Cornerstone Research reviews

Where things get harder is in how the culture handles communication, conflict, and inclusion. In general, there’s not a strong norm of addressing issues directly. Instead, concerns can get passed around indirectly, handled quietly, or show up in your performance review. That makes conflict feel bigger than it needs to be and can leave people feeling misunderstood or hesitant to speak up. It also creates a secretive culture that could be perceived as backstabbing. It would help a lot to build a culture where employees can have honest, respectful conversations without fear of being labeled negatively. This starts with executives, managers, HR, and Talent. Another area that stands out is leadership diversity and advancement. There’s very little representation of people of color across the firm, but particularly, in consulting and at the senior and executive levels, and corporate staff — who unfortunately, represent the majority of the firm’s diversity — often talk openly about not having a clear path to leadership roles. If the firm wants to get better at inclusion, creating real opportunities for growth and a culture that truly values these employees would be a meaningful start. I don’t think the firm sees the value in committing to this because their current ways of working have garnered them quite a large sum of revenue and profit throughout 35 years, creating a mindset of, “well, this is the way we’ve always done and it works”. But the question is: who does this really work for/benefit? The firm should have a greater responsibility to the overall industry by authentically increasing representation and creating a culture that invests in all people. It would also help to take a hard look at how hiring happens across the board, since referrals and familiar networks tend to reinforce the same profiles over and over. This starts with meeting with the Board and Consulting Executives who run the process and determine restrictive and outdated hiring requirements and actually have candid conversations about what change looks like and representation requires. In terms of inclusion overall, there’s still work to do in making sure that behaviors and viewpoints that exclude others aren’t brushed aside. Inclusion doesn’t mean accepting “all perspectives” without question — it means having a workplace where everyone is treated with respect and bias is addressed when it shows up. If you can't commit to this, then the reality is that this is not an inclusive place to work. The firm talks about a commitment to creating a nondiscriminatory environment, which is important, but it’s also the baseline expectation, not the finish line. Progress would look like examining who gets supported, who gets promoted, and whether diverse perspectives really are sought out and genuinely valued and not labeled as "difficult", "problematic", "confrontational", etc. Cornerstone has strengths, and I do think there’s potential to grow into the culture it wants to be. It just needs a hard look in the mirror--with more openness in communication, more transparency around pathways to leadership, and more intentional work around representation and inclusion, especially at the most senior levels. If those areas get real focus, the firm could be a better place to work, especially for those who are not white, asian, and male.