141–150 of 252 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is there anything non C-levels can do about it? Labor unions and strikes.
Can you provide some examples of where a labour union has went on strike to remove a C-Level person? I eagerly await your examples.
I'm thinking of a Jadzia Dax in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Jadzia is among the lucky few among her race, the Trill, implanted with a "symbiote" carrying the memories of all of its previous hosts. Carrying a symbiote is an unrealized dream for many Trill who wash out of the rigorous application and training process and are told they're incompatible. In one episode, one such disgruntled fellow tries to steal Jadzia's.…
I hear it's a hard job that's deserving all of that money. True, I don't want to talk and lie to customers all day. I just want to build things. Does the CEO want to build things? It's probably a different skill set they're not interested in. I could do it though, just like any job.
With some practice and a guiding team I can do literally anything. Even better if I don't have to worry about production bugs over the weekend. Even better if I know if I get fired tomorrow, I could retire and be set the rest of my life. Or use my golden privileged network + stamp of success to start back up whenever I want.
Not that they "do" even customer relations type of work. That's what their staff is for. They just have to be the face that reads the prompts.
I constantly see a lot of humble bragging, of course, immediately followed by pictures from ultra luxury places or a second vacation home in an extremely expensive place.
From what I see, it's just someone who has a few zoom meetings every day where they're essentially host at a party. Their team does all the actual work going into any of it. They pick the drinks and the scenery, note all the guests' allergies and even call in the catering. Host just shoes up for a little bit.
Then they take a long lunch, and come back an hour before everybody leaves for work. "Taking off already? Ha ha, I miss those days where I could do nothing all day too and then head out early. Have a good one."
Write a blog entry and then it's time to hurry off and talk to meet the interior decorator for lunch and vacation planning committee. Of course this all counts as work because the host NEEDS somewhere to entertain the guests.
When they have a bad day and have to do layoffs, for example, they can't even truly take accountability then. It's just wrapped up as an learning experience, or "the rest of the company needs this to not lose even more jobs."
Maybe they even describe how they failed, but you can just tell it's just words. They don't truly believe that in the heart. Like a child lying about being sorry.
It's probably better than the worst of them who say, "Actually, you deserve this. If only you'd worked harder." Or is that the best of them because they're finally honest? I truly believe that's the real feeling behind any humility-appearing outward-facing apology.
(Wouldn't you cut your salary before layoffs, for example, if you truly felt real sorrow? Even if it you could cut it just enough to save 1 more person. Let alone taking a humble standard salary and saving a few. The opposite of this action would be receiving a large bonus that year. Something we see and hear happening in actuality almost every time.)
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> Plenty of middle-managers could do as well as the average CEO. I’ve worked with several CEOs and countless senior executives, both at very large companies and small, who had varying degrees of competency. I don’t think this is generally true. Being successful at that job entails a specialized skill set that is rarely evident in middle management. What you are “managing” at the most senior levels of large organizati…
I think you are right that the skills to be a successful CEO are rare, but I think the main problem is that the hiring process for CEO is so incestual that the majority of the people who would be good for the job aren't even considered. Instead the applicant pool consists of "son of current CEO", "son of CEO's favorite politician", and several "CEO that is currently failing a different company". The applicant pool fe…
I'm thinking of a Jadzia Dax in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Jadzia is among the lucky few among her race, the Trill, implanted with a "symbiote" carrying the memories of all of its previous hosts. Carrying a symbiote is an unrealized dream for many Trill who wash out of the rigorous application and training process and are told they're incompatible. In one episode, one such disgruntled fellow tries to steal Jadzia's.…
I've seen a couple of CEO replacements, who were brought in for various reasons. You'd expect a B-school like Stanford to stress "planning" since that's their solution to everything. For the new CEOs I've seen, "they've been there before" seems to receive WAY more weight than it ought to. Often they're people who just keep failing up. You can take the Civil War as a useful analogy. Neither Grant nor Sherman had reall…
The Union had to fire a lot of generals before settling on Grant and Sherman.
One of the C-level guys at my current company should have been replaced a while ago. He ruins everything he touches but he's also one of the founders. There are virtually no processes for anything which makes him untouchable. Whenever he fucks up, some PM or low level manager is fired due to their "low performance". Is there anything non C-levels can do about it? Honestly I don't think so, all you can do is avoid the…
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That's a good question: Why not? The USA "ideals" taught in school say that democracy and democratic republics are the best forms of government.... yet (almost) all our companies are autocratic dictatorships.
Because it's under the guise of meritocracy, where if you just work hard enough, say 60 hours a week, you too can become CEO someday.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are right that the skills to be a successful CEO are rare, but I think the main problem is that the hiring process for CEO is so incestual that the majority of the people who would be good for the job aren't even considered. Instead the applicant pool consists of "son of current CEO", "son of CEO's favorite politician", and several "CEO that is currently failing a different company". The applicant pool fe…
The CEOs that belong to the club (network) can draw on the resources available to that network. It is widely believed that this ability is more important than the technical skills. It used to be correct when e-mail, LinkedIn or Google were not a thing. Now this is simply a cargo cult.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
corporations are not democratic institutions
That's a good question: Why not? The USA "ideals" taught in school say that democracy and democratic republics are the best forms of government.... yet (almost) all our companies are autocratic dictatorships.
We elect the head of the executive branch. The rest of it is basically run like a bunch of corporations. We certainly don't elect the people who work at the IRS, for example.
I'm thinking of a Jadzia Dax in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Jadzia is among the lucky few among her race, the Trill, implanted with a "symbiote" carrying the memories of all of its previous hosts. Carrying a symbiote is an unrealized dream for many Trill who wash out of the rigorous application and training process and are told they're incompatible. In one episode, one such disgruntled fellow tries to steal Jadzia's.…
> Plenty of middle-managers could do as well as the average CEO. I’ve worked with several CEOs and countless senior executives, both at very large companies and small, who had varying degrees of competency. I don’t think this is generally true. Being successful at that job entails a specialized skill set that is rarely evident in middle management. What you are “managing” at the most senior levels of large organizati…
I think that there are a lot of people that are cut out to be CEO, but most of them are already working as CEO - of a small business, or household, or one-man consultancy. There are very few people that are cut out to be CEO of the particular big corporation that is hiring for CEO. If you take the Ribbonfarm essay at face value, the quality that qualifies a person to be CEO is that their natural personality is in total alignment with the direction that the organization needs to go, and so they can merely be themselves, loudly and brashly, and they will attract followers that take the organization in that direction. There are just a handful of people, oftentimes one or none, whose natural personality is perfectly aligned with where the board wants to take the company. When you find that one, you should pay top dollar to get and retain them, because you may not find another.