It's Personal Stories, A Hospitality Podcast

Ryan Mann, Partner at McKinsey & Company, interviewed by Dorothy Dowling

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Dorothy Dowling interviews Ryan Mann from McKinsey & Company in the 'It's Personal Stories' podcast. Ryan shares his career journey, the pivotal role of COVID in his professional life, and the importance of asking the right questions in consulting. He discusses leadership in consulting, time management, nurturing talent, and future disruptions in the hospitality industry. Ryan emphasizes core skills like synthesis, problem breakdown, and differentiating between facts and insights. He concludes with advice on self-reflection and focusing on learning, not just achieving titles.

Dorothy Dowling:

Greetings. I am Dorothy Dowling and welcome to its Personal Stories, a hospitality podcast that highlights the inspiring journeys of leaders in the hospitality industry. We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to personal empowerment. I am delighted to welcome Ryan Mann, partner at McKinsey and Company. Ryan, it is such an honor to have you with us today.

Ryan Mann:

Thank you Dorothy. It's an honor to be with you today.

Dorothy Dowling:

So Ryan, we always like to start our interview talking about our guests career journey. So I'm hoping you would share with our audience what inspired you to pursue a career in consulting and what led you to focus on the hospitality sector.

Ryan Mann:

Absolutely. you and I have something very important in common. We're both Canadians. You grew up in Ontario. I grew up in Montreal, Quebec. Despite my love for hockey, after graduating from McGill with a degree in marketing, I moved as far away from the cold as I possibly could. And I took a job in Los Angeles, in, in brand and advertising research. I enjoyed the job. I loved living in la. Love the beach, love the summertime weather. But after five or so years I found myself itching for something new. So I went to business school in Chicago at Northwestern. And that's where I learned more about consulting and decided to give it a try. So I joined McKinsey about a decade ago after completing a summer internship with the firm. And when I started at McKinsey, I like, like most first year consultants, had no idea what I wanted to do. I thought I'd try a few industries and a few functions before settling on a major, and I did just that in my first year. So I did a project in banking. I did a project in life reinsurance of all topics. A fun study for a large retailer. I was having fun. I was working long hours traveling across the country, living out of a suitcase, but. As I was starting to feel like I was getting the hang of consulting, I didn't, I still hadn't found the spark that would give me that extra jolt of energy and passion. I soon found it though, in, in hotels. So in my third year at McKinsey, I had the privilege of partnering with an iconic hotel chain on a digital transformation, and it was eye-opening for me. I finally felt like I had landed on my passion. I found the hospitality sector. It was just beautifully complex. Certainly not for the faint of heart, but I loved it. It had a language that frankly just spoke to me. Hotels play such an important role in our lives. They care for us. They house us at our very best moments in celebrations, sometimes at are most vulnerable moments. And most importantly, though, the industry attracts what I found to be the perfect intersection of smart and kind people. And these were people that I wanted to be around. I wanted to learn from them and I wanted to help them, make them as successful as possible. So I felt like I had finally truly found my home. At the time, McKinsey actually had only a small hotel practice, and so I decided to go all in on the sector and help grow it by building, world class knowledge and insights and recruiting some of our best people to it. And. Today I'm proud that our hotel sector and our travel sector more broadly, it's one of our fastest growing worldwide and one that attracts our very best talent to our engagements.

Dorothy Dowling:

There's a couple things that you said there, Ryan. What always has attracted me to the industry is just the sense of the inventory being perishable. So it creates a sense of urgency and, just a level of prioritizing in terms of making decisions. I, but I do love what you said about the people in our industry'cause I do think they're truly special and I think you are one of those special people. So I'm really grateful that you're part of our industry. Thank you. I'm just wondering if you can talk a little bit about defining moments. I know you talked a little bit about your going back to school and that approach that you took at McKinsey, but were there some pivotal moments that really drove some of your career decisioning?

