What silently kills your reputation
Making sloppy mistakes kills your productivity and reputation. You trigger more comments and unnecessary iterations. That's how you waste your time. Then, partners see you as a struggling consultant.
Do you know what silently kills your productivity and reputation at McKinsey, BCG, or Bain?
It's making sloppy mistakes.
It feels like a death by a thousand cuts.
Let me illustrate this with one example.
I once staffed a second-year consultant. Initially, I liked how she worked. She seemed smart, capable, and motivated.
But one thing slowly eroded my trust in her.
She would always send me slides with sloppy mistakes: typos, layout issues, and misaligned elements.
But the worst thing was that her pages did not improve over time. Even after a few iterations, I kept spotting the same mistakes.
I gave her feedback multiple times, but the situation didn’t improve materially. She would just shrug it off as unimportant.
At some point, I gave up and started tweaking her slides myself before sending them to partners and clients. I knew it hurt my productivity as an EM, but I didn't want to keep bugging her.
I eventually branded her as uncoachable.
Believe me, you don't want this to happen to you as a consultant. That's the moment when your leaders give up on you. You won't even know what happened. It will feel like invisible shackles holding you back.
Eventually, I stopped investing in her. She wasn’t bad enough to flag her to staffing. But I decided not to work with her again.
Here’s the insight:
Every sloppy mistake and unnecessary iteration slowly erodes your reputation.
Remember, you work in MBB consulting. You are an elite operator in a highly competitive environment. Partners and clients expect impeccable outputs from you.
Don't hurt yourself.
Don't make partners see you as a consultant who always produces crappy outputs.
Be meticulous. Always polish your outputs. Every iteration counts.
If you're an MBB consultant who feels stuck, overworked, or ineffective, I want to speak with you.
Book a Free 1-1 Consultation to discuss whether I can help you through my coaching program. There is no commitment, and you can ask any burning questions in a risk-free environment.
Read this post to learn more about the Hero’s Journey coaching program.
Watch my latest YouTube video on how to stop the vicious cycle of poor performance:
I'm a big believer that as consultants we need to craft the right narrative. To me, typos and other mistakes like that show a lack of attention to the craft and can potentially send the wrong signal to a client: i.e. if they were too sloppy to fix this, what else did they skimp on? Some clients won't notice or won't care, but for the ones who will it's not worth the risk.