Bain & Company is Banal Retentive

ba·nal/ˈbānl/

While Bain & Co’s insights are generally spot-on, their generality in recent articles has become excruciatingly tedious. They seem to have built so many PowerPoints that they’ve forgotten what actually matters to business executives. Their article entitled “Getting Ahead of the Game-Changing Trends” is so bland and obvious that an undergraduate 300-level management course might actually dig deeper on syllabus day.

Here’s their main points about organizational behaviors:

• Be consistent
• Keep it simple
• Stay fast and nimble
• Focus on the customer

Really? My company needs to be consistent, simple, and first to market? Thanks, Bain & Co.

A reminder now and again about basic management material is nice, but that shouldn’t be the end of Bain’s insight. Reading an article that is supposed to push the reader to hire Bain’s expert consultants but lacks so much depth reflects poorly on a great company.

Perhaps Bain is trying to get on Malcolm Gladwell’s gravy train of writing children’s books for executives. With executives still digging themselves out of the trenches, the last thing they need is for a historical thought leader like Bain & Co to turn into the Jessica Simpson of the consulting world.

Next time lets hope they deliver a little less Kool Aid and a little more killer instinct.