McKinsey and Company Managing Knowledge and Learning

MM 5011 - Knowledge and Innovation Case Resume

McKinsey Learning

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Company

Febryansyah DR 29111095

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Managing

Knowledge

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McKinsey & Company was founded in Chicago in 1926 by James O. ("Mac") McKinsey as James O. McKinsey and Company. Previously, McKinsey served as an accounting professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and is considered the father of managerial accounting. In 1935 Marshall Field's became a client and in 1935 convinced McKinsey to leave the firm and become its CEO. This led to a merger between James O. McKinsey and Company and Scovell, Wellington & Company as McKinsey, Wellington & Company. The new firm had both an accounting practice and a management engineering practice. In a 1937 memo, Marvin Bower outlined his vision for the firm as one focused om issues of importance to top level management, adhering to the highest standards of integrity, proffesional ethics, and technical excelence, able to attract and develop young men of outstanding qualifications, and commited to continually raising its stature and influence. The economic turmoil led by various event caused McKinsey's growth seemed to stall. In April 1977, the comission on Firm Aims and Goals concluded that the form has been growing too fast. The Comission believed that the company had to recommit itself to the continous development of its members. It further proposed that emphasis be placed on the development of what it termed "T-Shaped" consultants. When Ron Daniels was elected Managing Director in 1976, McKinsey was still struggling in facing the problem that they are too focused in expansion and neglect the development of their technical and professional skills. Daniel’s first move was appointed one of firm’s senior partners as director of training to expand commitment to developing consultant skills and expertise. He also change the structure, he created industry-based clientele sectors. He also assembles working groups to develop knowledge in two areas, strategy and organization. In 1980, Daniel asked Gluck to join the central small group that comprised the firm office and focus on the knowledge building agenda. Glock set out to convert his partners to his strongly held beliefs - that knowledge has to be a core, not peripherals firm activities; that it needed to be ongoing not institutionalized, not temporary and project based; and that it had to be the responsibility of everyone, not just a few. He created 15 centers of competence build around existing areas of management expertise which roles are : to help develop consultants and to ensure the continued renewal of the firm's intellectual resource. As the firm’s new emphasis on individual consultant training took hold and the clientele sectors and center of competence began to generate new insights, many began to feel the need to capture and leverage the learning. Although big ideas had written up as articles for publication, the internal transfer of ideas and internally developed knowledge was never captured. This began to change with the launching of McKinsey staff papers and Practice Bulletins. Believing that the firm's organizational infrastructure needed major overhaul, in 1987 Gluck launched a Knowledge Management Project and made three recommendations: (1) Build a common database of knowledge (2) ensure the database were maintained and used by hire a full time practice coordinator and (3) suggest the firm expand its hiring practices and promotion policies. Outside these three recommendations, the team published a small book consists of all form experts and key documents title. The basic concept was that a professional could make a career in McKinsey by

MM 5011 - Knowledge and Innovation Case Resume

Febryansyah DR 29111095

emphasizing specialized knowledge development rather than the broad based problem solving skill and client development orientation that were deeply embedded in the firm's value system. In 1994, Rajat Gupta pointed as Managing Director. He launched a fourpronged attack: (1) Capitalize on the firm’s long term investment in practice development (2) embraced grass roots knowledge development approach called Practice Olympics (3) Initiated six special initiatives multi-year internal assignments that focused on emerging issues (4) Expand the model of The McKinsey Global Institute, a firm research center. The main issue in McKinsey Knowledge Development is how to counterpoise between technology and human craft.