McKinsey's Marvin Bower : Vision, Leadership, and the Creation of Management Consulting

Rating:
Summary: Inspirational
Review: A compelling portrait of a leader who seemed to find just the right combination for success - creating value for clients, unwavering integrity, leading from the front, selflessness in the interest of the business' sustainability, consistency of vision and personal actions and continuous communication with and interest in his people. Bower's vision, values and approach shaped a generation of successful leaders.

This book leaves you thinking about how you can be a better leader and wishing that you'd been fortunate enough to work for Marvin Bower. In an age of corporate scandals, it's refreshing and inspiring to read about a greatly successful leader with true integrity and how that integrity was an integral part of his success.

Rating:
Summary: Must Read
Review: Having spent the past 20 years in consulting, I've read alot of business books and always buy a new book with the expressed purpose of learning something new. McKinsey's Marvin Bower did not disappoint. Although I bought it to read about Marvin Bower, the myth, I learned much more about Marvin Bower the man and his impact on principles I had been practicing throughout my career, and without knowing why. This book provides the fundamental lessons on how to do it right -- from creating values that guide an organization to placing customer and client interests first. To me, McKinsey was a side bar, the real story is about Marvin Bower and his impact on 20th century business. As such, it's a must read for everyone and anyone interested in "getting it right" regardless of their profession.

Rating:
Summary: Solid business history
Review: I never thought I would end up in business, but did. thought the book was a great look into the history of a firm. It has helped me review some of my own decisions and better understand them - what I did right instinctively and where there might be some opportunity to rethink things.

I enjoyed reading about the founder and found the lessons practical to what I am doing today.

Rating:
Summary: Mediocrity
Review: In short a decent biographical sketch of Bower's development and leadership experiences, however the whole point of the book has been underminde by "The Firm's" recent involvement in various scandals. It focuses too heavily on 'integrity', which can no longer be harped on in the same sentence with McKinsey due to SwissAir, Enron, etc.

All in all, a heavily biased book that provides minimal objective value add. There are MUCH better leadership books out there...Good to Great, etc.

Rating:
Summary: Inspirational
Review: This book documents one of the most successful and influential individuals in the business world. Full of case studies and examples, there are lessons here that apply to any business at any size.

Rating:
Summary: Great Individual - mediocre book
Review: This book tells the story - atleast it tries to - of one of the most influential persons in business management, and hence its something worth reading. But on the otherhand, its not a great book from the style of writing - it doesn't really tell a good story and the over-riding focus on integrity - given the more than few recent episodes - I am tempted to say, its not a very balanced piece of work.

But I certainly recommend this book - despite giving it just 3 stars - gives us an insight into this influential person and his life. It provides some great ideas - valid even today on developing and living a concept - in this case - Management Consulting. And well, also shows the importance of being at the right place at the right time and having the presence of mind to realise the same!!

I will still wait for a better written book on the life of Marvin and McKinsey sometime in the future!

Rating:
Summary: Leadership, Integrity & modern business history
Review: This is a truly outstanding book. It is very well-written and thoroughly presents the principles and experiences that made Marvin Bower one of the giants of management consulting. Even with 30 years experience in management consulting, I learned a great deal about client relationships and other aspects of consulting. Marvin Bower was truly a remarkable leader. For skills and ethics in management consulting, he rates at the top.

The only negative about the book is that it's not balanced. No one is perfect- not even Mr. Bower or McKinsey- as the author might have you believe. And I don't think Mr. Bower was quite the non-autocratic and non-hierarchical leader as the author and others have asserted. Firing a partner because he was doing work for one client that didn't deal with "major problems;" firing an associate and ordering him to leave the firm and building in 30 minutes for a lapse in judgement (albeit a significant one); and putting the fear of God in associates if they were seen having a social rather than a business lunch or if they wore argyle socks sounds pretty autocratic to me. Even if he encouraged dissent in staff discussions.

Also, I don't agree that Mr. Bower was the founder of professional management consulting. I believe Ed Booz of Booz, Allen and Hamilton was. Of course, as a former Booz Allen partner, I may be biased.

Notwithstanding the above criticisms, this is one of the best books I've ever read.

Rating:
Summary: A lovely euology to Mr. Bower, but not a great book
Review: This is a very nice book written by nice people who clearly love and admire the late Marvin Bower dearly. And if you want a nice, easy Marvin Bower euology, you can read this book. But you won't learn very much about McKinsey & Company, and I doubt you're learning the whole story about Mr. Bower.

Others have mentioned that this book was written well after some of McKinsey's "dark" episodes occurred and as such these incidents are glaringly absent, in particular the Enron case, in which former McKinseyites and McKinsey itself architected the most massive fraud ever perpetrated in American business history that caused many with their 401(k)s tied up in Enron stock to lose all their life savings. There is not a page in the book that does not contain a reference to Mr. Bower's "integrity", and indeed Mr. Bower wasn't there for Enron, but you can as easily make the case that the McKinsey culture that Mr. Bower created was as much responsible for Enron as it was for McKinsey's more successful endeavors. You can't have it both ways. Someone will eventually get the facts on McKinsey and Enron and that will be a hell of a story.