Ryan Mann:

Yeah, so look like many of my generation, I have to point to Covid as a career definer. O overnight all of my client work disappeared. And on a personal level, I couldn't fly home to see my parents. My now wife and I had to cancel our wedding after delaying it three times, and, of course there was a global pandemic going on, so you had to deal with that and it's very scary. But through the darkness, I'd say there were many moments that shaped me both personally and professionally. So with no client work at all I raised my hand to lead a team focused on travel's, response to Covid. You've gotta think back and remember, Dorothy, at the time, the world was turning upside down every day. Nobody knew what to make of it. And at McKinsey, our think tank, the McKinsey Global Institute. Was working around the clock seven days a week to collect as much data as possible. So what I did is I took what they were doing took those inputs, turned them into insights for the travel industry. I had a team. We wrote articles, we published videos. We held weekly webinars to get as much info as we possibly could into the hands of our beloved travel industry. Every week we had about 500 or so organizations join us on these webinars, and it was humbling to be able to. Help folks makes even the slightest bit of sense out of the world at the time. We did this for nine months. And through this effort, I'll say I, I learned the true power of global collaboration as well as the power of truly just service, right? So in a crisis, run toward the fire, do what you can to help no matter how big or small a contribution you think you're making. In my case, it was just trying to get some information out about our industry.

Dorothy Dowling:

That's an incredible story, Ryan, and I do think that Covid really redefined many of us. And I do think that nature of us collaborating and trying to support each other through some of the challenges as well as share information was I. W was defining for many. And I've always respected McKinsey because you do make an investment in the industry and trying to enable all of us to be smarter and better informed. But I do think the work that you did through Covid was extraordinary. So I thank you for taking that and for helping all of us unpack what data was out there and. Also just be a friend and a mentor to many as we all struggled through some of the personal and professional challenges that we all faced during that time. Absolutely. So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about great leadership and what it looks like in consulting, because obviously you have to be on the forefront of change. You've gotta be looking and adapting and really offering a lot of strategic thinking to your clients, and you're constantly being tested in that arena. So I'm hoping you might offer things to our audience about how you approach all of that challenge.

Ryan Mann:

I remember in my interview for McKenzie, my interviewer asked me a similar question and I replied with this great story that I had meticulously prepared for my prior roles in marketing research. And the story was about how I had to show leadership on my team when the team just wasn't functioning very well. And I, as the manager had to make some tough calls. And I'll actually never forget the feedback my interviewer gave me. She said that's an interesting story. But it's the wrong story. I. For consulting because in your prior role, your team had to listen to you. You were the boss. But in consulting, nobody has to listen to you. You're nobody's boss. Definitely not your client's bosses, and that means they don't have to listen to you at all. So you've gotta find other ways to be effective here. I, I hadn't even been offered the job when I received that feedback, but it totally shaped the way I think about leadership and consulting. In some ways I think of my job as a catalyst, whether that's to make a decision to transform an organization to build a new business. And I can't do this by telling anyone what to do. I have to instead come up with an independent perspective of the answer, build a case for it with facts, perspectives, scenarios, leadership alignment. And I've actually found that as I've grown as a partner in consulting, my leadership style shifted away from always have to have the answer to trying to ask the right question. And to me, I think this is the most interesting part of what I get to do every day. And it's a large part of what's kept me here for a decade.

Dorothy Dowling:

Okay, I'm gonna unpack that a little bit more, but I do think that whole element of continuing to challenge and offer questions is critically important in terms of really getting to what problem is trying to be solved for, and then also continuing to iterate on some of those solutions, which I know McKenzie has incredible discipline in terms of. Really solving for their clients and supporting their client's problems. I'm wondering if I can move on and talk a little bit about time management and priority setting, because we both know that I. Consulting is notoriously demanding. It has tremendous amounts of travel, and you're often in an environment where you are on a virtual stage where people are listening to you. You have to be speaking with authority and from a position of knowledge. I would love to hear how you personally manage all those time demands and you set priorities when everything that's on your plate feels urgent.

Ryan Mann:

Yeah, it's a great question. So look at this point in my career, a, after having done it for about a decade, I generally have a good sense of how long most things on my plate will take me to do. And I also schedule my days to the minute so I know exactly how much time I have. Now inevitably demand is higher than supply, and I solve this through my network of trusted colleagues. Not a day goes by when I don't make an introduction to a colleague who's better suited to meet a client, answer a question, write a report. I. I am very fortunate, I think, to work with some of the most talented and passionate people in the world. And so I feel very good about saying things like, look I'd love to do this, but let me introduce you to Melinda or Alex or Daniel or Christian. I have complete trust in them and I know they'll absolutely knock this out of the park. And so that I think has helped me have leverage over time, gain control over my calendar.

