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Playing devil's advocate here. Maybe being a golfing buddy does qualify for being a good CXO. To be a "golfing buddy", you need money and connections. Connecti
by GuB-42 4y ago
Playing devil's advocate here.
Maybe being a golfing buddy does qualify for being a good CXO. To be a "golfing buddy", you need money and connections. Connections are important for that job, and wealth correlates with success and good finances, again important. Some of them are just born in wealthy families, but this is a positive, not a negative: wealthy family often give their kids good education, have lots of connections, and are used to being leaders. Golfing buddies also need to make good conversation, including on business topics, otherwise they won't stay buddies for long, again a valuable skill.
Being a golfing buddy certainly isn't an objective criteria, but it is not completely worthless, and it is easier to detect fakers when you spend a lot of time with them, or at least, it requires more effort from the faker. Objective criteria typically include past work, and CXOs usually have that too.
- ryanbrunner 4y agoMaybe a good solution for CEOs in that situation is to be pretty clear about that - make the CxO role a purely "public face" role, and leave day to day operations to VP / SVPs. In my experience that rarely happens, the "golfing buddy" types may be good at the golfing buddy stuff but also exert a lot of influence (often quite forcefully) on the overall org where their actions tend to be mostly negative.
- etempleton 4y agoIn theory a good leader does exactly this. I once heard leadership defined as creating consensus. It is only when two VPs can’t make a decision does the good CxO step in to make a judgement call based on the arguments of all sides. Even Steve Jobs talked about losing arguments at Apple and not getting his way. He hated it, but he recognized he maybe didn’t always know best and trusted people to make the right call if they could defend their rationale. Too many leaders think their job is to be a decider, when it is really their job is to hire people they trust to make most decisions and then they make a few critical ones.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Tao3300 4y agoA unrelated item from the department of bad ideas that might be good ideas: (Horns on) Maybe voter ID laws aren't such a bad idea. Getting an ID and presenting it is like a "bare minimum" litmus test for whether or not you can comprehend and navigate government bureaucracy. If you can't comprehend and navigate the simplest form of it, how could you be qualified to make decisions on it? (Horns off) An unfortunate side effect of both these is that they keep one group in and everyone else locked out.
- kelseyfrog 4y agoUnfortunate side effects turn into strategic opportunities which turn into repressive regimes rather organically.
- lmm 4y ago> If you can't comprehend and navigate the simplest form of it, how could you be qualified to make decisions on it? Surely it's the reverse? People who are poorly served by existing government bureaucracy are those who most need to have input into the running of that bureaucracy.
- cma 4y agoThere is a history into the 2020s of blacks excluded from golf country clubs (most private clubs are exempt from discrimination laws). I believe the PGA didn't stop holding events at whites-only country clubs until 1990.