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I'm always baffled why it's so common that the person in charge of something is often the person with the least direct knowledge about how it actually works. I
by dak1 11y ago
I'm always baffled why it's so common that the person in charge of something is often the person with the least direct knowledge about how it actually works.
It makes more sense to me that companies should be taking quality employees and providing them management training, as opposed to hiring somebody with a "management" degree who has little to no knowledge of the actual work that's done.
I guess that's just a symptom though of workers changing jobs more frequently.
- mcphage 11y ago"Doing X", and "Managing people doing X", are two pretty distinct skills—and interests. If you find someone really good at doing a thing, why would you pull them out of that position? Odds are they won't be good at it, and they won't enjoy it. There are people who enjoy both, but they're rare.
- melling 11y agoExactly. Find someone not good at X then have them manage a dozen people doing X and pay them 50% more.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- danielrhodes 11y agoI'm reminded of Plato's Ship of State metaphor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_State) here whereby the people who come into power are not necessarily the most skilled, but instead those who are most skilled at getting into power. Nobody would disagree that somebody who is both good at management and of a strong technical mind would be the ideal candidate, but usually it is just somebody who is good at getting promoted.