My Start in Consulting
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| Title: | My Start in Consulting | |
| Author: | Kurt Grote, MD | |
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OK, so I’ll admit it, I’m an obsessive planner. When I joined McKinsey in 2002, I had spent a lot of time thinking about what life would be like as a consultant, from reading the online message boards and all the books about consulting I could get my hands on, to interviewing a number of consultants, to working part time with an alumnus of the Firm.
Despite my best efforts to inform myself, however, there were a few aspects of the experience that I did not anticipate. In case it is helpful to someone else going through (or considering) a similar career change, here are a few thoughts on some of those surprises:
There are remarkably smart, diverse, and passionate people in consulting. I was emerging from the M.D. program at Stanford, and was accustomed to working with amazing people who were also very diverse along cultural, intellectual, and personal dimensions. I had high expectations of consulting, but was not sure that my compatriots would be of the same caliber as my medical school colleagues. I was therefore astonished to find that the people at McKinsey were equally impressive, and even more diverse, compared to the people in medicine. One of my first teams included an MBA, a JD, a PhD, and an MD, who were born and educated in three different countries. It is remarkable what a group like this—bringing different experiences, knowledge, and ways of thinking about problems and the world—can do with a white board and a few hours of team time.
Business is pretty intuitive once you get past the lingo. I was lost trying to follow many of the conversations I heard in my first few months in consulting. But once I got past the acronyms and basic terms, and into the substance, I began to realize that a lot of the concepts were not so complicated. For example, take the concept of EBITDA: business people throw around this term as an acronym for "earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization," but it’s essentially just profit, a concept that even an M.D. can understand!
...But business is also every bit as complicated as medicine (or science) at times. In medicine one must often make judgments based on a complex set of sometimes conflicting inputs. Business is not much different. For example, in my first project, we were helping a small biotechnology company define a research strategy. A partner with a background as a pulmonologist led the team, and the working team was comprised of an MD/MBA (the engagement manager), an MD (the other associate), a PhD in biology, and me.
The problem we were tackling was typical of the types of questions we often tackle—simple on its face but mired in multiple layers of complexity. This R&D organization at the client had a list of 300+ compounds in their portfolio of candidates for development into drugs, but only a budget to push 5 or 10 through the process. There was the analytic complexity—selecting the compounds on which to focus research required us to carefully evaluate the market opportunity for each compound, and evaluating it against clinical, technical, legal, regulatory criteria that we designed. But there was also the human complexity—every one of the drug candidates had a personal history, a champion, a detractor. We needed to cut through these political webs with a process that got us to a right answer that was also politically viable. We navigated the process carefully by investing as much in the process as the end product, and the company now has several of the compounds in advanced clinical development.
Fortunately, this is an incredibly supportive place. I can’t speak for all consulting firms, but can say that in my first months at McKinsey, I was blown away by the level of support from mentors, classmates, and support services (we are essentially relieved of basic research and document production duties by staff dedicated to providing these services 24/7). I had feared that there would be a feeling of self-reliance at best and outright competition at worst, but instead found myself welcomed into an environment that had been tailored to help me succeed.
The responsibility comes fast and furious! On my 3rd project I was responsible for coordinating development of the product development strategy for scientists at one of the largest medical device companies in the U.S. My main client contact had been the lead designer on a $2B/year device that was on the market, and commanded the respect of the leaders in this multi-national corporation. I was "the face of McKinsey" to these scientists, and had to step up and prove that I was up to the task of leading a group of heavy-hitting scientists.
While it was both nerve-racking and thrilling to be thrust into a position of such responsibility, I did not realize at the time that this would be a theme that would run through my experience. To this day one of my greatest sources of satisfaction from the career I have chosen is that opportunity abounds, and new challenges are ready for me as soon as I am ready for them.
I was primed and ready for consulting by the time I made the switch. But in speaking with many recruits about this career path, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s impossible to fully prepare for an experience as different from science as consulting. Hopefully, your surprises will be positive ones too! |
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Kurt Grote, MD is an Associate Principal in McKinsey's Los Angeles Office, where he serves a variety of clients in the health care provider, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device sectors. Prior to joining McKinsey, he earned an M.D. degree at Stanford Medical School. |
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Copyright, 2006, Kurt Grote, MD Published with permission |
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