The place McKinsey—and Consulting—Go From Right here

ADI IGNATIUS: I’m Adi Ignatius.

ALISON BEARD: I’m Alison Beard and that is the HBR IdeaCast.

ADI IGNATIUS: All proper, Alison, this query’s going to appear random, however I promise you it’s not, what was your main in school?

ALISON BEARD: I used to be a double main in journalism and politics at Washington and Lee College.

ADI IGNATIUS: Okay. I used to be historical past at Haverford, one other liberal arts school. If you happen to’re like me, you most likely figured that your majors geared up you properly for one thing like journalism, however perhaps not so properly for one thing like administration consulting, which is tended to recruit individuals who studied economics or engineering or enterprise.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah, I all the time considered consulting and finance because the place the place all essentially the most bold, highest achievers, most capitalistic college students needed to go and people companies positively targeted on the Ivy League and the large universities.

ADI IGNATIUS: The world is altering. We all know that AI is remaking every part together with the world of administration and my visitor immediately, McKinsey’s international managing associate, has lots to say about how it’s rethinking its enterprise on this period.

So McKinsey already views its first AI brokers as very a lot a part of its workforce and is quickly increasing that a part of its staff, however whereas AI is de facto good at linear drawback fixing, it’s not so good at out-of-the-box pondering, which implies McKinsey is rethinking its expertise wants. I’m not going to spoil it, however your journalism politics double main would possibly line up properly with what the consulting big is more and more in search of. So right here’s my interview with Bob Sternfels, international managing associate at McKinsey, which is celebrating its a centesimal anniversary this yr.

So I need to begin, McKinsey is popping, perhaps has turned 100. HBR, by the way in which, we’re 103, so welcome to the Century Membership. How would you summarize the corporate’s 100-year legacy? To what extent has McKinsey created the concepts which have formed the enterprise world or to what extent is it about figuring out and suggesting finest practices that come from elsewhere?

BOB STERNFELS: I suppose I’d begin with the character of how we do our work. And the thought is, look, we co-create with our shoppers and once we’re at our greatest, it is determining how can we assist shoppers get to locations they’ll’t get to themselves. The entire notion in some methods of credit score of, “Did you create one thing novel or did you may have finest apply?” perhaps the way in which we body is we’re co-creating with shoppers to assist them provide you with issues that they might not have provide you with themselves or we’d not have provide you with themselves.

And we clearly make investments a boatload in proprietary IP. We make investments over a billion {dollars} a yr in innovation, new thought, new concepts. Our McKinsey International Institute, for instance, which is a little bit of our unbiased analysis tank, however we’ve now created McKinsey Well being Institute, I feel in the event you do take a look at their historical past, a variety of that’s novel pondering, the newest a worldwide steadiness sheet and saying, “How’s the world whenever you take a look at property and liabilities?” That’s not a finest apply, that’s new thought. However equally, a part of the explanation we keep international as an working mannequin is, then on the extra micro ranges, the shoppers that we serve don’t need to perceive what the vanguard innovation is of their specific nation.

They need to perceive innovation around the globe and even perhaps cross sector. And that’s a part of our mannequin. So I’d most likely say, if I needed to guess, it’s most likely half-half on this round the place are there actually novel co-creation and the place is this concept of determining, “How do you carry innovation around the globe to shoppers who might not have entry to that innovation based mostly on the truth that they’re in?”

ADI IGNATIUS: So one space of innovation clearly is AI and I’m certain you’re advising corporations on a regular basis on tips on how to adapt to an AI-driven world. I need to speak about that, however I’m within the inside discussions which might be taking place at McKinsey about this. To what extent is AI shifting the economics of your trade, headcount, pricing, productiveness? Are margins enhancing? Are they underneath stress? What are the inner conversations about AI for your enterprise?

BOB STERNFELS: AI, we haven’t talked about that in any respect. No, I’m simply kidding.

ADI IGNATIUS: It’s best to. It’s actually cool.

BOB STERNFELS: It’s exhausting to have a dialog in any context proper now that doesn’t hyperlink again to some type of AI. I feel this query round AI and the way it impacts McKinsey, there’s two sides of that coin. There’s a client-facing aspect after which there’s, “What are the implications on McKinsey?”