Dorothy Dowling:

I think that's really great advice and you do have an, a remarkable team of peers as well as teammates that you can bring into solving those kinds of challenges. Ryan but I'd like to hear a little bit more in terms of the client deliverables, because often they're hiring you. I know how much global travel you're doing. And I know the kinds of challenges that people are asking for your assistance with. So I would love to hear, and I know you just became a new dad not too long ago and you got married recently, so I would love to hear how you manage that work life pharmacy, harmony, and also role model that for your team.

Ryan Mann:

Look, this is a bit of a hot take, Dorothy but I don't aim for, I don't aim for balance. Balance implies some degree of even split across personal and work and I frankly just don't think that's attainable. Not in consulting and not in most jobs, in careers these days. It's funny actually how this cell phone, which was supposed to free us from the oppressive landline, which required you to sit by your phone if you were expecting an important call, it's actually made us less free in some sense. Because now work is always just a glance away, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, especially with a global mandate. In that context, finding moments of sanity is absolutely critical for me to be able to do the deep thinking that I need to do to be effective in my role. I. If I'm just completing tasks all day I can't do what you described and speak about things and have a perspective. So for me, these moments are often when my flight's taking off. When I'm ironing my clothes for the day, when I'm showering, I just try and find those pockets of time. And then the other thing that keeps me grounded and you mentioned him, it's my 16 month old son, Noah. And holding him in my arms. It's the best. And he puts everything into perspective. And I've absolutely been late to meetings because I've spent an extra five minutes snuggling with him. And to be honest, I neither regret this, nor do I apologize for it. It's what makes it all worth it.

Dorothy Dowling:

Yeah, that's a beautiful story and Noah is a beautiful boy. Ryan and I think just actually allowing for that kind of humanity and giving people permission to, take those moments. Because I do think it restores our soul as well as I do think those moments of reflection allow us to bring much more. Meaningful thought to problems that we're trying to support others with. So thank you for that. And I do agree about your thought process on work-life balance. That's why I think it's so important that we find work that's fulfilling because then work doesn't really seem like work. So thank you for that. Thank you. So I know you talked earlier about this journey and when you went through the interview process and unpacking problems with clients really starts with listening and really honing in on the problem that you're trying to solve. But I'd love to hear how you actively listen and what advice do you have for leaders that are listening to you today in terms of how do you become a better listener?

Ryan Mann:

Yeah. Look, I think Dorothy's effective problem solving you, you're spot on, starts with active listening. And I think the active listening requires at least two mindsets. The first is respect and humility. Not to start with the counterfactual, but. I find that most people who don't actively listen have their talking points or their answers already in their heads, and they're just waiting for you to stop talking so that they could make their point. And active listening is different. It requires you to want to learn from the person you're engaging with. It's not about making sure your ideas get out there. It's about collectively getting to even stronger ideas together. That's the first. I think the second is curiosity. I think the best active listeners are also genuinely curious people. They care to understand how you think. I. It. Why you think that way? Your motivations. Do, Dorothy you probably remember the late night wars of the nineties, right? So Leno versus Letterman and Leno always won in the ratings, but I think True comedy fans all generally prefer Letterman. At least that's my opinion. And it's because. While Leno's interviews often followed a script, one question after the next, Letterman would really get into the trenches with his guests and explore ideas together. And that sometimes led to some pretty weird interviews, but also sometimes led to comedy gold. And so Letterman ceiling was much higher. And I think the same is true in problem solving. You've gotta get into the trenches, you've gotta ask questions, you've gotta listen carefully and build together. That's where the magic happens.

Dorothy Dowling:

I think that leads me to this next question because earlier you spoke about the investment that McKinsey makes in terms of educating others and providing really great thought leadership in terms of how we can continue to tap our game. And I. I've always loved a lot of the McKinsey assets that I've been able to buy over the years. And this whole concept of your structured thinking approach and how you think about mutually exclusive collective exhaustive approaches when you're approaching complicated problems. I. I'm just wondering if you can speak a little bit about that thought leadership that you've offered to so many of us and what that means in terms of your consulting efforts.

