The McKinsey Way

McKinsey is to management as cartier is to jewels. There is no consulting firm as well-known, sought after, successful, or well-guarded as McKinsey & Company. This legendary strategic think tank has trained any of the world's greatest management thinkers and business leaders.

Business gurus, such as Tom Peters, Kenichi Ohmae, and John Katzenbach developed their laser sharp logic and acumen at McKinsey . Corporate titans such as Lou Gerstner of IBM and Harvey Golub of American Express brought the strategic thinking they learned at McKinsey to run their world-class companies.

The McKinsey Way reveals McKinsey's closely guarded management techniques — tools that will help anyone at any level think like a McKinsey consultant. In these pages, former McKinsey consultant Ethan Rasiel presents powerful ways to approach and solve even the most intractable business problems — methods you can put into practice in any organization.

Drawing on his own years on McKinsey's front lines as well as extensive interviews with current and former McKinsey-ites, Rasiel takes you though a project — an "engagement" in McKinsey-speak — to illustrate how you can benefit from McKinsey's rigorously analytical management techniques on a day-to-day basis. As you enter the world of McKinsey, you will learn such inside secrets as:

• The 80/20 rule — one of the great revealing truths of management consulting
• "The Elevator Test" — why you'd better be able to sun up your ideas in 30 seconds or less
• Why the problem isn't always the problem
• Defining your hypothesis: The road map that will take you from problem to solution
• 7 tips for successful information-gathering interviews
• The secret of "pre-wiring" your presentation to guarantee success
• 3 keys to composing highly effective communications
• Handling a "liability" team member or difficult colleague
• How to get "buy-in" throughout the organization

In The McKinsey Way, Rasiel puts you though McKinsey boot camp so you can be your own "consultant," tracking down iron-clad solutionsto tough business problems, Whether you are an executive, manager, or business owner tackling tough strategic issues, or a business professional striving to improve your efficiency, effectiveness, and profile in your own organization, The McKinsey Way offers a bold, fascinating guide to business success as practiced by the firm that defines management thinking today.

• Part One: The McKinsey Way of Thinking About Business Problems
1. Building the Solution
2. Developing an Approach
3. 80/20 and other Rules to Live By
   
• Part Two: The McKinsey Way of Working to Solve Business Problems
4. Selling a Study
5. Assembling a Team
6. Managing Hierarchy
7. Doing Research
8. Conducting Interviews
9. Brainstorming
   
• Part Three: The McKinsey Way of Selling Solutions
10. Making Presentations
11. Displaying Data with Charts
    
12. Managing Internal Communications
13. Working with Clients
    
• Part Four: Surviving at McKinsey
14. Find Your Own Mentor
15. Surviving on the Road
16. Take These Three Things with You Wherever You Go
17. A Good Assistant Is a Lifeline
18. Recruiting McKinsey Style
19. If You Want a Life, Lay Down Some Rules
    
• Part Five: Life After McKinsey
20. The Most Valuable Lesson
21. Memories of McKinsey
    

Brilliant book about how to be a management consultant.