But it does work for them? They make tons of money.

Well, fair point. It doesn't work for their clients.

As an ex-consultant: consulting at that level is kind of a grift. They over-promise and under-deliver as SOP. It's ripe for AI disruption, whatever that looks like.

Ideally, executives will get replaced by AI soon. Which should actually be easier than engineers. That will kind of solve the consulting problem automatically.

This would be terrible for McKinsey as they sell exclusively through executives who then punch all their wisdoms down on the plebs

So it would be great for the rest of mankind.

Their model works great.

It’s really about bypassing the existing power structure of the company. Competence of the work itself is a secondary objective. Most in-house initiatives can be slow rolled by management.

The fresh faced consultant with 2-3 steps to access the CEO neutralizes that. It seems grifty but is really exploiting bugs in corporate governance.

The current fad of firing the managers is a riff on this. Every jackass C-level is coming up with the novel idea of flattening.

This somehow implies that initiatives or strategies from consultants are somewhat successful. This is not the case in my experience.

No, you misunderstood. It is not about their output, it almost never is.

Most of the times, the business decision has already been made long before McK is hired. It’s all about legitimizing that decision and making it happen.

You can also wield them as a weapon against internal competitors or opponents. Look up how they were used to kill off Cariad for example.

They reflect the will of the principal who hired them. Success is in the eye of the beholder.