When Chipotle got a new CEO (Brian Niccol, who has since become the Starbucks CEO) a few years back, they were headquartered in Denver. But the CEO lived in Newport Beach. So they brought in a consulting management firm to examine where the best place in the country was for them to have their corporate headquarters.
After weeks of analysis - surprise, surprise - they determined that the best place they could possibly have a corporate headquarters was in Newport Beach, where the CEO lived.
So they fired most of their corporate workers and moved the office to be closer to the CEOs house.
I have experienced this where I work. There is a consulting company that gets rolled out to make packets full of “data”, graphs, summaries, and surveys that always manages to support the unpopular thing the boss wants.
Look, I already told you: I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don’t have to. I have people skills. I am good at dealing with people! Can’t you understand that!? What the hell is wrong with you people!!
Get paid to do the work of someone who could be employed for a reasonable salary, but the board or CEO wants the answer to come from someone outside the company to avoid taking any blame.
Well, consulting is often used because they need an answer to a question. That may be open-ended like:
“What moves should we make to expand our business?”
But other times they just want confirmation:
“Should we merge with Discovery?” (Sure, I guess. Here are some reasons you could. cha-ching)
“Should we split with Discovery?” (Sure, I guess. Here are some reasons you could. cha-ching)
Other times they just need to pay people to give them excuses to lay off people. McKinsey’s always available for that.
When Chipotle got a new CEO (Brian Niccol, who has since become the Starbucks CEO) a few years back, they were headquartered in Denver. But the CEO lived in Newport Beach. So they brought in a consulting management firm to examine where the best place in the country was for them to have their corporate headquarters.
After weeks of analysis - surprise, surprise - they determined that the best place they could possibly have a corporate headquarters was in Newport Beach, where the CEO lived.
So they fired most of their corporate workers and moved the office to be closer to the CEOs house.
I have experienced this where I work. There is a consulting company that gets rolled out to make packets full of “data”, graphs, summaries, and surveys that always manages to support the unpopular thing the boss wants.
“Sorry we don’t do remote work and you’ll have to come into the office.”
“Counterpoint: …”
Starbucks has a mandatory 3 day a week RTO policy, but this same CEO did not relocate from Newport beach to Seattle.
Instead, he has the corporate private jet fly him 2000 miles round trip every week.
Seems like a solid solution. Why doesn’t everyone just do that?
Sounds like a job that would be easy to replace with ChatGPT.
McKinsey:
For when you have no fucking clue how to do your job, and want authoritative, plausible deniability about that.
Obviously you should keep paying my $1.3 million annual salary. We just paid McKinsey $30 million to say how vital my department is
What would you say… you do here?
Look, I already told you: I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don’t have to. I have people skills. I am good at dealing with people! Can’t you understand that!? What the hell is wrong with you people!!
Get paid to do the work of someone who could be employed for a reasonable salary, but the board or CEO wants the answer to come from someone outside the company to avoid taking any blame.
Bob, Bob.
Naga-naga-nagonna work here anymore, anyway
How should we defend Athens?
Consultancy says “A wooden wall will save Athens”
We’ve been doing this forever…