Using Synthesis

Team Guide
Problem Solving

© Copyright 2020 McKinsey & Company. This material contains the confidential and proprietary information of McKinsey & Company
and is intended solely for your internal use and may not be reproduced, disclosed or distributed without McKinsey & Company’s
express prior written consent.
 ​Chapter › Topic

Using synthesis 20 minutes

​Instructions

​The value of synthesis is that it suggests implications to the reader—it doesn’t just ​Questions to consider:
provide a summary and ask the reader to derive the “so what.” Synthesis delivers both
 What is the “so what” I
the insight and the implications of that insight.
wanted the reader to take
away upon reading the
 Goal: Sharpen your team’s synthesis skills while also reflecting on tendencies with
email?
regard to summary and synthesis. Apply the synthesis approach to an email that was
recently written that was more of a summary than a synthesis  What are the implications
or conclusions of the “so
 Logistics: This is a group exercise meant to be completed with your team what”?

 Estimated time: 20 minutes

​Choose an email, written by yourself or one of your colleagues, to workshop together as

a group. Hand out printouts of the email to your colleagues, project the email, or read
the email aloud to the group. The email should be easy to understand for all in the
group, and one that you feel was more a summary than a synthesis, and that could
have benefitted from being a synthesis.

McKinsey & Company 2

Using synthesis
​Worksheet

1. Re-read the email and ask your colleagues to consider individually, then discuss, the following.
• What is the “so what” the author wanted the reader to take away upon reading this email?
• What are the implications or conclusions of this “so what”?
2. Rewrite the email as a group to make the “so what” and implications explicit. (Alternatively, you may ask the group to
each rewrite the email individually, and then have one colleague share their version, and solicit others to share where
their versions varied.)
• Please note: you may choose to keep the summary as support for the synthesis, or you may choose to shorten or
discard the summary. This choice is context-specific, depending on your audience and the information you feel they
might need to align with your synthesis.
3. Compare the initial email with the revised version, discussing the following as a group:
• Which email would you rather receive, if you were the reader?
• What benefits does the synthesis convey that the summary didn’t, for your reader?
• What was difficult for you about synthesis, and why do you think you didn’t synthesize in your first version? Make a
mental note of any tendencies or habits you would like to shift based on this exercise moving forward.
McKinsey & Company 3