Why you better are MECE to survive McKinsey, BCG and Bain interviews

Video transcript:
If your plan is to survive McKinsey Boston Consulting Group or Bain's recruiting interviews, you better present data in a MECE way. What the MECE principle is? And why it is of crucial importance for all management consultants? You will learn in today's video.

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What does MECE stand for?

Now, what does MECE stand for? MECE stands for Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive.

MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE

So, what does that mean? Let's first think about mutually exclusive when it comes to presenting data. Let's make an example of the Americas, and let's say we want to present the population figure of the Americas. So we could decide to separate the population figure into North America and South America. So, we could present data by showing the population figure for South America and the figure for North America. There are no overlaps, so the data is mutually exclusive. If we present the data in a way that we show South America, North America, and the US, this presentation of data was not mutually exclusive because the United States is part of North America and is included in North America. So, there are some overlaps. That means the data is not mutually exclusive, and this is what you want to avoid because this creates a lot of confusion. If you present data mutually exclusive, this avoids confusion and misunderstandings. That's why you always should present data mutually exclusive.

COLLECTIVELY EXHAUSTIVE

So, what about collectively exhaustive? Let's stay with the example of the Americas' population figure. Let's assume we want to present this figure collectively exhaustive. So, if we take the North American population figure, the South American population figure, and present those together, they're collectively exhaustive because they sum up to the total population figure for the Americas. If we present South America and the US and nothing else, that would not be collectively exhaustive because both of them don't add up to the total number for the Americas. We have to add the category 'other' to make it collectively exhaustive, or we could add Canada and Mexico and maybe some other states, which we count into North America. That way, the data is collectively exhaustive. So, make always sure that your data is complete and sums up to the total of what you are trying to present in a collectively exhaustive way. And MECE now is the combination of both. That means your data must be mutually exclusive so that you don't have any overlaps and collectively exhaustive that the parts sum up to the total. Then your data is considered MECE , and that's the way you must present your data in case interviews and also in your career as a management consultant.

PowerPoint Slide Summary

I prepared a slide with different representations of data. Some of the charts are MECE ; others are not. Just to give you some real-life examples. On the left, you find a representation of the world motor vehicle production. Asia Pacific, America, Europe, and Africa are all mutually exclusive and total up to the world total. Therefore, the chart is MECE. Now, let's have a look at the second chart from the left. In this chart, EU 15 and the UK were added. That means the total is bigger than the world total, and also there is an overlap because EU includes the EU 15 and the UK. Therefore, the chart is not MECE. Let's look at the third chart on the left. This gives us the motor vehicle production for the Americas. As we can see, we have South America, Canada, Mexico, but the US is missing. Therefore, the figure doesn't total up to the Americas figure. Therefore, this chart is not MECE.Now, let's look at the second chart on the right. We have the US, Mexico, South America, and Canada. So, it looks like on the first glance that the chart is MECE. But what happened behind the scenes is that for South America, the production figure was replaced by the sales figure. So, we have different categories of data mixed in one chart. That also means the chart is not MECE because we will have overlaps between the sales and the production category. The chart on the right of the slide gives a representation of the Americas' motor vehicle production. It gives us the US figure and the other figure, which lumps everything else together. The chart is MECE because the total matches the Americas' figure, and there are no overlaps in the data. Therefore, the chart is MECE.Often, an often-made mistake is to forget the other categories. So, you look into maybe the US, you look into Europe, you look into South America, and then maybe you miss out on Africa or you miss out on what you call the rest of the world, which is another representation of 'other.' So, never forget the 'other' category to make your data MECE. This is a common mistake you should avoid.

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