.

Not just problem solving - it's structured problem solving - the ability to frame business problems in a way that makes fact-based analysis useful is the core skill of a McKinsey consultant. The framework, or structure, in question is the issue tree. You try to capture everything that could possible have an influence. After that, you apply disaggregation - split everything until it can't be broken down any more so that you solve one problem at a time. When you're done, you have to ask if you've included everything. Include all factors - collectively exhaustive, completely disaggregated - mutually exclusive - MECE. This framework will now guide you in creating hypotheses which you can investigate using the facts - hypotheses, data, proof. The word of wisdom  from that alumni is that you should make your hypothesis fit the facts and not the other way round - in short - be prepared to kill your babies.

Now, how do you get the data - and I don't mean the data you feed into Excel. They're good at that. It's trickier to get the data you need to extract from people - what the CIA refers to as humint or human intelligence.  Ethan Rasiel says every McKinsey-ite's favorite questions is, "Is there anything I forgot to ask?" It hits pay dirt once in a while. Seven minutes limits me to telling you just one more potentially useful trick : the Colombo tactic - based on the TV show from the 70's - you create the air of the interview being over so the person has dropped his guard, and when you get to the door, you casually ask one more question which can be a zinger.

You've done the analysis and used data to validate your hypotheses and you're ready to present your conclusions and suggestions. How do you drop the ball? Don't!

The reason to go in for pre-wiring is that it keeps you from getting blindsided by major objections to your solution. It  helps you build a consensus in favor of your solution among those who have to approve or implement it - which can be difficult for them if you have shocking revelations in your presentation. It gives you a chance to adapt your solution to the political realities of your situation. and it serves as an additional reality check.

Use inductive reasoning where you have your conclusions or recommendations up front. It takes the form, “We believe X because of reasons A, B, and C.” as opposed to deductive reasoning, which is, “A is true, B is true, and C is true; therefore, we believe X.” Just this simple example shows how inductive reasoning packs more punch and saves time. Deductive reasoning imposes a higher cognitive burden on your audience.

How about delivery?

The reason you memorize the first three sentences is because they get the most attention. People in the audience don't start off playing with their phones, but if you sound insecure at the start, they will tend to lose interest in you. The other more important reason is so that it makes you feel comfortable.  this simple rule gets you over the

nervous edge. When you start from a good flow, you unconsciously create a confident rhythm. Data in your slides should complement, but your voice should dominate. The third impact is on your own teammates in the audience. Your tone and character can give them a boost.

So there you have it - learn from McKinsey because it can prove useful. Embrace structure. When communicating, lead with you conclusions, pre-wire everything and always start on a confident note by memorizing the first three sentences of your presentation. I hope you're now ready to be your firm's top troubleshooter. Mr. TM.