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10 The McKinsey Mind

could take. We have limited resources and limited funds, so
we can’t go everywhere; we have to start following these
paths one at a time. A framework helps you prioritize your
options. We save so much time and energy by not going
down the wrong path. That’s the key. Not necessarily know-
ing what the right path is, but not going too far down the
wrong one.

The role of senior management in this is to structure “reality”
in order to make it easily graspable. Executives do this by defin-
ing the scope of the problem at hand in order to see all its ramifi-
cations—the links to other factors and the whole scope of
consequences. They can then disregard unimportant factors and
concentrate on prioritizing the options available to the organiza-
tion. This allows them to communicate the (potentially complex)
problem and its solution in easily understandable terms, to make it
clear to those who need to execute management’s directives.
We will examine gathering the data and communicating the
solution in later chapters, so let’s turn now to defining and simpli-
fying the problem. In the generic approach to framing the problem,
McKinsey-ites put this concept into practice by breaking the prob-
lem before them into its component elements. Why? In most cases,
a complex problem can be reduced to a group of smaller, simpler
problems that can be solved individually. The problems McKinsey
handles are either extremely complex (“How can we maintain
shareholder value in the face of competitive pressure and union
demands when our core market is shrinking?”) or stated so
broadly as to be insoluble without further clarification (“How do
we make money in our industry?”). Separating out the individual
pieces of the problem will make it easier for you and your team to
identify the key drivers of the problem (see Chapter 2) and focus
your analysis accordingly.