When Even McKinsey Is Not Immune

In the previous post, “Is Traditional Consulting Broken? Signals of an Irreversible Shift,” we argued that the consulting industry is not facing a cyclical slowdown, but a structural misalignment between its historical model and today’s context.

This piece takes that argument one step further — not by looking at the margins of the industry, but at its most emblematic reference point.

What the Layoffs Reveal About the Entire Industry

For decades, McKinsey & Company has been more than a consulting firm. It has functioned as a benchmark — the reference point against which rigor, ambition, and excellence in consulting were defined. Its methods shaped how problems were framed, how talent was trained, and how value was priced across the industry.

That is precisely why the recent wave of layoffs at McKinsey matters far beyond the firm itself.

If the most emblematic institution of the consulting model is under strain, the issue is unlikely to be isolated. It raises a broader question: what does it mean when the standard itself begins to falter?

McKinsey as the purest expression of the model

McKinsey did not merely participate in the rise of modern consulting — it codified it.

Its success rested on a powerful combination: intellectual authority, elite talent pipelines, a highly leveraged organizational structure, and a reputation that granted access to the highest levels of decision-making. Over time, many firms emulated this architecture, adjusting for scale or specialization but preserving the same underlying logic.

In this sense, McKinsey represents the consulting model in its most refined and disciplined form. When pressure appears there, it rarely signals a marginal flaw. It points to tensions embedded in the system itself.

What the layoffs reveal beyond the numbers

Headcount reductions are often explained in operational terms: cost discipline, demand normalization, efficiency gains. At McKinsey’s scale and symbolic weight, such explanations fall short.

The significance lies not in how many roles are eliminated, but in where the pressure concentrates. Support functions, internal roles, and layers once justified by continuous growth are suddenly re-evaluated. This suggests a deeper reassessment of how value is generated — and how much structure that process truly requires.

In other words, the firm is not merely adjusting capacity. It is being forced to confront the limits of a growth logic that assumed perpetual expansion of scope, complexity, and billable activity.

Growth, reputation, and the weight of scale

McKinsey’s situation also exposes a structural paradox shared by the largest consulting firms.

Scale brings influence, reach, and financial power. But it also amplifies reputational risk, internal complexity, and conflicts of interest. As firms grow larger and more deeply embedded across industries and governments, preserving the perception of neutrality and independence becomes increasingly difficult.

At the same time, scale requires a constant flow of projects large enough to sustain extensive talent pyramids. When client expectations shift — toward faster impact, clearer accountability, or more selective use of external advisors — that equation becomes harder to balance.

The tension is not accidental. It is structural.

The ripple effect across the industry

What happens at McKinsey rarely stays at McKinsey.

For mid-sized firms and boutiques, the implications are immediate. Fee pressure intensifies. Clients benchmark more aggressively. The symbolic protection once provided by the prestige of the industry weakens.

More subtly, McKinsey’s recalibration legitimizes questions that were previously difficult to voice:

How much structure is truly necessary?

What part of the work generates judgment — and what part sustains the machine?

Where does advisory value end, and dependency begin?

When the reference point shifts, the entire field is forced to reassess its assumptions.

From firms to systems: a quieter shift

Beneath these pressures lies a quieter but more consequential question: how consulting knowledge is actually organized. For decades, the industry has treated expertise as something embodied primarily in firms — accumulated through experience, reinforced by reputation, and transmitted through hierarchical structures.

That assumption is now under strain. As knowledge becomes more explicit, more systematized, and more reusable, the source of advantage begins to shift. The question is no longer only who employs the smartest people, but who structures insight in a way that can be applied, traced, and transferred with minimal friction.

In that context, the challenges faced by large firms are not simply about scale or cost. They point to a deeper transition: from consulting as an organizational form to consulting as a system.

Closing: questioning the standard, not the exception

It would be a mistake to interpret McKinsey’s situation as a story of decline, mismanagement, or loss of relevance. The firm remains enormously influential.

But that is precisely the point.

When even the most sophisticated and successful expression of a model begins to show strain, the appropriate response is not to adjust the narrative around the case. It is to question the validity of the standard the case represents.

If the benchmark is under pressure, the conversation can no longer be about exceptions.

It has to be about the model itself.