Three Questions for Marvin's Biographer
Once upon a time, many of the CEOs of leading companies in America personally knew Marvin Bower, McKinsey's modern founder. They admired the firm he built and paid handsomely for its services. Still, Bower's contribution to industry has remained largely veiled by the same captains of industry he and his firm so diligently served. Now, in a recently published biography titled McKinsey's Marvin Bower, author Elizabeth Haas Edersheim shines a spotlight on the career of a man whose legacy stretches far beyond a single firm.
CM: Many credit Marvin Bower with having brought professional standards to consulting, but how would you characterize his impact on business in general?
Edersheim: In the world of business, his impact was huge in a couple of ways. First, let's go back in history. In 1850, the largest company in the world had 300 people, and it was a British textile company. In the 1870s, companies were growing ever larger and the only models they had for large organizations were armies, hence they depended on hierarchical command and control models. By 1914 to 1918 — during the First World War — (Frederick) Taylor's scientific mechanisms came into play to emphasize more hierarchy.
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