A Lesson In Herd Behavior - McKinsey Quarterly Goes Brain Dead And Asks If The Renminbi Is The Next Global Currency

The world in which I have lived much of my life values McKinsey much the way Goldman Sachs is valued on Wall Street. In other words, there is an enormous aura where only the most brilliant are hired at McKinsey. By conclusion, anything associated with the company must be prescient. Just as we see that is preposterous with Goldman Sachs, we now see it is preposterous with McKinsey.

This dynamic exists with some company or another at every time in history. We saw it with IBM twenty years ago, Microsoft fifteen years ago and Google today. There are countless examples. It's really somewhat of a ridiculous notion, especially when one considers the metrics used to determine the hiring process at these firms. Typically lots of new college hires (minions) who are able to be shaped (manipulated) into the company's particular belief system (ideology). That's not necessarily so bad in itself because there are a few companies with great cultures. (A very few.) But these companies like Google, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs and others always loose their appearance of invincibility because it's all really rather ridiculous propaganda in the first place. Frankly, if you really think about it, it's almost a little Third Reich-esque - a master race of sorts where the most brilliant are chosen for their superiority or so the propaganda leads us to believe. And all of the little gerbils run as fast as they can in their cage (universities) in hopes of getting manipulated into their favorite company's ideology. (Don't worry, as a matter of practicality, I have done my fair share of running on the wheel.)

There are six billion people on this earth. To believe that humankind has found some superior selection process by which to hire only the most capable within some particular organization is laughable if it weren't almost creepy. Yes companies need to find some selection process but the existing one is often straight out of an Orwell novel.

Standardized test scores are some measure of something. I'm not sure what it is having taken more than my fair share. I guess it depends on the objective. Sometimes it is a particular type of reasoning skill. But I think generally it is some ability to mimic. To learn what those before them perceive as valuable. Or what a bureaucrat believes is valuable. I realize there has to be some measurement of what we learn and I don't have the perfect answer. But many people have substantially better answers than the status quo.

Unfortunately, human creativity and ingenuity are the most valuable measure of intelligence for any career or self-fulfilling life and that cannot be measured. And if you arrogantly believe you can measure creativity and ingenuity as many do, then I have a test for you to take. If you can pass it, then I'll believe you. And if you can pass it, then you obviously knew Albert Einstein was going to change physics forever. To destroy the generally accepted beliefs of every brilliant physicist in the world at that time. The best our hallowed universities could produce. A reminder..... After graduation Einstein couldn't get a real job so he was a self-described miserable patent clerk who was in what would generally be considered a loser job for a physicist. Needless to say he wasn't even very good at it which only reinforced the perception of those who knew him that he would never be great at anything. That is, before everyone in the world of science was lapping his boots after he became the most recognizable name in the history of science. Heard that general thematic story before? Don't think that showed up on the standardized test form.

That Americans are now in a mad rush to send their young children to cram-like schools, a reactionary response to the perceived success of a concept entrenched in Asian culture perpetuated by marching morons like Thomas Friedman in his book The World is Flat. This dynamic of pushing our children into this type of educational dynamic is one of the greatest tragedies of our day. One that is completely and fatally flawed. Parents are simply filling their children's heads with the requests of the leviathan rather than encouraging development of free thought, free will, self determination and creativity. Ideals that truly define a great society. Not reciting the government's sanitized view of history or solving a quadratic equation.

I actually believed this bulloney when I took my first job after college. I was a little puppy dog with my willing ego lapping it all up. Of course, they didn't know I hacked my college records file and changed all of those one-legged A's (F's) into two-legged A's. For God's sake I'm kidding so I don't need some minion from the Department of Homeland Security contacting me about my act of terror. I am allowed to still tell jokes aren't I? Just making sure that the thought police haven't outlawed that one. Yes I realize terrorism is a serious issue. So go find them. I passed my last psych exam. (Those don't seem to work so well either.)

Anyway, McKinsey is close to being punted off of my blog link list for the ridiculousness that often graces the McKinsey Quarterly over the last few years. They are on the wrong side of so many macro issues that I feel like I am often reading propaganda. That is likely to bite them in the future as it will Government Sachs.

Even joking of the Renminbi as the world's reserve currency is just about the most preposterous notion I could imagine. Yet, indeed it is true. The Orwellian world lives. Wake up guys and gals and smell free-thought. You are buying too much propaganda.