There’s a singular second to assist all of our shoppers reimagine themselves leveraging this expertise. And to have the ability to do this, now we have to rewire ourselves to have the ability to ship that. I could audio simply begin with a little bit of what I’m really listening to from shoppers around the globe, throughout all industries and throughout all geographies and I actually hear within the fact room perhaps two issues. On the one hand, an infinite perception within the potential for this wave of technological change and that’s every part from monumental productiveness good points in areas like buyer care or back-office processes, but additionally to development issues. If you concentrate on radically shortening the time of drug discovery and what that truly means for longevity and life and that’s prime line development.

So of us are excited they usually’re believers, however on the similar time, from the conversations that I’ve with CEOs, they’ll typically say, “Hey, Bob, so do I take heed to my CFO or my CIO proper now?  My CFO is in my ear that we’re spending some huge cash on expertise, however we’re not but seeing enterprise-level worth from this. And so do we actually have to be on the innovative or why can’t we be a quick follower, let people work out the place that is after which we’ll undertake shortly as a result of it’s much more environment friendly to be a follower than a pacesetter? CIO is saying, ‘Are you loopy? That is a kind of moments. And if we’re not within the lead, we’re going to get disrupted.’”

We’ve spent a variety of time not less than what we predict the reply is right here and I do know we spent a variety of time speaking about expertise, however what we’re discovering is half if no more of the key sauce is organizational change versus expertise implementation. That is for big enterprise. And it’s issues like, “Effectively, what does your work appear to be after you’re implementing these? Might you may have, for instance, a a lot flatter group that cuts out a variety of center layers and makes your group quicker?”

When you concentrate on actually difficult workflows, take into consideration a mortgage course of, you bought all these steps, origination, credit score scoring, assortment, after service, et cetera. These are all departments in a financial institution. Effectively, why do you may have 4 or 5 departments in a course of in the event you can actually allow this via AI? Can’t you break these partitions down? And so we’re spending a variety of time pondering via not solely what’s the technique and the way do you implement, however how do you alter the group? How do you rewire the group to understand the worth?

And if you will get that proper, swiftly, the CFO and the CIO are literally on the identical web page, however we’re discovering that’s tougher and it’s taking longer than folks thought. And so I do suppose we’re going to be on this interval the place actually enterprise basically altering themselves, sure, monumental potential, it’s going to take a short time to get there.

So then you definately say, “Okay, what does that imply for McKinsey?” We’re making use of this to ourselves. I typically get requested, “How large is McKinsey? How many individuals do you utilize?” I now replace this virtually each month, however my newest reply to you’d be 60,000, but it surely’s 40,000 people and 20,000 brokers.

Little over a yr and a half in the past, that was 3,000 brokers and I initially thought it was going to take us to 2030 to get to 1 agent per human. I feel we’re going to be there in 18 months and we’ll have each worker enabled by not less than a number of brokers. That’s one piece of what are the property and applied sciences that we’re constructing in ourselves.

The opposite large piece is how does it change our mannequin. We’re coming round to the conviction that we’re migrating fairly shortly away from, let’s name it pure advisory work, which was a variety of the origins of our agency and a fee-for-service mannequin, et cetera. And what’s it shifting to? It’s shifting to far more of an outcomes-based mannequin the place we are saying, “Look, let’s determine a joint enterprise case collectively and we are going to underwrite the outcomes of that enterprise case.” And it aligns our pursuits with our shoppers much more and I feel would be the method of the longer term.

ADI IGNATIUS: Yeah. Now, AI goes to get higher, proper? We’re nonetheless in the-

BOB STERNFELS: It’s, yeah.

ADI IGNATIUS: … early phases of generative AI. If expertise can proceed to commoditize even the sorts of study and perception {that a} McKinsey has lengthy supplied, what is going to shoppers really be paying for after they might most likely do a variety of that themselves?

BOB STERNFELS: The form of issues that now we have tackled with our shoppers over 100 years has not been static. It has modified radically. I’m now thought of a dinosaur in our agency as a result of I’m a bit over 30 years with us, however the stuff that I did after I joined as an affiliate 32 years in the past, we wouldn’t think about even doing proper now. Why? As a result of shoppers do this stuff themselves and we’re fixing far more difficult interconnected questions with our shoppers.

And I feel what that is going to then imply is that is simply going to be that subsequent evolution of there’ll be an entire bunch of issues {that a} couple years in the past we did for our shoppers that our shoppers will do for themselves and the crucial will then be to maneuver to the much more difficult questions. And to your level, what are shoppers going to pay us for? They’re going to pay us to seek out methods to double their market cap. And till we get to CEOs who say, “I don’t need to double my market cap,” I feel there’ll all the time be a extra difficult set of questions and alternatives on the market.

