Robert
Associate
A mentor to help me grow
"At McKinsey, you can have a lot of moments when you say, ‘Wow! It was worth it.'"
To a big extent, the growth I’ve had here was because of my development group leader. I saw how he dealt with issues, how he’d break down problems, how he behaved in a client meeting, how he communicated—he was never nervous or stuffy—and I was sort of astonished, like “Wow! This guy really knows how to do it!” Everything that seemed difficult or even impossible for me, he managed to position it so even it wasn’t easy, it was definitely solvable. So I tried to learn these things from him, and he probably had the biggest impact on my development.
I have become more perceptive
After spending a lot of time with clients, I think I better perceive the real concerns people have. It’s something “between the lines” that helps you become a better consultant. For instance, I was doing IT strategy for a client, and he seemed very concerned about some issues, which were really not that complex. I sensed that his real concern was getting buy-in from different managers in the organization. So I said, “Ok, let’s solve this by getting feedback from these people, so we can get them on board.” This kind of perception is one of the important ways I’ve grown.
Finding a way to go to Asia
I wanted to work on an engagement somewhere in Asia. I had a little bit of experience studying there before, through INSEAD, and was interested to explore more. I contacted a couple of people from different offices and it so happened that there was a project in Malaysia, which needed somebody who would be able to lead an IT development part of it. That was lucky for me since my expertise is in IT. So I got in touch with the leaders of the project, spoke to them about what they needed and what I could do. Finally we agreed that I should join the study.
“Wow” impact
When I see the real impact of my work on the client’s organization, I get really excited. You can have a lot of these moments at McKinsey—you design a system that gets switched on, or a strategy that is implemented, and you feel great about it. One of my best moments was the opening of a brand new bank in Asia—I helped design the IT environment and it was the most complex system I had ever worked on. Ultimately there was a moment when I saw that everything that I was working on was running and playing a role in the banking market in a country.