As a consultant with McKinsey, one of my projects was to advise a Fortune 500 healthcare company on whether to launch a new service line.
And here was the funny part — the company had already done the study they hired us for!
They had put two people on the project, who spent one full year doing research, interviewing experts and customers, analyzing competition, etc. They had even produced a big fat report!
But there was one problem — the report had lots of information, pros and cons of everything, but there was no clear storyline or conclusion.
Therefore, despite all the hard work, it wasn’t actionable.
Now, after the company had spent two man-years, I got to spend only two weeks on the project. But we ruthlessly structured the story and gave a clear-cut recommendation, with some rationale.
So does it mean that we were smarter than the company’s internal team or had better industry insight? Of course, not.
But we were obsessively focused on structuring the information and converging to a conclusion. And that is why the client paid big bucks to hire a firm like McKinsey.
One of the things we hugely underestimate is the ability to take lots of amorphous, jumbled-up information and transform it into a structured storyline.
Analytical thinking is not about doing math. It is about seeing patterns, cutting out irrelevant information, and drawing logical conclusions.
This is one of the most valuable skills you can acquire. And if you want to fast-forward your career to leadership positions, this is the number one skill you will need.
– Rajan