These are all executives who have been trained for years to grow their own businesses and are compensated based on their profitability. Suddenly I was saying to them, essentially, “I want you to pay less attention to the business at which you’ve been very successful, and start paying more attention to this other thing. And by the way, you have to work on this new thing along with these other very competitive people from other teams, whose interests don’t necessarily line up with yours. And one more thing, it won’t make money for a while.

I have worked in services companies (McKinsey and American Express) and product companies (RJR Nabisco and IBM). I will state unequivocally that services businesses are much more difficult to manage.

He couldn’t see how it made any difference to Tesco’s grand plans if he gave his presentation on Friday instead of tomorrow. But his manager insisted. It was irritating to be subject to someone else’s arbitrariness. It was just a culture of performative zeal. McKinseyites were supposed to be the shock troops of capitalism, sacrificing themselves to smash through problems. James was supposed to be eagerly hurling himself into the fray. But he couldn’t quite get himself geed up.

his pride had suffered. His weariness was still outmatched by fury. He did not pause to consider whether the HR people were right, or whether McKinsey was still the right path upwards. He refused to lose.

But he could see Roland was still thinking about muslins. He gave up and said, “Did you see about McKinsey?” Roland was glancing at Alice. “Um, no. I don’t think so?” “They’ve been caught consulting on how to maximise opioid sales in the US. How to push higher doses and make doctors prescribe more.”