Talk:Dominic Barton

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• He joined McKinsey's Toronto office in 1986 and had a difficult time making partner, saying "It took me three times before I was elected a partner....I was working hard and I was rejected….it was a bit of a slap in the head." [1]
  • The quote is not needed IMO and the sentence could be summarized to say: [it took Barton three attempts before he was elected partner] Also its sourced to a personal blog which makes it an un-reliable source IMO (no editorial staff or awards or recognition etc.)
• In the late 90s he made the then-counterintuitive career move of relocating to Korea to develop McKinsey's practice in the region.
  • I would remove counter-intuitive. Counter-intuitive to who? and why? no explanation is given and probably not necessary. "Just the facts Jack" is my mantra at WP  :-)
• Barton enjoyed close relationships with the president and government of South Korea.
  • I think the word "enjoyed" should be replaced with "developed" unless Barton was a relative of the SK prez or something.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 14:29, 30 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

• Dominic "Dom" Barton (born 1962) is a longtime top senior partner and director
  • I'm always leery of adjectives. Do we need to say "longtime top" in the lead? -- — Keithbob • Talk • 14:35, 30 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

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The current article is a good start, however much of the content is unsourced, it could use a more neutral tone in some places (see Keithbob's suggestions above), and it has almost no content on the article-subject's term as managing director (probably his primary claim to notability). I've prepared a proposed draft at Talk:Dominic Barton/draft that I think would bring the page up to GA quality levels in terms of sourcing, completeness, neutrality, being up-to-date, etc.

I know it can be hard to compare a current article to a proposed draft, so let me know if there's anything I can do to make a review more convenient depending on your preferences (such as doing one section at-a-time.) Thanks in advance for anyone that takes the time to review. I am also pinging @GermanJoe: who I believe has an interest in management consulting articles. CorporateM (Talk) 14:27, 2 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the ping, but it's probably better to leave the review to another editor with a completely fresh pair of eyes on the topic area. Currently the queue is quite short fortunately. GermanJoe (talk) 15:24, 2 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Below you will see where references from your request have been quoted and individual decisions, either accepting or declining the claims made by the references, along with feedback related comments, have been inserted underneath each reference.

 Y Review completed All the references and claim statements from your proposed draft version have been reviewed. In each instance, the claim statements backed by these references were evaluated, and the backing references were given decisions. These decisions were color coded and entered underneath the corresponding references in the quotebox above, with expanded reasons for each decision placed in the Notes section. References were given decisions ranging from full approval to full declination. Many references were unable to approve or decline due to lack of accessibility. In several instances, multiple claim statements were attributed to one reference, in which case, some of the statements were allowed under that reference while others were not. In all those instances, the claim was allowed if the reference and the claim were both contemporaneous. For example, The Globe and Mail writing in 2009 may act as a reference for news items in 2007 or 2002 but may not act as a reference for news items in 1976. For claims originating in the subject's childhood or college years, primary sources from that era were required.

The declined claim statements have now left gaps in the prose throughout the article. The COI editor is asked to rewrite the article to compensate for these gaps using the reply quotebox above as a guide, and resubmit the gap-less version at your earliest convenience for implementation to the article's main space. Regards, Spintendo ᔦᔭ 17:09, 3 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Trimmed There was another source that appears to support the same sentence, so there was really no need for this cite anyway. CorporateM (Talk) 23:03, 4 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Repaired I'm not sure I completely understood what was meant about quoting out of context, so I just removed the quote and reworked it as an unquoted statement. CorporateM (Talk) 22:59, 4 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Confused The context of the quote appears to be explained by "in reference to a focus on quarterly results, rather than long-term outlooks." I might be misunderstanding what is meant by the quotations requiring additional context. CorporateM (Talk) 23:01, 4 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Trimmed: WP:BLUE, but the reference to Canada's west coast is not really important anyway - I just trimmed it. CorporateM (Talk) 22:54, 4 February 2018 (UTC) Replaced: with a primary source from the university as requested. CorporateM (Talk) 22:54, 4 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Confused The piece is written by Matthew Gwyther. According to his bio he has a long and celebrated career as a professional journalist and has been a part of this publication's staff for nine years. It says this position is his first "editorship," which Oxford Dicitionary defines as meaning he's in charge of the publication. Nothing in the article identifies it as an editorial. Same goes for the others in this category. The Wall Street Journal piece is written by staff journalist Lindsay Gellman. None of these are identified as an op-ed or editorial.CorporateM (Talk) 22:43, 4 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Repaired I managed to find a working link through archive.org. CorporateM (Talk) 22:37, 4 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Replaced with the Financial Times and Globe and Mail (on my PC if I click the link to Financial Times I hit a paywall, but if I Google the title of the article it lets me see it) CorporateM (Talk) 22:21, 4 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Trimmed - The URL is now broken and the source didn't add anything not found in other sources. CorporateM (Talk) 22:06, 4 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Trimmed Reviewing it again now, it was a fairly mediocre source anyway that appears to be almost completely quoted material. CorporateM (Talk) 22:29, 4 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Confused I think this must be referring to WP:AGE MATTERS, but this is an improper use. No newspaper will publish a timely story about someone while they are just starting out in the stockroom. Therefore, in almost all cases a BLP's early career will be covered using much later sources published after they achieved notability. The only exception I can think of would be BLPs who are famous even as children. CorporateM (Talk) 23:12, 4 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

