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I'm 53, and I've worked for 3 Fortune 250's. Can confirm. I've seen this happen over and over again. Senior management makes some broad pronouncements, and the

I'm 53, and I've worked for 3 Fortune 250's. Can confirm. I've seen this happen over and over again. Senior management makes some broad pronouncements, and the mid-level lieutenants have meetings with consultants, and then implement new, expensive projects that "will surely fix 'it' this time." Five to ten years later, after the dust settles, and we figure out that we've strapped YET ANOTHER LAYER of technical debt on top of everything else, and things are worse than ever. But at the height of the project, when everything is still rosy, the managers in charge update their resumes, and hit the bricks. IN PARTICULAR, at one Fortune 250 (which no longer exists), we implemented OneWorld to replace the mainframe. After 7 years, we still had the mainframe, AND a badly-implemented version of OneWorld. Then the company got bought by another Fortune 250, moves were made to "commonize" the IT systems, and then the parent company sold everything. But I'm positive that everyone involved in the project to retire the mainframe made the project look very successful on their resumes.

lallysingh 4y ago
In SOFTWAR Ellison called it a sort of fashion cycle.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bluGill 4y ago
8-10 years is as long as senior executives last, if they don't make a big change then thee is no way to take credit for their vision. Even if the company had a "perfect" org chart (as if such a thing is possible), they need to make changes otherwise someone will say that they old org chart is the cause of success and they as a leader were not worth anything. I don't know if the above fear would actually play out, nobody is willing to not make changes to find out.
- seoaeu 4y ago
  I would expect it is just as much a hedge in case things go wrong. When your job is to steer the course of a company, it won’t look good if you crash and your hands weren’t even on the wheel
- cupofpython 4y ago
  I think we are giving these people too much credit. Being the head of the organization is like inheriting someone elses filing system. the only way for them to actually understand wtf is going on at the company is to reorganize some things in a way that makes sense to them. High level management is fundamentally hard to stay on top of over time. It's about as easy as thinking chess is easy because you can theoretically know every move your opponent might make. There are so many moving parts to an organization that having visibility to them isnt enough to perform well. They have to influence most of the business pretty indirectly. If changing things gives you the confidence necessary to keep things running.. that's what you're going to do. Everything is a gamble, so doing nothing is kind of unacceptable leadership behavior unless they are actively taking up the mantle left by previous management and understand it very well already.
  - stainforth 4y ago
    Yes but they ultimately live materially better lives because of their position, so you can't hand wave away criticism of the value or lack thereof their actions take, especially when those actions can have a negative effect on those below them and even to the external environment.
    - cupofpython 4y ago
      criticism is fair game. it just usually doesnt account for the reality of what they are doing, and puts them to blame for not directly controlling things that in reality were outside their control. Taking responsibility for the failings of the company i part of the job description, so by all means hold them responsible. I am just saying all of that is tangential to the root of the problem - which is that no matter how much someone gets paid, they are still human. It's an area that is pretty tough to make meaningful criticism. its kind of a show dont tell type situation imo. If upper management seems under-qualified and overpaid to you, then maybe you have a calling to go perform better and get paid more. Company management is in underdeveloped game-theory territory. Sure we can isolate one part of their job and describe how they are failing on it, but we dont know the trade-offs being made on a daily basis with their time and focus. a lot of which is going to be company secrets, if it even leaves their personal thoughts. Any criticism that comes down to saying "they should have done more" is likely out-of-touch, for example. Unless you can prove they were actually being lazy.. which is usually not the case, since they are often workaholics (ime). But we usually cant tell if something is a good move or not until it plays out on the market. So making criticisms based on hindsight is weak, as is making criticism that lack the full picture of the organizations goals and the time / energy they actually have on hand to accomplish them
- smugma 4y ago
  counter-examples: all of FANG/MAGA, even when you exclude founders Satya: 1992, CEO in in 2014 Tim: 1998, CEO in ~2009 Sundar: 2004, CEO in 2015 Andy: 1997, CEO in 2021 Ted: 2000, CEO in 2020 They were all senior executives well before assuming their CEO roles.
CarbonCycles 4y ago
Oh man...Dell is terrible about this. Not sure what the policy is anymore (esp since they went private), but to get promoted you had implement a significant cost savings project, which ironically lead to multiple implementations and reversals of policies...they all showed a cost savings but it depended on your perspective.
- ValentineC 4y ago
  I don't know anything about Dell's promotion criteria, but their consumer ordering process has to be one of the most hostile ever — I'm guessing anywhere between 50-75% of their orders get auto-cancelled by some overzealous anti-fraud and anti-reseller algorithm.