Ryan Mann:

Yeah. L let me talk about mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive, which actually little known fact, even though most people pronounce it. Mei, myself included, by the way, it's actually according to the person who pended pronounced me, like Greece okay. So thank you. The concept actually stems from a classic McKinsey framework, which we call the Pyramid Principle. And it was codified by Barbara Pinto, who was our firm's first female MBA professional hire. And in her role, like most partners, she was spending a lot of time editing documents and she found herself constantly reorganizing the team's ideas into a structure that looked a lot like a pyramid. And she developed that into a tool. So it's a tool to structure your thoughts. At the top of the pyramid is the main recommendation or the idea under that are the arguments. And then under that are the supporting insights and conclusions. And each point above has to be a summary of those below'cause it's derived from them. And as Barbara would say it, you can't derive an idea from a grouping. Unless the ideas in the grouping are logically the same and in logical order. So this concept requires that those groups of ideas are Missy divided pieces that are mutually exclusive of each other and collectively exhaustive in terms of the whole. And then on our teams, these pieces then often turn into the work streams that we assign to our consultants. In our team, problem solvings, we consistently ask each other. Is this answer truly Mei? Is this framework, is this list truly Mei? Are we missing something? Is there overlap? And I'll tell you, as a young consultant, there was no worse day. And when a partner came into the room, looked at your analysis and tells you didn't nail it, this isn't right, you've gotta scrap it.'cause it's not Macy.

Dorothy Dowling:

So I'm glad you pronounced it for me'cause I have said maci for a while and that was one of the reasons why I avoided it until you said it. But I do think that discipline approach to thinking and really continuing to iterate on that is something our audience can take back. And for those people that are listening, McKinsey has a lot of resource tools that are published that you can buy on Amazon or other places. And you can also subscribe obviously to a lot of. The McKinsey newsletters that you referenced earlier, Ryan, but I do think they make us better leaders regardless of whether we're consulting or not, in terms of really thinking through problem solving at a much more strategic level. So I appreciate you talking about that pyramid and how I. The relatability of all of those things flow up to the recommendation. Thank you. I wanna go back to questions if I may, because we talked about how important that is about asking the right questions. So I'm really hoping you can hone in and help us a little bit about how you continue to iterate on asking those strategic questions before you jump into the solution or the recommendation.

Ryan Mann:

Yeah, I can't emphasize how important it is to ask the right questions. The least successful projects I've been a part of have actually all had the same problem in common. We jumped right into solutioning before making sure we were asking the right questions. My teams will spend an uncomfortable amount of time upfront with our clients defining the problem, and it's actually absolutely normal for us to end up asking a different question. And the one we started with. So lemme give you a recent example. I was working on an operation study with a client recently, and the exam question they asked us was how to make a particular process more effective. And, we thought about it and we created all of our trees and started to think about how we would solve this. But as we dug into it we actually took a step back and reframed the question and said maybe a, an interesting thought experiment is, does this process need to even exist? And surprisingly because this company had been doing this process for 30 years, the answer actually turned out to be no. And so we saved months of work, millions of dollars just by asking the right question.

Dorothy Dowling:

I'm thinking about the hospitalities that leaders that are on this call today. Obviously we're facing, again, a lot of uncertainty and volatility in terms of what's going on in the macro environment and whether we're gonna be facing any kind of economic downturn. I'm just wondering what kind of advice you might give to hospitalities leaders about how do they make decisions in highly uncertain times.

Ryan Mann:

Yeah, the world we live in is definitely increasingly uncertain and even volatile. And and this environment, business leaders have to adapt. There's no choice. I think the answer to your question, Dorothy, is to get really specific about the type of uncertainty you're facing. And I actually usually think about three types of uncertainty. So in, in the first, there's a clear enough view of the future, not exactly sure, but you're pretty sure what it's gonna be. And imagine predicting RevPAR for the next quarter, right? There still some uncertainty. That uncertainty probably wouldn't change the answer of what you would go do. And so in those situations where there's a clear enough view of the future, I generally encourage my clients to develop a single forecast for those situations. In the second, there are small number of discreet alternative futures that are possible. So imagine, the impact of potential travel bans on your hotel. It's impossible or foolish to bet on just one scenario in that situation. So my advice to clients in these situations is to establish probabilities and figure out what parts of your strategy would need to change depending on which alternatives comes to pass. And, super important here is to figure out what are the early markers that will tell you whether you're headed toward one alternative versus another. So being early, ideally first to notice these that helps you move faster than your competitors and get ahead of whatever future is unfolding. That's the second. The third is where there's a true range of potential futures that are possible. Now there are a limited number of key variables that define that range, but the actual outcome could lie, frankly, anywhere within it. And there aren't any natural discreet scenarios within that. So for hotels, imagine, a chain introducing a new brand in a new chain scale. It could grow anywhere from zero to a hundred to 200 hotels in the next two years, but there aren't any obvious scenarios within that range. And so here what I recommend to clients is to develop. Two to three scenarios, no more within that range, each with distinct and unique implications for what you would go do if they're too similar. You don't need to waste time creating that scenario. And these scenarios should be probable. But they won't rep, they won't represent all of the possible potential outcomes. And then what you do is you go back to what you do in that second type of uncertainty and you model the implications and you look out for the markers. So those are the three types of scenarios that I tend to look at in uncertainty.

Dorothy Dowling:

I I think that's fabulous advice, and I do think that focusing on probability and then creating a disciplined thought plan around each one can power everyone in terms of. Reducing the amount of uncertainty and certainly having a game plan based on what kind of new information might be surfacing on a daily or weekly basis. So thank you for that. I wanna go back to a book that has been pretty instrumental to me, which is in McKinsey Way, and I love that book. I share it with many because it really helped me frame up some of my communication approaches and. I do love the rule of three. That's part of it, and I'm just wondering if you can expand a little bit on that and why that is really helpful for individuals to keep in mind when they have a story they wanna communicate.

Ryan Mann:

Yeah, it's a great book. And you actually just heard me name three things it's a good segue. So the rule of three essentially says that when presenting your key points, you should present them in threes, not in twos or fours. So why three? The reason for three, frankly, is it's as much art as it is science. So we found over time that three points tend to be more memorable. More clear and more confident. And three, also forces a choice in a way that two doesn't and four sometimes overwhelms. And so we landed on three. For us it's become very natural to think in threes and to communicate in threes. It's not always three, but it's often three. And it just sounds better to us when it's in threes.

Dorothy Dowling:

Yeah, no, I really like it and I think it ties back to that pyramid principle too, Ryan, in terms of just making sure that the narrative actually ties back to each one of those points that you're making in the rule of three. And I do think from an audience. Point of view, it allows people to absorb your information, manage this expectations about what's coming. And then it also, I think, makes it far more memorable. I'd like to build on that a little bit because you're an incredible speaker. I've had the good fortune of being in the audience several times and you've been on stage. So I'd love for you to share with the audience about how do you prepare yourself to deliver such impactful communications when you're on stage.

Ryan Mann:

Yeah. And as part of my role leading our hospitality sector I have the privilege of often speaking at conferences and offsites, and I always try to do a ton of prep ahead of any of these engagements. Every day I am compulsively reading Skift CoStar, hospitality today, BTN, other religiously. And I amp that up ahead of an engagement. I also talk to folks, clients, other partners not just in North America, but across the globe to hear what they're hearing and seeing even our own internal travel buyers to get their perspectives. And then I do some real deep thinking to develop my own perspectives on the points that I want to convey. And I often try to convey them in a contrary invoice so you know, nobody needs another suit telling them that Gen AI has the potential to transform trip itinerary planning. That's boring. It's played out and it's not, frankly, something I feel very passionate about. And so I, I look for that kernel of passionate interest'cause I think the audience will feel it. And I try to structure my speeches around those. So whether it's the future of managed business travel, or why hotel loyalty needs a revamped or, the opportunity for luxury hospitality to leapfrog and appeal to a whole new generation. These are the topics that, that I want to bring. Original thinking too and I feel passionate about sharing more broadly.

