Remember the name McKinsey. They are an evil organization that does bad things to good people. Anyone from McKinsey is to be regarded with suspicion at the very least.
I'm no McKinsey fan, but it's naïve to think that they are worse (or different) than other multinationals, particularly firms providing consulting or legal or other advisory services.
Surely we have to have some people lurking here that currently or used to be at McKinsey, I guess it wouldn't be surprising why they wouldn't chime in, but many have the same feelings about every other sus company many of us work for.
Everyone I worked with that had affiliation to McKinsey owned projects that ended up costing the company tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. They were better at office politics, however their actual skill was rubbish. Everyone paid for it, except them of course. In fact, after record layoffs guess who is still managed to keep their position? The McKinsey dudes. Crazy.
I work there. It’s just a very decentralized place. What you do is driven by a tiny branch of the widest, flattest org you’ve ever seen. They’ve added some governance as to what partners can just sign up to do themselves. But it’s all firewalled internally. Idk what people in the next room over are doing to avoid creating conflicts of interest.
I would say a lot of people here are not grounded, but in more of an anxious way than an evil profit minded kind of way (which may sound mythical but I’ve seen it blatantly in other company cultures)