ADI IGNATIUS: What’s the evolving expertise profile then of a administration advisor? Do you even know but? What are you in search of in new hires and that should be evolving fairly shortly?

BOB STERNFELS: This can be a actually fascinating query. It’s a ardour of mine. I’d body it in, “What are some issues we’re assured about from time to time what are some issues we’re exploring?” After I got here into this function, and it was a bit over 4 years in the past, I requested our expertise attraction staff, “How are we doing on attracting expertise?” and I acquired a, “We’re doing nice, Bob. We’re doing nice.” I mentioned, “Effectively, why?” They mentioned, “Effectively, we recover from one million functions a yr and we rent anyplace between eight and 10,000 folks. And even the million aren’t a standard distribution. They’re a few of the brightest minds on the earth which might be making use of. So successfully, what’s the issue? Why are you asking me? Let me return and do my job.”

And I saved asking the query, “However, properly, what number of profiles are we actually in search of? What are we systematically screening out?” and it turned out that basically, whenever you boiled it down worldwide, there’s solely 500 pathways that will lead you to McKinsey. And that wasn’t tying with what our personal organizational analysis was saying, that the half-life on expertise was getting shorter, that individuals had been too targeted on paper ceiling as a result of you may have the correct credentials. And so we really utilized analytics on ourselves and took the final 20 years of information and mentioned, “What are the abilities and traits which might be almost certainly to make associate in McKinsey?” as a result of it’s not good, but it surely’s a marker of success. Just one in six hires make associate.

And it turned out we had some bias in our system. We had 50 completely different implications, however I’ll provide the greatest three. One was that we had been too targeted on, “Did you may have good marks?” versus, “Did you may have a setback and get well?” And the applicant who had a setback and recovered was extra resilient and extra prone to be a better chance of constructing associate in McKinsey and we weren’t screening for that. So we’ve modified the method to search for resilience within the software course of.

And it might sound surprising, however we weren’t indexing sufficient on, “Had you had actual expertise in a major method working with others?” Essentially, we’re about serving to our shoppers change. And in the event you’d completed a staff sport or in the event you’ve labored in retail, working your method via school, you’ve needed to have interaction with others. And it’s constructed a talent, human-to-human talent, that we’re now indexing much more on. After which the final one was, “Did you may have the aptitude to be taught new stuff?” versus, “Had you mastered the topic that you simply selected to review?” My youngest man used this one in opposition to me really when he was altering his main for the third time and I used to be a bit annoyed with him and he’s like, “However dad, you printed a paper that mentioned if in case you have the aptitude to be taught new stuff,” and I’m like, “Yeah, however it’s a must to do properly within the topic that you simply go to.”

ADI IGNATIUS: This child’s sensible.

BOB STERNFELS: Yeah. Effectively-

ADI IGNATIUS: Ship his resume to me.

BOB STERNFELS: It’s the one time he quoted me, Adi, and I used to be like, “Actually?” Nevertheless it did get us to then change our evaluation methods the place we purposely create an setting the place no human on the earth can have any sample recognition on this setting and we work out, “How properly do you do in an setting the place you haven’t any sample recognition and also you simply should go determine issues out?” So these are a few of the expertise now we all know we’re shifting to. We’ve launched extra of an exploratory look now going ahead the place you say, “Okay, but when everybody will get tremendous humid with these AI instruments, what do you need to add on prime of this resilience, teamwork, skill to be taught new stuff?”

That half I simply informed you I really feel fairly stable about. This half I’m going to inform you is locations we’re extra in exploration mode. One among them is, “Effectively, what do the fashions not do properly?” They don’t aspire. They’re not good at setting the correct aspiration degree. When you concentrate on what nice leaders do, they assist a company set the correct ask, “What ought to we aspire to?” And so how can we begin to search for and develop the abilities of management? Management goes to be sturdy in a post-AI world as a result of one of many nice issues leaders do is they assist set an aspiration and get folks to stretch.

The second is judgment. And also you’ve seen time and time once more, these fashions, there’s not fact within the mannequin, there’s not judgment within the mannequin. People must impose these parameters. So how do you construct judgment and the way do you construct that functionality?

