The future of work...for me.

TL;DR: I left McKinsey, rebooted PK Consulting, and am thinking about what's next.

I became a workplace strategist by chance ~15 years ago and haven't looked back since.

This month I begin Chapter Six (-ish) in my unexpected workplace adventure, as I made the difficult decision to leave McKinsey & Company. What's next on my journey? I'm not sure yet. But I want to be transparent about my decision, my experience at the world's most famous management consultancy, and how I am thinking about the future of (my) work.

My "chapters" are numbered above. You can learn about #1 (Credit Suisse) and #2 (JLL) in this article when I joined WeWork (#3) in 2017; I posted about "melodramatically laying myself off" when leaving #4 (solo consulting) for #5 (McKinsey).

I wasn't initially going to be so verbose about my decision but, when I started telling friends, I realized I was answering the same questions repeatedly. I'm also often asked for early career advice, and these kinds of questions are the ones I get in those situations.

Inspired by the benefits of asynchronous communications and remote-friendly ways of working ? plus a desire for some much-needed catharsis, if I'm honest ? I'm taking my own advice and promoting a culture of writing things down.

This article is essentially an evolving FAQ / README in sections...

1. Why did I join McKinsey?
2. What did I learn from working at McKinsey?
3. Why did I decide to leave McKinsey?
4. What am I doing right at this moment?
5. What do I want to do next?
6. How can you help?

... and I will edit (follow me!) as needed. Please skip to / read only what's interesting.

And THANK YOU for being here. ?? ??

(1) Why did I join McKinsey?

When my WeWork team was disbanded, I started my own LLC and was lucky to have four different members of my WeWork team as clients or colleagues on engagements.

But, as my father once told me, "having to buy your own pencils is annoying," and I missed being part of a larger community.

I always respected McKinsey but never considered working for the firm. An opportunity was created for me at the intersection of the Real Estate and People & Organizational practices following an introduction by a former WeWork colleague.

McKinsey had clients of all types (e.g., real estate companies, government agencies, employers with massive HQs, PE firms investing in proptech, workplace software companies, etc.) asking increasingly complex questions about approaching the post-pandemic workplace. This often required a nuanced understanding of how offices performed pre-pandemic when many executives and the generalist strategy consultants (i.e., not RE specialists) who served them weren't paying attention to the details.

I wanted to shape the public narrative about the future of work and help organizations sustain a competitive advantage through the changes necessary to address it.

I believed then (and still do) there was no better place to do that than at McKinsey. ??

(2) What did I learn from working at McKinsey?

As they say, the first rule of Fight Club is that we don't talk about Fight Club. ??

Kidding aside, there are books dedicated to the history, culture, and impact of McKinsey, and websites that help prospects prepare for interviews by explaining how McKinsey consultants typically approach problems. So I won't bother going into any of that here.

I obviously cannot talk about what I learned in my client engagements; you may have noticed that neither McKinsey nor its clients openly discuss working together.

Instead, here are some nuances of how the firm works that tend to surprise my friends:

• Nobody has a boss. At least not on the client-facing side of the house. This is awesome for autonomy but requires a committed network of sponsors to create opportunities for you.
• We don't have all the answers. When asked novel questions by clients, project teams canvass not only internal SMEs and distilled knowledge but also call on external experts for current perspectives across all sides of a problem. Turning all that qualitative input into deal-driving, quantitative recommendations is the secret sauce.
• Costly but consistent. The fee for most engagements is team size times duration, no matter the topic, and most execs know that math before even picking up the phone...in part because lots of CXOs are former McKinsey. This means they don't call unless they have a McKinsey-sized problem, which is incredibly powerful for aligning interests against performance.
• The need for speed. Spending time on commoditized activities like slide formatting, wrestling Excel formulas, or doing desktop research is not productive for consultants. These tasks are automated and internally outsourced to help the teams keep moving forward. Got a napkin sketch of an amazing framework? Send it off to be digitized and keep on chugging.

Working in such an ecosystem pushed me to think differently about my work and leadership styles, and the conditions I need to maximize my impact and success. It taught me how to approach larger and more unstructured problems than I'd previously encountered, how to build more compelling and comprehensive narratives to drive executive decisions, and how to solicit and incorporate feedback on tight schedules effectively.

I am forever grateful to my colleagues and clients and cannot wait to incorporate my learnings into a new opportunity.

As for what you can learn from what I learned at McKinsey, my research and published works remain on the website I created for that purpose: McK.co/Workplace.

(3) Why did I decide to leave McKinsey?

During my first week of orientation at the firm, several talent / people / training leaders warned me that, despite an excellent personal development track record and famously feedback-oriented culture of growth and mentoring, McKinsey historically struggles to engage and retain two particular populations of people:

• "Experienced hires" with 10+ years of work under their belt before joining McKinsey
• Functional experts with a proclivity for serving clients in many sectors on a few topics

...and I realized quickly that I fit both of those profiles. ??

