5 ms·

Sorry, but have you ever worked in a bigger company? The problems in a company are obvious for most workers.

jimduk 8y ago
I used to work for a while as a management consultant, and, in my personal experience, would rephrase the above as "a subset of the smart, engaged workers in a company, can often tell you 80%, of the main problems in week 1, which makes you wonder why the CEOs ( who are smart) hire you to address those problems, as well as the trickier 20%
ProAm 8y ago
I have, and in reality most of the problem are not real problems (at least the ones from the workers perspectives) when viewed from the C-level and board perspective. But Im still waiting for examples of companies where this is taking place and am certainly willing to accept my position is a wrong one but no one has provided a credible example yet.
- cannonedhamster 8y ago
  Tyco, Ericsson, Comcast, IBM, GE to name a few. All of these companies are rotting from the inside out and management and contractor heavy.
  - ProAm 8y ago
    Can you provide examples as to how? People just keep naming companies but no examples.
forapurpose 8y ago
> The problems in a company are obvious for most workers. I agree that workers see things that management doesn't, and good managers are aware of that and work hard to overcome it. However, having seen both sides of that coin, workers also lack awareness of many issues and constraints. They think, 'why don't we just do X? It's obvious!', without realizing that X would cost the company a major investor or partner, or put the company in the crosshairs of a dangerous competitor; or that X would divert resources from a higher priority; or that the CIO, who is great in every other way, opposes X and it's not worth alienating them; etc.
geezerjay 8y ago
> The problems in a company are obvious for most workers. The workers at best see a part of an individual tree, but the job of the board is to manage the whole forrest considering how the entire world is at that moment and where it will be in 5 or 10 years in the future.
- jayalpha 8y ago
  I meant "workers" in a broader way. Maybe even everything below the board. I have friends that were laid off (in the end) and the problems in their company were obvious to them. They did not even bother trying brining it up (hint: Never do!). Now a major consulting firm is trying to restructure the company. They have zero understanding of the business (niche) and based on his former perspective of the company many decisions are major major mistakes (e.g. they only see the profits that a business devision brings in but they don't see how many other divisions rely on that business devision to bring in their business). He had a genius idea (trust me) how to combine two different fields that could have started a complete new business division with basically close to zero start-up cost. He never bothered brining the idea up because "this company is too conservative to even consider this". So, a guy with a tremendous insight into the problems and possible solutions goes totally unnoticed. And this is just one example.

I used to work for a while as a management consultant, and, in my personal experience, would rephrase the above as "a subset of the smart, engaged workers in a company, can often tell you 80%, of the main problems in week 1, which makes you wonder why the CEOs ( who are smart) hire you to address those problems, as well as the trickier 20%

ProAm 8y ago

I have, and in reality most of the problem are not real problems (at least the ones from the workers perspectives) when viewed from the C-level and board perspective. But Im still waiting for examples of companies where this is taking place and am certainly willing to accept my position is a wrong one but no one has provided a credible example yet.

cannonedhamster 8y ago
Tyco, Ericsson, Comcast, IBM, GE to name a few. All of these companies are rotting from the inside out and management and contractor heavy.
- ProAm 8y ago
  Can you provide examples as to how? People just keep naming companies but no examples.

forapurpose 8y ago

> The problems in a company are obvious for most workers. I agree that workers see things that management doesn't, and good managers are aware of that and work hard to overcome it. However, having seen both sides of that coin, workers also lack awareness of many issues and constraints. They think, 'why don't we just do X? It's obvious!', without realizing that X would cost the company a major investor or partner, or put the company in the crosshairs of a dangerous competitor; or that X would divert resources from a higher priority; or that the CIO, who is great in every other way, opposes X and it's not worth alienating them; etc.

geezerjay 8y ago

> The problems in a company are obvious for most workers. The workers at best see a part of an individual tree, but the job of the board is to manage the whole forrest considering how the entire world is at that moment and where it will be in 5 or 10 years in the future.

jayalpha 8y ago
I meant "workers" in a broader way. Maybe even everything below the board. I have friends that were laid off (in the end) and the problems in their company were obvious to them. They did not even bother trying brining it up (hint: Never do!). Now a major consulting firm is trying to restructure the company. They have zero understanding of the business (niche) and based on his former perspective of the company many decisions are major major mistakes (e.g. they only see the profits that a business devision brings in but they don't see how many other divisions rely on that business devision to bring in their business). He had a genius idea (trust me) how to combine two different fields that could have started a complete new business division with basically close to zero start-up cost. He never bothered brining the idea up because "this company is too conservative to even consider this". So, a guy with a tremendous insight into the problems and possible solutions goes totally unnoticed. And this is just one example.