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Ever worked in a megacorp? It's exactly like that. Working at one of the world's most respected companies, I met someone who had been doing the same job for 8 y

by xapata 8y ago

Ever worked in a megacorp? It's exactly like that. Working at one of the world's most respected companies, I met someone who had been doing the same job for 8 years, the sole responsibility was to create a quarterly report (in PowerPoint) which was the aggregation of a couple hundred other reports. She spent every day copy-pasting from one document into another. Every day, for years. Seemed happy enough. Arrived at 7am, left at 4pm. Earned reasonably well, since she had an MBA from a good school. When I was a management consultant, the cynical joke was that we stole your watch and told you the time. I learned that, yes, that was my job, but also that most companies are so incompetent that I was providing a useful service.

ACow_Adonis 8y ago
Our joke when hiring management consultants is that we gave them the watch and asked them to tell us the time :P Its incredibly disheartening to everyone else in the company who already has the watch and can already tell the time and have already been telling everyone the time, but as people experience, that's everyday existence in large corporations.
- nickpsecurity 8y ago
  "Its incredibly disheartening to everyone else in the company who already has the watch and can already tell the time and have already been telling everyone the time, but as people experience, that's everyday existence in large corporations." A guy I met consulted on improving company performance. He told me he went to the people on top to ask them what they thought and promised to investigate further to solve their problems. Then, he went straight to the workers in production and supportive positions asking what they thought about their job, what it entailed, what was needed, and what wasn't. He then asked the middle managers about their thoughts. He said the workers he asked usually had all the good ideas that he was paid to deliver to the higher-ups. Almost everyone doing that sort of thing knows that. One other thing he said that some people have to learn is that the people on the top couldn't use their workers' innovations. The way things work at lots of these organizations is that the people on the top want to look superior and control things top down. The visible effects have to look like that. If they let workers tell them, their model and egos break where they probably should let workers do a lot more. Instead, they often asked a consultant who invisibly asked workers. Then, they can say they solved the problem hiring a consultant who gave them options that they would enforce in a top down way. They get to feel in control while grabbing credit. Another way that helps when the situation isn't that bad is a tie-breaker between people or groups that can't agree. The consultant doesn't find the real solution. The consultant is just there to be the person that decides and gets the blame if it's bad. The consultant is cutting through the political bullshit that really run the company instead of the rational, economic, strategic choices that many folks pretend companies run on.
  - xapata 8y ago
    Consultants create the veneer of objectivity. Reality is that the executive who hired us decides who we speak with, subtly pre-determining our conclusion.

by xapata 8y ago

ACow_Adonis 8y ago

Our joke when hiring management consultants is that we gave them the watch and asked them to tell us the time :P Its incredibly disheartening to everyone else in the company who already has the watch and can already tell the time and have already been telling everyone the time, but as people experience, that's everyday existence in large corporations.

nickpsecurity 8y ago
"Its incredibly disheartening to everyone else in the company who already has the watch and can already tell the time and have already been telling everyone the time, but as people experience, that's everyday existence in large corporations." A guy I met consulted on improving company performance. He told me he went to the people on top to ask them what they thought and promised to investigate further to solve their problems. Then, he went straight to the workers in production and supportive positions asking what they thought about their job, what it entailed, what was needed, and what wasn't. He then asked the middle managers about their thoughts. He said the workers he asked usually had all the good ideas that he was paid to deliver to the higher-ups. Almost everyone doing that sort of thing knows that. One other thing he said that some people have to learn is that the people on the top couldn't use their workers' innovations. The way things work at lots of these organizations is that the people on the top want to look superior and control things top down. The visible effects have to look like that. If they let workers tell them, their model and egos break where they probably should let workers do a lot more. Instead, they often asked a consultant who invisibly asked workers. Then, they can say they solved the problem hiring a consultant who gave them options that they would enforce in a top down way. They get to feel in control while grabbing credit. Another way that helps when the situation isn't that bad is a tie-breaker between people or groups that can't agree. The consultant doesn't find the real solution. The consultant is just there to be the person that decides and gets the blame if it's bad. The consultant is cutting through the political bullshit that really run the company instead of the rational, economic, strategic choices that many folks pretend companies run on.
- xapata 8y ago
  Consultants create the veneer of objectivity. Reality is that the executive who hired us decides who we speak with, subtly pre-determining our conclusion.