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>The "managing class" of MBAs reminds me of the way a communist state like East Germany was run. Centralized decision making, information withholding, the desir

>The "managing class" of MBAs reminds me of the way a communist state like East Germany was run. Centralized decision making, information withholding, the desire to plan out everything for years, saying one thing while meaning the opposite, hanging up motivational posters "we are innovative" while squashing innovation, ignoring of inconvenient facts and so on. Huh? What's wrong with centralized decision making and planning out everything for years? The rest I can agree with, but 1) in any company, you need centralized decision making or you won't get anything done; the point of a company is not to be a democracy, it's to be a machine that generates profit, and centralized decision making accomplishes that. And 2) what can possibly be wrong with planning things out far ahead? I worked at Intel for years and they did this, and it worked, for the most part. (Obviously, circumstances forced plans to be altered or even abandoned at times.) If you don't have a plan several years out of what you want to be doing, you're not going to accomplish anything big. How do you think the Moon missions could have worked if they didn't plan that out years in advance? It sounds to me like you're comparing whatever little podunk 20-person company you used to work at with the big corporation you find yourself in now, and you're trying to assume that everything the little company did was somehow correct. It wasn't; the big company got to be a big company by doing something right. Many of the other things you complain about just sound like typical bad management, and things you'll find in any organization that isn't perfect. Information withholding and saying one thing and meaning the opposite and ignoring inconvenient facts: aren't those common with the US government? I saw these in several small companies I've worked in (and big companies too). It's not unique to big companies. There's definitely more of it in poorly-run companies, which should be no surprise. There's no shortage of poorly-run companies out there, big and small. As for the motivational posters, that's a fad (though admittedly it's been around a good 15-20 years now). I recommend getting your own motivational posters and hanging them in your cubicle (if you even have a cubicle; working at big companies was a lot nicer 10-20 years ago before this idiotic "open plan office" craze). You can get some excellent posters [here](https://www.despair.com/collections/demotivators https://www.despair.com/collections/demotivators). (What kind of site calling itself "Hacker News" doesn't even support some kind of basic markup for embedding links? Come on guys.)

naasking 10y ago
> What's wrong with centralized decision making and planning out everything for years? The rest I can agree with, but 1) in any company, you need centralized decision making or you won't get anything done; the point of a company is not to be a democracy, it's to be a machine that generates profit, and centralized decision making accomplishes that. No it doesn't. Top-level decision makers are poorly informed about what's possible and what's actually effective. Complete top-down decision making is Dilbert incarnate. Top-level executives need to make the goals of the company clear to team managers, and that's not just "profit", and they need to set the constraints that any direction in pursuit of those goals must satisfy (such as legal or marketing requirements), and let the engineers find optimal solutions within that space. Engineers excel at finding effective solutions given a set of constraints, executives excel at defining business policies that effectively shape a successful business. Let each employ their appropriate skill set. > And 2) what can possibly be wrong with planning things out far ahead? Inflexibility to changing market conditions. Having invested time, money and effort into forming such an intricate long-term plan drives us to stupidly believing sunk cost fallacies, and ignore evidence of ineffectiveness.
- popmystack 10y ago
  Dilbert is a comic, not reality.
- wiz21 10y ago
  No. Top management sees the company in quite a different view than its employee. They also see their own future. So, what they decide for the company might actually not much to do with what the company does. For example, the president of a big car company can have a big interest in making polluting car. So it'll make sure the company is a bit dysfunctional on environment protection. Of course he won't say it. In exchange, the top manager will be rewarded and might event get some more power to help the company in a more positive way later on. I experienced that 2 times. One in a huge japanese tyre company : we were given small book explaining us how the company was ecological, while a te the same time rubber extraction was pursued in an absolute non ecological way. In a gov't company, we're continually told to work for those we help but at the same time, the top mangement decision make that work super difficult. My thought is : manager are human, and their in position where they have lots of pressure (they've chosen that). so most of them behave has human : they do mistakes, they act more selfishly than they care to admit and they mask the truth with lies or on-purpose ignorance. As I prefer to act with real good intention and produce tangible results, I know I won't ever make it to the top. I'm not interested in making compromise. Moreover, when I'm with people who are at the top or who want to be at the top, I can clearly sense that their core-values are very different, even opposite of mines... And I'm sure they instantly feel I'm not part of the tribe. Because that's a tribe with values, customs, dress, etc.

naasking 10y ago

> What's wrong with centralized decision making and planning out everything for years? The rest I can agree with, but 1) in any company, you need centralized decision making or you won't get anything done; the point of a company is not to be a democracy, it's to be a machine that generates profit, and centralized decision making accomplishes that. No it doesn't. Top-level decision makers are poorly informed about what's possible and what's actually effective. Complete top-down decision making is Dilbert incarnate. Top-level executives need to make the goals of the company clear to team managers, and that's not just "profit", and they need to set the constraints that any direction in pursuit of those goals must satisfy (such as legal or marketing requirements), and let the engineers find optimal solutions within that space. Engineers excel at finding effective solutions given a set of constraints, executives excel at defining business policies that effectively shape a successful business. Let each employ their appropriate skill set. > And 2) what can possibly be wrong with planning things out far ahead? Inflexibility to changing market conditions. Having invested time, money and effort into forming such an intricate long-term plan drives us to stupidly believing sunk cost fallacies, and ignore evidence of ineffectiveness.

popmystack 10y ago
Dilbert is a comic, not reality.
wiz21 10y ago
No. Top management sees the company in quite a different view than its employee. They also see their own future. So, what they decide for the company might actually not much to do with what the company does. For example, the president of a big car company can have a big interest in making polluting car. So it'll make sure the company is a bit dysfunctional on environment protection. Of course he won't say it. In exchange, the top manager will be rewarded and might event get some more power to help the company in a more positive way later on. I experienced that 2 times. One in a huge japanese tyre company : we were given small book explaining us how the company was ecological, while a te the same time rubber extraction was pursued in an absolute non ecological way. In a gov't company, we're continually told to work for those we help but at the same time, the top mangement decision make that work super difficult. My thought is : manager are human, and their in position where they have lots of pressure (they've chosen that). so most of them behave has human : they do mistakes, they act more selfishly than they care to admit and they mask the truth with lies or on-purpose ignorance. As I prefer to act with real good intention and produce tangible results, I know I won't ever make it to the top. I'm not interested in making compromise. Moreover, when I'm with people who are at the top or who want to be at the top, I can clearly sense that their core-values are very different, even opposite of mines... And I'm sure they instantly feel I'm not part of the tribe. Because that's a tribe with values, customs, dress, etc.