Jiwan
Associate
Learning while teaching
“I studied law because I wanted to help clients by developing contracts and other agreements. I joined McKinsey because I saw that consulting does even more – it helps clients improve entire organizations.”
My first engagement involved helping the client’s senior and mid-level managers improve their leadership capabilities and overall performance. We set up four client teams; each chose one subject to focus on and one problem to solve, and each had a McKinsey team member acting as “homeroom coach” or tutor. I was one of these tutors. Since I had no real business experience, I sometimes found the work challenging. But our engagement manager was extremely helpful, meeting with the tutors at least twice a day and providing constant feedback and coaching. I learned a great deal and felt I had really had an impact on the client. It was very gratifying.
Living a principle
The most important lesson I’ve learned at McKinsey is that the client’s interests always come first. In one meeting with the client’s senior leadership, the McKinsey engagement manager (EM) said that by following a specific recommendation, the client could save a great deal of money. The client executives were highly skeptical about the figure, but the EM stood by our work and kept presenting our reasoning. And the clients finally accepted the number. Later the entire project was successful, thanks in part to our commitment to the client’s interests in the face of skepticism and opposition.
Active and interactive development
In my previous jobs, most training programs involved just sitting, listening to the trainer, and taking notes. That kind of thing rarely happens at McKinsey. Training programs are extremely interactive. The trainees are supposed to talk a lot and learn from each other, and the trainers constantly ask for trainees’ opinions and thinking. But in consulting, knowledge alone does not do so much. We also have to learn to interact with people, and that cannot be taught by just working with trainers. We learn that on the job, from our team members, engagement managers, and other McKinsey people.
It’s hard finding the right balance sometimes
I try not to think about work on weekends. I spend a lot of time with my family, and I think it helps me a lot. But when I have to work on weekends – and sometimes I just have to – it’s tough. You have concentrate a lot to get that balance right.