After which perhaps the final one we’re spending a variety of time on is the fashions are inference fashions. They’re nice at a linear method to drawback fixing, which is what we’ve been educating for the final hundred years. What they’re not nice as discontinuous leaps, actually novel pondering. And so we’re beginning to determine, “The place are backgrounds which might be going to be extra artistic to provide you with issues that aren’t in regards to the subsequent logical step, however are a couple of discontinuity?”

And so we’re going again to liberal arts levels and saying, “Hey, let’s come again to a few of the issues that may have been deprioritized up to now to see if we are able to get a bit bit extra creativity.”

ADI IGNATIUS: Yeah. We had a chunk from the chief expertise officer of Goldman Sachs who had needed his baby to be a coder after which thought, “Nope, I feel she must be a philosophy main, that that’s what this world requires.”

BOB STERNFELS: Possibly, proper?

ADI IGNATIUS: We’ve regarded again, we’ve regarded ahead. You’ve talked about a few of the celebratory stuff that’s occurring. I must ask although, you’ve additionally had your share of unwelcome publicity in recent times and I’m speaking about OxyContin, bribery costs in South Africa, battle of curiosity, accusations within the U.S. and elsewhere. How do you account for all of that? How do you take a look at what occurred and why?

BOB STERNFELS: Effectively, I’m glad you requested and this has been … I feel it’s been an actual soul-searching for us beginning about 4 or 5 years in the past of actually two questions, Adi. On the one hand, the place ought to we be extra humble and be taught from our errors? And on the similar time, the place ought to we be extra brave and simply say, “Look, we disagree with you. And regardless that we’ll face criticism, we’re going to push again as a result of that’s what we imagine in”? And let me parse every of these. A few of the ones that you simply talked about fall clearly within the humble camp and I feel a few of the nice learnings that we had, if I simply take two specifically, opioids, the work with opioids and our partnerships in South Africa.

What we realized is that now we have to have a better diligence round shopper choice. And we put in place a framework that could be a actually strong evaluation now that appears throughout each facet from the nation, the subject, the establishment, the people and the working setting to say, “Is that this a shopper that we really need to usher in to the agency?” And so one of many languages that I’ve used with our companions, and it’s exhausting to drive change in a partnership is, “You all grew up with the concept that one of many privileges of a associate is to commit the agency. And I’m not saying that’s not the case anymore, however you don’t do it alone. You do it with danger professionals.”

And we invested a couple of billion {dollars}. I introduced within the head of inside audit from Apple, the top of compliance from Walmart, to principally modernize us round these processes. And it’s why I additionally mentioned, “Look, we apologize. We acquired these incorrect, however we don’t need to set out simply to remediate the issue. We need to got down to try to set the usual for professionalism for our trade.” So I feel that is a vital lesson of, “How do you be taught out of your errors?” keep humble, however not search to simply restore them, however search to really make your self higher and we’ve had a variety of learnings round that.

McKinsey has realized a ton from this and we’re getting down to make ourselves higher. And one of many issues that I’ve tried to open myself as much as, each to regulators and to shoppers is, “Look, these are the brand new protocols we put in place. Do you may have any concepts on how we are able to make them higher?” As a result of even what we’ve put in place, I’m undecided we’re ever going to be completed on this entrance. So I simply needed to shut the loop on that. I’m obsessive about, “We acquired to be a journey to try to aspire to set the usual for professionalism.” The lifeblood of what we do and it’s why so many nice expertise from around the globe come is the form of impression that they’ll have with shoppers.

ADI IGNATIUS: From the skin, it regarded like McKinsey was dedicated to rising as shortly as doable in markets everywhere in the world by design, comparatively little centralized oversight. And once more, from the skin, that appears like a recipe for bother. Is {that a} truthful evaluation?

BOB STERNFELS: No, probably not. It’s simple to say that, Adi, from the skin, however the fact of the matter is you may have three or 4 forces which might be occurring right here. On the one hand, there’s an rising scrutiny on the aspect of media, governments for all establishments. And so one of many issues that we realized via this course of is there are some issues that we’re going to be criticized for that we’re simply going to push again on. We acquired closely criticized for our work in hard-to-abate sectors on their transition points. And it was, “McKinsey’s accelerating local weather degradation, et cetera.”