Dorothy Dowling:

If I could, I just wanna emphasize a few points that you made. One message I heard was just the outside preparation that you invest in, making sure that you're bringing good content. Two is just your daily commitment to staying informed, and I agree with you on all of the various trade pubs that you just identified in terms of keeping us up to speed on. A lot of what is happening on a daily basis. But the other piece that I really love that you brought forward, Ryan, is taking a contrarian point of view because I do think people hearing something different is, allows them to think differently as well. That's great advice for our audience. So thank you. I wonder if we can talk a little bit about the industry because the hospitality industry is seen as a traditional industry. We're tied up in a lot of legacy systems and other kinds of things that, from a capital investment that I think makes us much more traditional in our approach. I'm wondering if you can I identify for the audience, what do you think some of the big disruptors that are coming in the next three to five years?

Ryan Mann:

I'm excited. I think there are a number of really exciting areas to watch, but I think the first point I'd make here, Dorothy, is that whether we're looking three years out or 30 years out, I actually think the core of hospitality will remain. It's absolutely true that Gen AI is making waves and making changes, and it's absolutely true that vacation rentals have boomed over the past 15 years, but hotels are doing fine. And I think they will continue doing fine. A warm smile, a clean room, a comfy bed to rest for the night. There is no disruption that will upend this. I bet. Anything on that? That said, there are a number of changes that, that I am excited about. First I think distribution's gonna shift meaningfully. It's only a matter of time before gen AI engines start to embed auction elements and become the evolution of paid meta search. You combine that with the major chains, investing in their CRSs to enable things like attribute based selling, and I think we're gonna see a whole new world of merchandising across channels and distribution going forward.

Dorothy Dowling:

Yeah, I totally agree. I think that content and attribute selling and I do think the way we serve content back to consumers is going to change dramatically, and we are going to have to shift away from some of the legacy systems that we've been so dependent on and embrace some of this new technology and potentially right off some of those capital investments that have been made over. The last few decades.

Ryan Mann:

It's about time that we invest in some of these and move forward, right? We've been merchandising rooms and rates forever. It's about time we move forward.

Dorothy Dowling:

Yeah. And I do think the B2C space does it so much better than the B2B that we've gotta recognize that those customers do not live in discreet places. That they expect to see the same kind of solution in the business travel space as they see in the consumer space. So it.

Ryan Mann:

I think in business travel, we'll see a much more touchless journey. It'll totally transform the customer experience of business travel. My business travel profile, why doesn't it pull in a 360 view of my preferences, my behavior, my loyalty status? It should, right? On the flight side, I think NDC should finally start delivering personalized bundles. We'll see that in the next couple of years, we're already seeing it in pockets. And then on the lodging side, I should be receiving nudges to select bundled rates that benefit me, for example, points offers. But these things should also benefit my company. So I think we're gonna see that going forward. Yeah. The other thing I'm excited about here is, how travel shifts to cater to the needs and wants of younger generations in particular. It's not just that younger generations in survey after survey tell us how much they love travel'cause that's true, but it's also that younger generations are about to inherit I hope you're sitting down for this Dorothy, but$84 trillion in the largest wealth transfer in history. So you combine a, a group of travelers who disproportionately value vacations now with the ability to spend on those vacations. And I think our sector is gonna be supported by some real tail tailwinds in the near term.

Dorothy Dowling:

Yeah, I agree. I totally agree, Ryan, and I think keeping those data points in mind, because the other part that I also keep in mind is just the demography shift and the level of retirement and engagement that we have, time and money that's continuing to shift in terms of people's interest in travel and investment and experiences.

Ryan Mann:

Exactly. I

Dorothy Dowling:

am wondering if I could speak a little bit with you more about the commercial leadership evolution, because I would love to hear how you see the role of commercial leaders evolving in hospitality and what skills will be most successful for their future success.

Ryan Mann:

Yeah. I think commercial leaders have to be. The very best collaborators in their business, their role is really an integrative one. They've gotta integrate distribution, marketing brands, OTAs, care centers, sales, loyalty. They gotta work with operations and they've gotta make it all feel very seamless. They also increasingly need to find ways to do more with less, especially as we head into a period of relatively slower growth. And I think what that means is finding ways to use technology in smart ways so that you can reallocate resources and funds to areas that would disproportionately benefit from it. And then I think commercial leaders need to be expert clear communicators. As the major chains continue to collect brands and loyalty programs lose some of their shine, right? The chief commercial officer has to be able to clearly and persuasively communicate their organization's value prop, what makes'em unique and worthy of your staying and being the voice of your brand and doing so in a clear and compelling way is absolutely crucial.

