The Strategy Skills Podcast: Strategy | Leadership | Critical Thinking | Problem-Solving

For this episode, let's revisit a Strategy Skills classic where we discuss value chain analysis.

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Turquoise Eyes started off the groundbreaking new genre developed by FIRMSconsulting that combines compelling narrative while teaching problem solving and critical thinking skills. Set after a bank begins implementing a new retail banking strategy, we follow Teresa García Ramírez de Arroyo, a director-general in the Mexican government, who has received some disturbing news. A whistleblower has emailed Teresa with troubling news about a mistake in the loan default calculations and reserve ratios. The numbers do not add up.

The Turquoise Eyes: A Novel about Problem Solving & Critical Thinking is available on Amazon.

Buy a copy by midnight EST June 10 2020 and receive 1-month complimentary access to the accompanying video course.

BUY THE BOOK HERE: https://amzn.to/3bzVa6g

To celebrate the launch week for Turquoise Eyes: A Novel about Problem Solving & Critical Thinking, until midnight EST June 10 2020 only, we offer this purchase gift to customers as our way of showing that we're truly thankful that you chose FIRMSconsulting. This is the 1st episode of the accompanying program. To Claim Your Complimentary 1 Month Access to the Accompanying Program:

1) BUY THE BOOK HERE: https://amzn.to/3bzVa6g

2) Reply to this email by midnight EST June 10 2020 with the following:

Your Name Your receipt for the book (Kindle, paperback or hardcover)

A Mention of Your Review for the above book If you've left a Review, please include a link - we'd love to read it and sincerely appreciate it. Even if you haven't left an Amazon review but only left Goodreads review, your training program 1 month access will still be sent to you! While we cannot require Amazon review to take advantage of our free gift to you, we would certainly appreciate your feedback and it will be a great way to support the book and FC.

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Kris CEO, FIRMSconsulting

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Video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/xQqufjwFm9E

Welcome to. Strategy Skills episode 164, an episode with Josh Baron. Get Josh's new book here: https://amzn.to/3iRZ531

Josh Baron is a partner and co-founder of BanyanGlobal, a professor at Columbia Business School, a thought leader and author of Harvard Business Review Family Business Handbook: How to Build and Sustain a Successful, Enduring Enterprise (HBR Handbooks). He has worked closely with family-owned companies, foundations and offices for over a decade now. He has been helping these families define their purpose as owners and establish strategies to accomplish their goals. He is also teaching MBA courses on Family Business Management and Managing Conflict in Family Business. He has also written articles for The Huffington Post, Trust & Estates Magazine, and Family Business Magazine, among others.

HBR FAMILY BUSINESS HANDBOOK: How to Build and Sustain a Successful, Enduring Enterprise. Josh Baron: https://amzn.to/3iRZ531

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One of the great privileges of our unique network is that we have access to some of the most eminent former partners like Kevin Coyne and Bill Matassoni. We adopt their insights when designing our case training and strategy training programs. Our goal at Firmsconsulting is to allow our members access to the partners from whom we seek advise.

This is an exclusive interview that Bill Matassoni recently had with Firmsconsulting where he shared some counter-intuitive concepts you will not hear anywhere else.

Bill Matassoni was the partner who was involved in developing and implementing the McKinsey philosophy that helped the firm pull ahead of BCG in the 1980s and 1990s. He was thereafter the partner who led BCG's efforts to overtake McKinsey.

This insightful, inspiring and counter intuitive podcast explains the steps McKinsey took in the 1980s to reposition the firm.

Planning is meaningless unless you know what to plan. You need a point of differentiation and you need to consistently drive that difference.

Competitive advantage is wrong to pursue. You need to look for comparative advantage.

See if you can extract those lessons from this podcast.

Bill Matassoni started his career in management consulting in 1980 when he joined McKinsey & Company. He was a partner there for almost 20 years, focusing on the branding of professional services. He was responsible for building McKinsey’s reputation and protecting its brand, which included publishing the McKinsey Quarterly. In doing so he worked closely with many of his colleagues worldwide including Tom Peters, Jon Katzenbach, Kenichi Ohmai, John Sawhill, John Stucky, and John Hagel.

He was also responsible for much of McKinsey’s internal communications. This included the creation of McKinsey’s systems to manage and disseminate its practice knowledge. These efforts are described in an HBR case study.

He left McKinsey to join Mitchell Madison Group, a strategy consulting firm he helped to take public through its sale to USWeb/CKS in 1999. He then joined The Boston Consulting Group, where he headed for over five years a group responsible for innovation, marketing and communications.

As at McKinsey, Bill Matassoni worked closely with several of BCG’s thought leaders — George Stalk, Michael Silverstein, Philip Evans, Yves Morieux, Hal Sirkin and others — to develop their ideas and turn them into consulting assignments. Bill Matassoni retired from BCG a few years ago and founded The Glass House Group, a consulting firm that helps professional service firms with branding and marketing issues. At one of his clients, Tapestry Networks, Bill has become a senior advisor.

Bill Matassoni is a graduate of Phillips Andover (1964), Harvard College (B.A. Literature, 1968) and Harvard Business School (M.B.A., 1975).

For many years Bill Matassoni was on the board of trustees of United Way of America and United Way International. He is now on the board of trustees of First Book and a senior advisor to Ashoka, an organization that invests in social entrepreneurs. He is also on the Board of Advisors of The Demand Institute, a non-profit funded by The Conference Board and Nielsen. He remains interested in the management and marketing of professional services firms, social marketing and healthcare reform.

If you have never had the opportunity to meet Marvin Bower, and that would apply to most of McKinsey's current partners, Bill's thinking is the second best thing to have access to.

In this wide ranging interview, Bill Matassoni and I discuss the following about the strategy, culture, values, mistakes and problems of McKinsey and BCG:

McKinsey & Co.

• How a partner's background shapes his or her viewpoint
• The old influence of HBR on a consulting brand's position
• Bill's unconventional path into McKinsey and BCG
• Managing versus inspiring other senior partners
• Working with senior partners from McKinsey like Ron Daniels, Fred Gluck, Herb Ensinger, Kenichi Ohmae, Tom Peters, Bob Waterman, Lowell Bryan, Tom Steiner and Marvin Bower
• Insightful new anecdotes and stories not published before
• How to get partners to build a firm's position and knowledge
• Competitive advantage in management consulting
• The problem with trying to position a firm as a consulting firm
• McKinsey problems in recent times and lack of differentiation
• Why strategy is less analytic than it seems
• WSJ vs. The Economist vs. HBR for eminence
• The Fortune Magazine story that changed McKinsey's profile
• What is McKinsey's point of differentiation - it is not analytics or strategy
• How to build a leadership factory
• Why all the books about McKinsey, like "The Firm", completely miss the mark
• Anecdotes about Marvin Bower
• Using actions to build principles vers...

Hello everyone! This is Monday Morning 8 a.m. (#14), a weekly newsletter where we distill the insights from all of the distractions, articles, and emails that you receive in your inbox every day. In this newsletter, we’re going to focus on four major themes from last week’s news. To listen to the audio version of this newsletter, search for “Strategy Skills” in any podcast app. To get a written copy with links to mentioned articles sign up here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo