ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author focuses on three early developments in which he took an active part: The McKinsey approach to strategy; managing— a basic social process; and Executive education, after a few background notes. When the depression struck James O. McKinsey had in hand a method for assessing a company's total strengths and for projecting a company's plan for confronting its turbulent competitive environment. While innovative and personally ambitious, McKinsey evaluated ideas in terms of their usefulness to business managers. McKinsey himself was reluctant to put the general survey outline into writing because he feared that his staff people would follow it slavishly instead of being selective in what to emphasize. Nevertheless, for many others the "takeoff' push goes back to McKinsey's way of plotting the trajectory for a total business. The dominant purpose of the outline, in McKinsey's words, was "a way of thinking about company problems."
