There are two topics that routinely trigger my attention and ire:
1. When consultants claim to know things the rest of us don’t.
2. When business leaders still don’t understand how to properly manage humans.
McKinsey’s State of Organizations 2026 report hits on both. It suggests leaders don’t know how to build culture or motivate their employees, despite many of them spending billions with consultants like McKinsey.
The company has made billions per year advising these kinds of companies—their clients—on how to restructure business units and culture, yet none of this work has delivered meaningful improvement.
I dug into the report. And what I found surprised me: An insight that McKinsey’s own researchers and analysts missed. It may be the secret to motivation that we’ve been waiting for, and you don’t have to hire a consultant to start practicing it today.