I could fill an hour-long podcast episode with the rollercoaster ride that followed as I learned how to navigate the McKinsey system, understand the combination of factors required to build a successful platform (i.e., one that generates a sustainable flow of work), and retool my operating model a few times based on feedback from sponsors.

But, to save us all time, I'll say a combination of three circumstances inspired me to make this move now (voluntarily) vs. deciding in another 1-2 years:

• Many professional services firms are experiencing a moment of contraction in the current environment after a period of rapid growth / hiring during COVID
• Incremental measures and pressures were being applied through the regular performance management processes (as I would advise a client to do)
• I was leading client activation for organizational health earlier this year, which momentarily lowered my project utilization; this dynamic would have worked against me in reviews

So I would either have to navigate the coming months in a state of uncertainty, compounded by a lingering feeling that to be more successful at McKinsey I would need to become a type of consultant I did not want to be (i.e., more of a generalist), or make the choice to leave and find a new, reinvigorating career opportunity.

After seeking the advice of some 100+ colleagues, a poignant observation from my wife finally gave me the courage to act: Kate said I had not recently been energized and having fun the way she had seen me in previous roles, especially at WeWork.??

Said another way, I loved working at McKinsey; the caliber of intellect and complexity of client problems and partnerships is unparalleled. It just wasn't the right fit for me right now.

So I left.??

(4) What am I doing right at this moment?

While I think about what's next (see next section), I hired myself back to PK Consulting (my solo consulting business), turned my website back on, and my phone line is open.??

As I did between WeWork and McKinsey, I am advising workplace companies, evaluating fractional workplace and employee experience roles, doing speaking engagements, etc.

And all this at a very generous discount from my McKinsey day rate. ?? ??

With conference season in full swing, you can see or hear me in a few places:

• Forbes Future of Work (Sep 12) -- attending
• Quilt.AI AI-volution of Culture (Sep 20) -- attending
• WORKTECH NY (Oct 7) -- moderating a panel
• Charter Workplace Summit (Oct 8) -- attending
• WorkSpaces (Oct 13-15) -- presenting
• CoreNet Global DC (Nov 2-3) -- thinking about it...should I go!?!

...plus I'm doing webinars and podcasts with Gable, Modo, NexThink, Huddl3, and FlexOS.

I'll post about individual events as they get published or closer to their dates.

(5) What do I want to do next?

The answer to this question changes with every new inspiring conversation, and I am trying to keep an open heart and mind about the kind of opportunities I might not expect to find.

Generally speaking, I feel pulled back to the client (non-consulting) side in employee experience, the future of work, and organizational effectiveness leadership roles. I don't want a role limited to corporate real estate but I am happy to oversee or influence it.

My career so far has allowed me to innovate at the intersection of people, place, and technology, and I would love to work for a CHRO or COO who is as passionate about the future operating system of work (e.g., flex + AI + gig + skills, etc.) as I am.

I also cannot see a world where I would be forced to go silent on this platform; I want to work for a company that wants to share lessons and learnings with the world.

Here are some inspiring profiles I have been using as examples, all people to whom I am thankful for sharing stories from their travels and advice for the journey ahead:

• Jason Allen Ashlock , Kuehne + Nagel's SVP of Customer + Employee Experience
• Dan Black , EY's Head of Talent Strategy and Organizational Effectiveness
• Sander de Bruijn , ING's Head of Global Employee Experience
• Annie Dean , Atlassian's Head of Team Anywhere
• Lauren DeYoung , Allstate's Workplace Futurist
• Barrie Hottinger , Mastercard's Director of Future of Work
• Summer Koide , Target's Senior Director of Hybrid Work
• Chris Louie , Thomson Reuters' Head of Future of Work + Talent Strategy
• Darren Murph , Zillow's Senior Director of Cloud HQ Experience
• Dr. Christian Schmeichel , SAP's Chief Future of Work Officer
• Brigit Simler , Standard Chartered's Head of Employee Advocacy
• Allison Vendt , Dropbox's VP of People Operations / Future of Work

... plus more real estate executives and future of work consultants than I can name here.

As a parting thought for this section, I have now been a consultant or service provider in the workplace arena for twice as long as I was a practitioner. It's not lost on me that I might be destined to stay on this side of the world to continue serving multiple clients concurrently.

(6) How can you help?

The answer to this one is pretty simple:

• Do you have specific ideas for roles to explore and/or interesting people to meet?
• Do you know an executive struggling with employee experience, the hybrid of it all, the design of corporate real estate functions, or organizational / team effectiveness?
• Is there an event on your radar seeking inspirational, future of work thought leaders?

For all this and more, my website is easy to share and my inbox is open (LinkedIn or email).

Also, if we have worked together in the past, please engage with my article in some way and share it with anyone you think might find it valuable.

LAST UPDATED: Tuesday, September 10th, 2024