Dorothy Dowling:

There's a lot to unpack there, but I do think the two main points that I heard was just this need to collaborate across all the lines of business as well as all of the subject matter experts, Ryan, to really make sure that we're leveraging the diversity of thought and bringing much more alignment in terms of a go to market approach. And I also agree with your point of view in terms of being a very clear communicator and understanding your value proposition. Winning and losing is often. You have to have your offensive strategy, you have to have your defensive strategy, but you always have to understand the value proposition that you bring to the customer as well. I'm wondering if we could talk a little bit about talent because I have been extraordinarily impressed with some of the teammates that I know have been nurtured by you. I would love to hear how you actually take on that responsibility, developing talent within McKinsey and nurturing high performing consultants.

Ryan Mann:

I, I look for three things. Passion, curiosity, and creativity. The rest I can teach, but when I find someone with passion, curiosity, and creativity, I know I've found a star and I overinvest to develop this person. Our culture at McKinsey is an apprenticeship culture. We learn by doing, and so I bring folks, I support onto my teams. I, I carefully give them opportunities to stretch and. As I've become more senior here, I've also grown much more comfortable not being the first voice in the room. So often my managers or the associate partners will lead the presentation and I'll weigh in or ask questions throughout. I. We also have a very strong feedback culture at McKinsey. And in truth we probably got a bit away from it during Covid especially when everyone was just remote. But it's definitely back and we do in the moment feedback. We also do more structured, regular feedback sessions across teams and I think feedback has to go both ways. I always ask everyone, no matter how junior or senior for feedback on my performance and engagement'cause. I think we always have a lot to learn, by the way, and that's not just team members. That also for me includes clients.

Dorothy Dowling:

I think that's really great advice and I do think that structured feedback is something we can all learn from because I do think in this world of, hybrid work and other things it's the way we stay connected to each other and support each other and really help with that growth. And I know everyone is struggling with talent in terms of building and nurturing, so I think that. Concept of how to do that well is something our audience can really learn from you. I'd also like to ask about how you build Future Ready Teams and how you coach your teammates. How to build Future Ready Teams. They're still required to deliver on the consulting and the short term business requirements that you have within your scope of work.

Ryan Mann:

Yeah. In, in some ways you can't have. You can't get the benefit of having a long-term plan without delivering short-term results, right? You gotta earn your way to that long-term plan. So this is critical, and that's true for organizations. That's also true for teams. And I think the piece that often gets missed is succession planning. I. Having a really strong bench and nurturing that bench is really important. I coach my clients to always be thinking about what their team members in their group should be doing in two years, not today what they should be doing in two years and what they're doing today how that'll set them up for the next role. When I was a young consultant, I always thought if I could make myself irreplaceable, I'd always have a job. And now I actually think about this differently. I wanna make myself replaceable so that I have the time and the space to focus on the next role. And I think this is really important and it's something I spend a lot of time coaching my clients on.

Dorothy Dowling:

Again, I think that's very impactful advice, and I think to have that two year vision of what work they will want someone to be able to do and actually building that capability with their team is really important. So I thank you for that as well. Ryan. I'm just wondering for our audience of aspiring leaders that are listening to you, how would you help them think more like a consultant?

Ryan Mann:

I don't know that aspiring hospitality leader should necessarily think more like us. But there are parts of our toolkit that I think could benefit everyone. For example, a few tricks that I would take with me if I were to return to industry. So let me give you a few. One is synthesis. So summarizing a large number of facts and anecdotes into their essence. I often ask my teams, what's the one or two sentence summary and what are the implications for the client's business? I sit in a lot of meetings in my role as I'm sure you do and your audience does. And you can imagine how many of them just tend to go on and on and swirl to the point where it's hard to know what's been decided. And I love when someone raises their hand at that point and says something like, let me try to synthesize or let, try to summarize what we just talked about or just decided and what the next steps are. And I think that clarity helps move a problem forward in spades. So I think that's really important. The second thing I'd say is the ability to break a problem down into bite-sized chunks. McKinsey, we get called in to solve some of that, the hairiest problems you could think of, and it could be pretty intimidating, especially in the first couple of weeks when we're still wrapping our heads around it, but we're trained to immediately take that problem and start breaking it down into components at a level where each component can be solved independently. We have many tricks, many tools to do this, but I think that the essence is don't get intimidated. Problem solving is a contact sport, and you've gotta jump in order to make progress. And then, the third one I'll give you here, Dorothy, is I think it's really important to recognize the difference between a fact and an insight. Anyone can collect facts, but pushing yourself to really think about what is the insight? Will this insight cause you to think differently about a decision? I think that's actually the magic. There aren't typically hundreds of these. They are few and far between, but your job is to hunt these down, turn over every stone until you find them, because that's what can be truly game changing for an organization's trajectory.

Dorothy Dowling:

I think that I. Insights is very impactful, Ryan, so I'm gonna take that one myself. But I do think the way you've built the bridge between facts and really offering something that could be game changing for the business is something every leader could benefit from. So we're coming up to the end of our interview, Ryan, and I'm just wondering, I know you. Identified a lot of publications that you read very frequently, but I'm just wondering if there's any books or other ideas or around podcasts or frameworks that might have been helpful to you or continue to be helpful that you might offer to our audience in terms of how they can continue their journey?

Ryan Mann:

Yeah. I love I just recently read this book I love it, was called A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger, and what it does is it turns questions into an art form. I. And when I noticed it or when I read it, rather, I noticed an immediate change in how I was asking questions and I think asking better questions leads to better answers. So that was a really good book and I, I definitely recommend reading that. I also never miss the ethicist column in the New York Times. Reading through how the ethicist reasons through impossible questions I think has made me a better problem solver.

Dorothy Dowling:

Again, thank you for that. And I'm gonna buy that book'cause I haven't read it yet myself, so I'll look forward to that. Yeah. The last question that we always ask is if there's any final piece of advice that you'd like to offer to the individuals in the hospitality industry that are listening to you today? Ryan, in terms of how they may wanna build their career map and plan their journey with intention,

Ryan Mann:

I'd say throw away the map. The world is changing so fast that maps won't really do you any good. You can't connect the dots forward anyway. You can only connect them backwards, and I think there are a few really valuable practices, but spending too much time planning has only limited utility. A couple of the practices that I would recommend are one, self-reflect a lot. Spend time after every big milestone or project reflecting on what went well, what you do differently next time, and importantly, write it down. Revisit it every few months and then start to connect dots and find themes. And I think those will guide your next move. And then think about what you wanna learn, not where you wanna be. I think we can really get caught up in titles or promotions or wins but a career is not meant to be limited. And linear. It is not a race. So rather than saying, I want to be a director in two years, instead, focus on the skills you want build. And the things you wanna learn and experience, and I honestly think that this will be not only more fulfilling, but it'll probably take you to places you never could have imagined to begin with. I.

Dorothy Dowling:

I've always personally believed that a career is a marathon. It's not a sprint. So I do think the way you've architected that process Ryan, and not saying that, you can have some degree of intention in terms of where you wanna go, but you're talking more about. Being a learning journey and a growth journey. And I've, I'm a big fan of Carol Dweck, have been for many years, and I always love her thought process of not yet, because that just means that it is something that sometime in the future that we will get there. So if I could just close, and express my appreciation, Ryan, for just offering so much wonderful wisdom to our audience today and being so well prepared as you always are, and I know the audience is going to take your advice to heart and it will certainly help all of us to become better in the roles that we have today. And. And prepare us for the future. So thank you. And if I could, I also would like to thank our audience because if you've enjoyed this interview with Ryan today, I hope you'll visit us on our website, it's personal stories.com, where you will see webcasts and podcasts from other industry leaders that will empower your knowledge and feel your spirit. So I hope to see you there and again, thank you from the bottom of my heart, Ryan, for making time for this important conversation today.

Ryan Mann:

Thank you, Dorothy. Always a pleasure.

Dorothy Dowling:

Likewise.