A Century of Strategy and Impact: Honoring the colleagues and ideas that built our firm

In the firm archives, we look back at the ideas, colleagues, and client work that helped shape McKinsey’s role in the evolution of strategy and understand why it matters in the century ahead.

Few of us have the privilege to look back on a century of work that influenced the discipline we practice. Long before strategy became a formal field, some of its core instincts existed in the firm’s work and became more explicit in frameworks and research.

These archives share concepts that were codeveloped with clients, enriched by academic research and professional communities, and tested against the best emerging thinking in management practice. What links them is a pragmatic belief that strategic thinking matters because it helps leaders make better choices in times of great opportunity and uncertainty.

These foundations are especially relevant and will help create a real impact with our clients in our next 100 years.

From the McKinsey archives: 1926 – present

Budgetary Control
Budgetary Control: The blueprint for modern management
A 1922 book by James O. McKinsey presents a blueprint for modern management
The General Survey Outline
The General Survey Outline
A 1936 internal methodology and toolkit drafted by James O. McKinsey
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Marvin Bower
Marvin Bower: A portrait of the father of modern management consulting
A portrait of the father of modern management consulting
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Firm Objectives
Firm Objectives
A 1937 internal memo by Marvin Bower
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Supplementing Successful Management
Supplementing Successful Management
A 1940 booklet by Marvin Bower
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Firm Philosophy Diagram
Firm Philosophy Diagram
Presented by Marvin Bower at the Annual Firm Conference in 1953
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Development of the Firm’s personality: Looking back twenty years and ahead twenty
Development of the firm’s personality: Looking back twenty years and ahead twenty
Marvin Bower’s opening and closing remarks at the Annual Staff Conference in 1953
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Creating a world enterprise
Creating a world enterprise
A 1959 Harvard Business Review article by Gilbert H. Clee and Alfred di Scipio
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How to live with the computer
How to live with the computer
A 1967 McKinsey Quarterly article by R. George Glaser, Jr.
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Strategic degrees of freedom
Strategic degrees of freedom
A 1981 McKinsey staff paper by Eric G. Friberg
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Managing value: The new corporate strategy
Managing value: The new corporate strategy
A 1988 McKinsey staff paper by Ennius Bergsma, later published in McKinsey Quarterly
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Paradigms, Models, and Schools
Paradigms, Models, and Schools
1994 internal firm training material by Janet Gessner Alford and Kevin Coyne
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Business Unit Strategy Development Handbook
A 1994 internal training resource by the firm’s Strategy Functional Capability Group
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The year 2000
The year 2000
Fred Gluck’s speech to the partnership after being elected managing director in 1988
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Thinking strategically
Article - McKinsey Quarterly
Thinking strategically
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A company should make sure that it is the best possible owner of each of its business units—not simply hold on to units that are strong in themselves.
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Article - McKinsey Quarterly
Strategy under uncertainty
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The traditional approach to strategy requires precise predictions and thus often leads executives to underestimate uncertainty. This can be downright dangerous. A four-level framework can help.
The ten timeless tests of strategy
The ten timeless tests of strategy
A 2010 McKinsey staff paper by Chris Bradley, Nicholas Percy, and Sven Smit, adapted in 2011 for McKinsey Quarterly
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Article - McKinsey Quarterly
Have you tested your strategy lately?
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Ten timeless tests can help you kick the tires on your strategy, and kick up the level of strategic dialogue throughout your company.
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Article - McKinsey Quarterly
How to put your money where your strategy is
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Most companies allocate the same resources to the same business units year after year. That makes it difficult to realize strategic goals and undermines performance. Here's how to overcome resource-allocation inertia.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly
Strategy to beat the odds
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If you internalize the real odds of strategy, you can tame its social side and make big moves.
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Article - McKinsey Quarterly
Staying ahead: How the best CEOs continually improve performance
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After the heady first years in the job, CEOs must sustain momentum and high performance. Here are four ways to avoid complacency and create even more value.
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Article - McKinsey Quarterly
How Strategy Champions win
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Only one in five companies believe they have high-quality strategy. What do such Strategy Champions have in common? They excel at designing bold strategies—and are even better at mobilizing their execution.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly
Building the AI muscle of your business leaders
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The real competitive advantage with AI comes from having business leaders who can bridge business problems with the possibilities technology offers.
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Article - McKinsey Quarterly
Where AI will create value—and where it won’t
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Using AI to boost productivity is unlikely to create a sustainable advantage. The real value from AI will lie in reshaping offerings, business models, and market structures before competitors do.