lallysingh 4y ago

In SOFTWAR Ellison called it a sort of fashion cycle.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

bluGill 4y ago

8-10 years is as long as senior executives last, if they don't make a big change then thee is no way to take credit for their vision. Even if the company had a "perfect" org chart (as if such a thing is possible), they need to make changes otherwise someone will say that they old org chart is the cause of success and they as a leader were not worth anything. I don't know if the above fear would actually play out, nobody is willing to not make changes to find out.

seoaeu 4y ago
I would expect it is just as much a hedge in case things go wrong. When your job is to steer the course of a company, it won’t look good if you crash and your hands weren’t even on the wheel
cupofpython 4y ago
I think we are giving these people too much credit. Being the head of the organization is like inheriting someone elses filing system. the only way for them to actually understand wtf is going on at the company is to reorganize some things in a way that makes sense to them. High level management is fundamentally hard to stay on top of over time. It's about as easy as thinking chess is easy because you can theoretically know every move your opponent might make. There are so many moving parts to an organization that having visibility to them isnt enough to perform well. They have to influence most of the business pretty indirectly. If changing things gives you the confidence necessary to keep things running.. that's what you're going to do. Everything is a gamble, so doing nothing is kind of unacceptable leadership behavior unless they are actively taking up the mantle left by previous management and understand it very well already.
- stainforth 4y ago
  Yes but they ultimately live materially better lives because of their position, so you can't hand wave away criticism of the value or lack thereof their actions take, especially when those actions can have a negative effect on those below them and even to the external environment.
  - cupofpython 4y ago
    criticism is fair game. it just usually doesnt account for the reality of what they are doing, and puts them to blame for not directly controlling things that in reality were outside their control. Taking responsibility for the failings of the company i part of the job description, so by all means hold them responsible. I am just saying all of that is tangential to the root of the problem - which is that no matter how much someone gets paid, they are still human. It's an area that is pretty tough to make meaningful criticism. its kind of a show dont tell type situation imo. If upper management seems under-qualified and overpaid to you, then maybe you have a calling to go perform better and get paid more. Company management is in underdeveloped game-theory territory. Sure we can isolate one part of their job and describe how they are failing on it, but we dont know the trade-offs being made on a daily basis with their time and focus. a lot of which is going to be company secrets, if it even leaves their personal thoughts. Any criticism that comes down to saying "they should have done more" is likely out-of-touch, for example. Unless you can prove they were actually being lazy.. which is usually not the case, since they are often workaholics (ime). But we usually cant tell if something is a good move or not until it plays out on the market. So making criticisms based on hindsight is weak, as is making criticism that lack the full picture of the organizations goals and the time / energy they actually have on hand to accomplish them
smugma 4y ago
counter-examples: all of FANG/MAGA, even when you exclude founders Satya: 1992, CEO in in 2014 Tim: 1998, CEO in ~2009 Sundar: 2004, CEO in 2015 Andy: 1997, CEO in 2021 Ted: 2000, CEO in 2020 They were all senior executives well before assuming their CEO roles.

CarbonCycles 4y ago

Oh man...Dell is terrible about this. Not sure what the policy is anymore (esp since they went private), but to get promoted you had implement a significant cost savings project, which ironically lead to multiple implementations and reversals of policies...they all showed a cost savings but it depended on your perspective.

ValentineC 4y ago
I don't know anything about Dell's promotion criteria, but their consumer ordering process has to be one of the most hostile ever — I'm guessing anywhere between 50-75% of their orders get auto-cancelled by some overzealous anti-fraud and anti-reseller algorithm.