McKinsey Seven S's: Strategy, Systems, Structure, Staff, Skills, Style, Shared Values

Strategy, Systems, and Structure constitute the "hard" S's. The other four are "soft" S's. This framework was developed by McKinsey consultants in the early 1970s, and is discussed in Tom Peter's book "In Search of Excellence."

Together, the hard and soft S's constitute a company's competitive advantage. As per McKinsey, these seven factors can be hard to duplicate by a competitor. In other words, these key factors, if developed and nurtured right, will work in synergy to create a superior company vis-a-vis the competition.

Franteractive Take: If your management has nothing better to do, give them the above Seven S's as food for thought, so that your company becomes better. In particular, the executive management can work on the top three or the hard S's, while the HR department in synergy with the middle management and the rank and file employees can work on the bottom three soft S's. Given time, your company will build up the center S of "Shared Values." If you need Franteractive Strategy Consultants to do this at a fraction of the compared to McKinsey / BCG / Bain / Booz Allen, please refer to our Consulting Services section for more information.