Fun facts: Are most people saying "MECE" wrong? A word from Barbara Minto

0:00"MECE" is one of the most famous concepts from consulting. It was invented by Barbara Minto, who I want to introduce you to. Hi, I'm Barbara Minto. Barbara Minto was one of the first female hires at McKinsey, graduating from Harvard Business School. She helped to invent both the Pyramid Principle and MECE. Both of these were used as ways to teach consultants how to write, which, if you go back, was really the primary way people communicated, people communicated through memos, and documents, and reports. Only recently have consulting firms more or less switched to PowerPoint.

0:43However, those PowerPoint documents, at least at their best, are based on good writing and good structured ideas. Before we dive into MECE more, I want to cover something which I found fascinating. How do you say "MECE"? There's this interview I stumbled across on McKinsey's alumni website, and it has pretty provocative title. She goes, "MECE, I invented it, so I get to say how to pronounce it." So, almost without fail, and I worked at McKinsey for two years, and everyone says, "MECE." When they asked her, "How do you actually say "MECE"?

1:23She was quick to say that it rhymes with "niece" or "Greece," so "Meece." I like to go with what people use. People are going to look at you funny if you start saying "Meece." But she says, "I invented it, so I get to say how to pronounce it." She also gives credit to Aristotle, which if you go back to some Aristotle's original writings on rationality and logic, you can find some of the similar ideas, but the fundamental idea is really just the structure you're thinking in a way such that an audience has an easier time understanding it.