And we pushed again and mentioned, “No, look, in the event you’re going to be dedicated to local weather transition, it’s a must to work with the hardest-to-abate sectors. It’s simply naive to say that you simply’re going to unravel this drawback with out that.” So there’s a portion of this that was rooted in simply extra transparency, extra criticism and I’m making an attempt to construct a little bit of thicker pores and skin. There’s a portion which was an evolution in our group mannequin that mentioned, “Look, as we do get larger and because the world will get extra difficult and extra necessities are thrown in, we do want tighter compliance requirements. That is the place the concept that we should always have the identical compliance and accountability requirements as a publicly traded firm, regardless that we’re not publicly traded,” was I feel one of many biggest modifications that we’ve been via within the final six years.

And development has by no means been our goal operate. We’re privately traded. We don’t have quarterly earnings. You don’t see McKinsey speaking about, “Oh, we had income development of this or that,” as a result of the ethos internally is that we’re a career, not a enterprise, which means that we need to put our shoppers’ pursuits forward of ourselves and the target must be, “Are we doing distinctive work versus any form of work?” However with out the correct controls, you may’t assure that. And so one of many issues I feel we realized is, regardless that we had that as our ethos and the target operate was by no means develop in any respect prices, in the event you don’t put in place compliance, you’re not going to really be capable of implement these requirements.

It’s painful for a partnership to surrender a few of that autonomy, however I feel it’s one which we now have fairly … I imply, look, you by no means get 100% uniformity in a partnership, however I feel there’s fairly good settlement that these items have made us higher and it’s value giving up that autonomy to really protect the integrity of the enterprise.

ADI IGNATIUS: Individuals would say consultants prescribe frameworks, however don’t should dwell with the implications. How do you make sure that McKinsey’s recommendation is greater than a PowerPoint technique, that it creates actual, lasting, long-term impression?

BOB STERNFELS: I hope we get out of PowerPoint fully at some day and I inform you that will like to Microsoft, but it surely isn’t about offering a singular perception. It goes again to this notion of what we actually aspire to be is to be impression companions with our shoppers. We’re on a change journey of shifting, fairly frankly, from a mannequin that was advisory to 1 that underwrites outcomes. And immediately, Adi, a couple of third of our revenues whole are underwriting outcomes. So it’s not, “Hey, you handed me a PowerPoint. Nice.” It’s, “We collectively signed up for this end result collectively and we’re tied on this journey throughout till that impression is delivered.” My hope is that that crosses a majority of the revenues by the point I’m completed being the worldwide managing associate.

ADI IGNATIUS: We’ve been round 100 years, you’ve been round 100 years. We’re all presenting necessary concepts, there are others as properly, and but that is exhausting, proper? Operating a enterprise is tough. No person actually has cracked the code eternally. The place do you suppose leaders most persistently get issues incorrect?

BOB STERNFELS: I feel there’s some mixture of a pair issues which might be, not less than in my thoughts, more and more necessary. One is that this starvation and thirst to accumulate new data. And everytime you get too assured, too overconfident, I feel change for the detrimental goes to come back. And so how do you may have this virtually ruthless quest for, “Let me proceed to query new issues,” and perhaps additionally from all ranges within the group, typically the perfect concepts are embedded someplace lowered out.

The second and, Adi, you linked it whenever you talked about each of our organizations is, “How a lot do you do that your self versus do you concentrate on partnerships?” And I feel, more and more, we’re seeing, when folks collaborate throughout the worth chain, et cetera, you discover disproportionate acquire, and but, our organizations aren’t geared to collaborate properly, proper? We’re simply not. And so thirst for brand new, “Give attention to collaboration.” After which lastly, I’d say, and perhaps this can be a signal of the occasions, perhaps not, velocity issues. One of many issues that we’ve studied to loss of life is quicker organizations outperform slower organizations even when they make extra errors. And but, we’re not wired to do this. There’s such danger aversion in massive enterprise. If we might lean in a bit extra to that, I feel nice issues occur.

ADI IGNATIUS: Within the subject of administration, what appears to be basically completely different immediately versus how corporations should adapt to jolts in geopolitics or with expertise? What are you seeing when it comes to new administration paradigms which might be taking form immediately?

