3 ms·

The issue in my opinion is their day or two on the job really doesn't give them a good picture of what's going on. Sure they might see a few things but they co

The issue in my opinion is their day or two on the job really doesn't give them a good picture of what's going on. Sure they might see a few things but they could just as easily be an anomaly as they could be systemic. I wish upper management that are brought in from the outside would be required to work a month or two in the field and live on those wages. For example at Starbucks in the 2 days he works he might see that the espresso machine is getting loaded wrong 40% of the time slowing up the line. Seeing this he might go back to the mothership and decide everyone using the espresso machine needs more training to reduce the failures. What he is missing is that there are supposed to be three people working not two and the person making espresso is working his fifth double shift this week because the wages are so low they can't pay their rent and is making errors because he's tired. He would have also missed that the manager had sent a worker home that day and the day before because it wasn't busy and the manager wanted to improve his margins. He also missed the next day when it was really busy that same manager was demanding that an employee on their day off come in and work because they were busy and if they didn't come in they would be fired (leaving them even more short of people and creating more delays). It's like a person who fasts for 24h saying they know what it's like to be starving. If you really want to see what's going on a day or two simply won't cut it you need some time for things to sink in and if you don't know what's really going on how can you run a business properly?

flappyeagle 4y ago
You’re making a lot of assumptions about how dumb he will be. Like you think he will just overfit on every detail instead of asking the store manager or employees about what he experienced? You think he will not work in more than one store, in more than one geography? Cmon man.
- quacked 4y ago
  Honestly I think you're making as many assumptions as the parent commenter--I agree you're right that the portrayal of the exec is really biased towards assuming stupidity, but it really depends on the quality of the executive and the people that hired them. It's completely possible to get a total dumbass, and also possible to get a genius.
  - flappyeagle 4y ago
    I know it’s an unpopular opinion to hold but I don’t think you make it to being CEO of Starbucks while being a dumbass
quacked 4y ago
Eh, I think it depends on how canny the executive running the experiment is and how much experience they have in the particular part of the industry. I worked in restaurants when I was younger and now have done a lot of sales-side and logistics management, and it wouldn't take more than a day of working in a new restaurant for me to accurately understand some of the major issues going on. You just have to be open-minded, identify the best employees, and let them freely bitch at you for about two hours while trying to do the work with them. That'll give you a good sense of the big blockers at that particular restaurant. Same is true for any software org. The difference will be if you think that you're going to come up with better prescriptions for success than they are (and this is where the level of executive cleverness comes into play). One day per month in a Starbucks shop and then giving technical directives wouldn't make any sense, but one day per month in a Starbucks shop and then redirecting budgeting at a corporate level might.

flappyeagle 4y ago

You’re making a lot of assumptions about how dumb he will be. Like you think he will just overfit on every detail instead of asking the store manager or employees about what he experienced? You think he will not work in more than one store, in more than one geography? Cmon man.

quacked 4y ago
Honestly I think you're making as many assumptions as the parent commenter--I agree you're right that the portrayal of the exec is really biased towards assuming stupidity, but it really depends on the quality of the executive and the people that hired them. It's completely possible to get a total dumbass, and also possible to get a genius.
- flappyeagle 4y ago
  I know it’s an unpopular opinion to hold but I don’t think you make it to being CEO of Starbucks while being a dumbass

quacked 4y ago

Eh, I think it depends on how canny the executive running the experiment is and how much experience they have in the particular part of the industry. I worked in restaurants when I was younger and now have done a lot of sales-side and logistics management, and it wouldn't take more than a day of working in a new restaurant for me to accurately understand some of the major issues going on. You just have to be open-minded, identify the best employees, and let them freely bitch at you for about two hours while trying to do the work with them. That'll give you a good sense of the big blockers at that particular restaurant. Same is true for any software org. The difference will be if you think that you're going to come up with better prescriptions for success than they are (and this is where the level of executive cleverness comes into play). One day per month in a Starbucks shop and then giving technical directives wouldn't make any sense, but one day per month in a Starbucks shop and then redirecting budgeting at a corporate level might.