First, please make sure that your replies are placed in their own space. I was cautioned against inserting my comments into other editor's posts, which is why I now use a quotebox for these insertions. I wouldn't want you to be cautioned for this as well.

EDITORIAL CONTENT
AS far as the editorial content, let's take them source by source. There are 5 of them:

1. Gwyther source claims
   1. "Attended University of Brit Columbia"— Should come from the University
   2. "Hired by Mckinsey"— Already covered by another source
   3. "Promoted to partner"— Already covered by another source
   4. "Suggested partner come to Seoul"— Already covered by another source
   5. "Barton accepted"— Already covered by another source
   6. "Helped restructure Korea"— Whether the input he offered helped Korea or not, and how, is a subjective evaluation, hence, editorial content.
2. Gellman source claims
   1. Gellman may be an accomplished journalist, but the reference using their name was actually an analysis performed by the recruiting site Glassdoor. I consider this to be editorial content.
3. Pachner source claims
   1. "Helped restructure"— Again, how much of a "help" they were is a subjective claim coming from the source themselves
      1. "Which began a few months after"— Related to first subjective use of "help" above
   2. "Advised banks no more than 4"— Advising is editorializing
   3. "later established a relationship"— Whether a relationship was indeed established needs input of the other party
   4. "led the firm's response in communicating scandal info"— Definition of led is subjective coming from the source themselves
   5. "Manager Magazine" (the reference is for Canadian Business) "said Barton was a change agent at McKinsey"— Here, Manager Magazine is speaking on behalf of Canadian Business
   6. "Barton had started new initiatives to cut costs, focus more on marketing and give the company more exposure to the public; initiatives that were traditionally unusual for McKinsey."— Moves which are undertaken to achieve goals are initiatives in name only, and are not a given - they cannot be measured nor do they speak to eventualities. Claiming to do something for the sake of exposure or to cut costs does not grant that that exposure or cost cutting was indeed achieved, rather, it merely speaks to desired states of being and not to any quantifiable achieved position. As shown below, hopes, dreams and desires are editorial content. An example of an acceptable use of Barton as a primary source would be on topics and issues regarding the company's progress on initiatives which are unconnected to himself. These items, witnessed by Barton, would be an acceptable usage of him as a primary source. However, reports on the company's progress on initiatives that he devised and he desired make him a problematic primary source, because these initiatives and their reported success (or failures) have the potential to impact his legacy. To that end, he has no reason to disparage his role in these events by his own retelling of them, and every reason to misreport them, either consciously or not.
   7. "One of Barton’s pet phrases is "I worry about …," and his list of global concerns is long. Climate change is both a massive challenge and huge opportunity. The financial system needs a new infrastructure. And water is a looming crisis."— Barton's "concerns" and feelings of "worry" over the future are editorial content.
   8. "Barton wants Canada to become more involved in international discussions about the future of water"— The main claim statement communicated by this sentence is what Barton wants-in other words, his desires. My question asks, how does one go about verifying a person's desires? What kind of sourcing would you need-or more to the point-what kind of sourcing even exists that would be capable of verifying a person's desires? The entire prospect that you can "reference" a person's desires is absurd. Thus, the claim statement, in terms of its potential to inform, is of no value. Ultimately, what Barton wants is a matter of editorial content.
4. Lovegrove source claims
   1. The piece is entitled "Why the World Needs Trisector leaders" this is a blog post in the publication's "Career Planning" section, containing advice for would-be entrepreneurs.
5. McKinsey & Co. claims / Official Bio
   1. This information, assembled by "officialdom" working for the subject's employer, is editorial content. Spintendo ᔦᔭ 15:35, 5 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

WP:AGEMATTERS

I don't believe this is a misapplication. The noted proviso states:

With regard to historical events, older reports tend to have the most detail, and are less likely to have errors introduced by repeated copying and summarizing. However, newer secondary and tertiary sources may have done a better job of collecting more reports from primary sources and resolving conflicts, applying modern knowledge to correctly explain things that older sources could not have, or remaining free of bias that might affect sources written while any conflicts described were still active or strongly felt.

The key phrases here are in bold. I don't believe these sources did a better job of collecting "more reports from the primary source" specifically because nothing was outwardly done to confirm the details that this primary source, Barton, was giving them. Nor did the reporting remain free of bias, in that the subject of the article himself is inherently biased with respect to his own past — indeed, research demonstrating these issues of memory in a source's recollections of their own past are fairly well documented.^[1][2] These failures of the newer sources, in my book, close this possibility of doing a better job that WP:AGEMATTERS speaks of. Regards, Spintendo ᔦᔭ 03:34, 5 February 2018 (UTC) Reply

REPAIRED REFERENCE REVIEW
Below you will see where references that you have addressed from my earlier quotebox have been handled, I now review those and supply feedback.

 Y Repaired reference review completed. Awaiting a rewrite of the draft to version 2.0 before implementation of approved texts. Regards, Spintendo ᔦᔭ 15:11, 5 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

I would like to request adding the content located at Talk:Dominic Barton/draft2 to the bottom of the Career section, adding a Managing Director sub-section. The current article does not even mention the article-subject being elected to the Managing Director position, which is probably his primary claim to notability. The revised draft incorporates feedback from Spintendo above. CorporateM (Talk) 00:27, 7 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

  No action. Needless to say, even mere considerations of tact would seem to show the irrelevance of an edit request review made by me which might contravene previously submitted requests still in the pipeline. Accordingly, please advise on the status of these other, older requests before subsequent ones can be considered. There is still a lot of data in them that needs to be worked on. Or should they be disregarded? Please advise. and thank you for your help. Spintendo ᔦᔭ 01:01, 7 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Spintendo: I think there must be a miscommunication. The proposed does not contradict any prior request edit. To the contrary, your feedback was faithfully incorporated. The Wall Street Journal source and the Canadian Business publication you rejected were both removed. As discussed, I am unable to improve information about his early career before he was famous, while complying with your feedback regarding the timing of a citation's publication. Therefore, this is likely the only major contribution I can make. Please correct me if I am misunderstanding something, or if there is an important piece of feedback that was not incorporated. CorporateM (Talk) 14:39, 7 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your reply. Here is what I was able to garner from this paragraph that was a bit odd. Part of it is my fault I'm afraid.

1. Only claim statements that were directly referenced were given decisions. This means that everything else was declined for being unreferenced.
2. The statement "A few weeks into Barton's appointment, it was discovered that current and former McKinsey consultants, Anil Kumar and Rajat Gupta respectively, were involved in an insider trading scandal." was unreferenced, and thus not factored in to the equation.
3. The statement "He also led the development of new rules at McKinsey intended to prevent future indiscretions." was and still is unreferenced.
4. The declined Pachner source states " Barton led the firm's response in communicating with clients and staff." My rationale for that decline was that leading something was a subjective evaluation. This claim remains in the draft.
5. The Stern reference is my fault, I included it in two lists (the accepted and unable to access lists) when it should have only been in one (unable to access). I'm sorry about that.
6. The Thurm reference here is correct.
7. The Blatchford and Shmuel references are alien to this discussion, as they include claims which did not appear earlier.
8. This is the section with the declined parts removed and the approved parts remaining.

   Dominic Barton won the election in 2009 and became Managing Director of McKinsey & Company on July 1st, based on a vote of 400 senior partners.[8] For example, consultants and their families were forbidden from making any investments in the firm's clients.[10] Most consultants supported Barton's changes, but there was opposition from European staff, who did not have as much exposure to the scandal.[10] Some consultants refused to take the class, saying that McKinsey was operating like a "nanny state".[10][17] Barton and others also internally publicized the actions of McKinsey's disciplinary committee, embarrassing those that were punished for ethical misconduct.[10] The New York Times said Barton revitalized the firm after "the worst crisis" in the firm's history.[17] He also opened the first new US-based office in more than a decade, citing an increase in business flowing back to the states.[17]Prior to his appointment, Barton had also advised Ottawa.[4] Barton is also a board member or advisor to several Canadian organizations.[4]

9. Conversely, this is the same paragraph with the declined parts added and the approved parts removed. The declined reasons are shown:

   Barton was was re-elected in 2012 and again in 2015.ED His current term will be his last, since Managing Directors serve a maximum of three terms.FS A few weeks into Barton's appointment, it was discovered that current and former McKinsey consultants, Anil Kumar and Rajat Gupta respectively, were involved in an insider trading scandal.UR Barton led the firm's response in communicating with clients and staff.SS He also led the development of new rules at McKinsey intended to prevent future indiscretions.FS&SS&UR A new position was created at McKinsey called the "director of professional standards" and consultants were required to pass classes on responsible investing.UR Manager Magazine said Barton was a change agent at McKinsey.IA By 2011, Barton had started new initiatives to cut costs, focus more on marketing and give the company more exposure to the public; initiatives that were traditionally unusual for McKinsey.SS In 2016, he was ranked the third most-liked "CEO" in Glassdoor's rankings.PC

   The reasons for decline are shown below.
   1. ED = This reference was included in an editorial.
   2. FS = This reference included speculation about the future.
   3. UR = This was unreferenced.
   4. SS = This reference included subjective speculation.
   5. IA = This was incorrect attribution.
   6. PC = This involved the use of Peacock terms.
10. Finally, by looking at your newest draft version you're able to see my concerns and initial confusion over whether this was an entirely new request. The unapproved portions are in strikout font:

    Dominic Barton won the election in 2009 and became Managing Director of McKinsey & Company on July 1st, based on a vote of 400 senior partners.[1][2] Barton was was re-elected in 2012 [3] and again in 2015. His current term will be his last, since Managing Directors serve a maximum of three terms.[4] A few weeks into Barton's appointment, it was discovered that current and former McKinsey consultants, Anil Kumar and Rajat Gupta respectively, were involved in an insider trading scandal. Barton led the firm's response in communicating with clients and staff.[5][6] He also led the development of new rules at McKinsey intended to prevent future indiscretions. For example, consultants and their families were forbidden from making any investments in the firm's clients.[7] A new position was created at McKinsey called the "director of professional standards" and consultants were required to pass classes on responsible investing. Most consultants supported Barton's changes, but there was opposition from European staff, who did not have as much exposure to the scandal.[7] Some consultants refused to take the class, saying that McKinsey was operating like a "nanny state".[7][4] Barton and others also internally publicized the actions of McKinsey's disciplinary committee, embarrassing those that were punished for ethical misconduct.[7] The New York Times said Barton revitalized the firm after "the worst crisis" in the firm's history.[4] In 2016, Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau appointed Barton to lead a 14-person advisory council on the Canadian economy.[8][9] Prior to his appointment, Barton had also advised Ottawa.[10] Barton is also a board member or advisor to several Canadian organizations.[10]

    Spintendo ᔦᔭ 10:39, 8 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

I was asked to look at this. I find much of the material in the present version unsatisfactory--there is a good deal of duplication, some unsourced statements thatshould be easy to source, but need sourcing, and quotations that amount to puffery. The revised version fixes none of these problems.

Where the proposed version is better is a clearer description of this recent role as MD, and considerably better references overall. . I shall first give my comments on the details mentioned above, and then I will do what I normally do in revising an article on a business executive, which is to revise it myself. I will need first to think whether the existing version or the proposed version is the better starting point. DGG ( talk ) 21:28, 10 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. I would welcome and appreciate any input you can offer.   I wanted to add that all of the edit requests I took on this have been regarding the draft versions, and I haven't been asked to, nor have I made, any edits or received any edit requests regarding the current standing version of the article. Indeed, I hadn't even looked at the current version of the article until just now. As I understood it, that version was going to be completely replaced with whatever draft version we came up with. Thank you again for your help. Spintendo ᔦᔭ 00:24, 11 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

@DGG: Thanks for chipping in. CorporateM (Talk) 13:42, 13 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

@CorporateM: - This doesn't make sense: "Barton moved to Seoul in 1997 ... He worked out of the McKinsey office in Seoul for five years, before becoming the head of Korean operations in 2000." [He would have been Korea for three or four years, not five.]

If I strike "before", then there is no contradiction. However, that would generate a different problem - if Barton ran the Korea practice from 2000 to 2004, he would have spent a total of seven or eight years in Seoul (1997-2004), rather than five. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:10, 22 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

@John Broughton: Good point. Citation 11 says "Mr Barton spent five years running the Seoul office before Shanghai." Citation 5 says "In 2000, he was given the chance to lead McKinsey’s office in Korea." That gives us something like "He became the head of McKinsey's Korea office in Seoul in 2000, where he worked for five years." However, that would make the move to Shanghai in 2005, not in 2004 as other sources allege. My suggestion would be to go with the 2004 date and remove any reference to five years. The reason being that The Korea Herald source that verifies 2004 was published in 2004 (an impossibility if the event really didn't occur until 2005). That would leave us with something like "He became the head of McKinsey's Korea office in Seoul in 2000. In 2004 . . . Shanghai . . ." CorporateM (Talk) 12:35, 23 March 2018 (UTC)Reply