BOB STERNFELS: I take a look at it from the lens of the discussions that I’ve, which is, “What are CEOs targeted on? What are some large matters proper now which might be occupying the minds of senior administration groups and their discussions each amongst themselves and with boards?” and as you may think about, that varies based mostly on the place you sit on the earth. However there are some themes to your query, Adi, that appear to be transversal. I’d be mendacity if one of many themes wasn’t one of many ones that we talked about, which is, “How do I get worth from this expertise and what’s everybody else doing as a result of that is exhausting?” And so I’d put that as one of many themes of, “How do I remodel my enterprise via this revolution in expertise that we’re seeing proper earlier than our eyes?” It’s a large theme.

The second large theme is, “How do I construct extra institutional resilience as a result of I’m more and more …” I’m speaking now within the guise of a CEO of the thoughts, “that sadly issues won’t ever return to how they had been? There’s going to be a world of steady shocks. And so in a world of steady shocks, do I’ve sufficient institutional resilience in my group?” And whenever you burrow underneath that, what of us typically say is, I like sports activities, I’ll provide you with a sports activities analogy, “I must play offense and protection on the similar time. So I would like protection that I would like sufficient buffer, sufficient cushion to have the ability to stand up to one thing that I don’t see coming and have I constructed that margin into my system to have the ability to take the following blow that I could not see coming?

However I can also’t simply play protection. I would like some capability to take some daring bets even after I could also be getting hit with exogenous shocks. So can I play offense and protection similtaneously my easy model of ‘How do you construct institutional resilience?’”

After which perhaps the final one, if I had been to simply provide you with three, I haven’t met a CEO but that thinks that their group mannequin is ideal. Haven’t met one. And a variety of the seminal pondering really comes from some stuff – a 1959 paper in HBR by Gil Clee. This was earlier than he turned a GMP. He was one in all my predecessors, but it surely was about creating a worldwide group and it was the precursor pondering to the matrixed group.

And in the event you take a look at virtually each massive enterprise immediately, there’s some model of a matrixed group and I hear completely different stress factors from CEOs about why their org is among the bottlenecks in getting completed what they should get completed, “It’s too sluggish. It’s too cumbersome. I can’t useful resource, reallocate. It doesn’t assist me with difficult geography choices.” No matter it might be, Adi, I hear a variety of questions on, “What ought to my future group mannequin be?”

ADI IGNATIUS: So in 10 years’ time, what would you want McKinsey to be recognized for that it isn’t recognized for immediately?

BOB STERNFELS: I feel it’s acquired to be a mixture of, “What do I hope we’re nonetheless recognized for after which what may be some new issues?” as a result of it’s not going to be simply stuff that McKinsey isn’t recognized for immediately. I hope the half that it’s continued to be recognized for is management manufacturing unit of the world. And one of many issues that’s been very thrilling is, regardless of how lengthy of us stick with us, they have an inclination to do fairly properly wherever they go. We produce extra CEOs than every other establishment on the earth and I hope that’s nonetheless the case in 10 years. “Are of us coming to us and …” Sorry, that is simply my direct language, perhaps the expertise isn’t simple, perhaps it’s fairly exhausting they usually get a variety of robust suggestions, however, “Will we make you a greater chief regardless of how lengthy you’re in McKinsey? Two years, 30 years, however do you permit McKinsey a greater …” I hope that is still.

I hope the half that’s new, to your level, is one thing that’s in flight immediately, however I feel probably not well-known, which is we full this journey from being an advisor to an impression associate and that McKinsey will not be recognized for, “Hey, they gave me nice recommendation, but when it labored, that was as a result of they had been sensible, and if it didn’t work, it’s as a result of I didn’t implement,” which is the joke, proper? However because it moved to, “You realize what? We designed a enterprise case collectively and these guys underwrote the identical outcomes that I took to the board and we went on this journey and we saved at it till we acquired to someplace I didn’t suppose I might get to.” I feel that’s the half that I’d like to land totally on this subsequent decade.

ADI IGNATIUS: Bob, thanks very a lot for being right here. That was an ideal dialogue and congratulations on turning 100.

BOB STERNFELS: Thanks. I loved it. It’s nice to see you.

ADI IGNATIUS: That was Bob Sternfels, international managing associate at McKinsey & Firm. Subsequent week, Alison appears into the most recent analysis on what it takes to actually be prepared for the C-suite.

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And due to our staff, senior producer, Mary Dooe, audio product supervisor, Ian Fox, and senior manufacturing specialist, Rob Eckhardt. And due to you for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. We’ll be again with a brand new episode on Tuesday. I’m Adi Ignatius.