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> And this wasn't a stupid guy, no matter what it might sound like. He might not lack intelligence, but a CEO unwilling or unable to understand the other peopl

> And this wasn't a stupid guy, no matter what it might sound like. He might not lack intelligence, but a CEO unwilling or unable to understand the other people work in a different way to him /is/ stupid. CEO is management, and (effective) management means well... managing the various people, resources, and other restrictions to achieve the goals at hand. Being pissy that people and the universe don't work they way they want is immature and/or incompetent.

kcplate 3y ago
> CEO is management I disagree, a CEO is not management in the sense you are describing. Being a CEO is more about decision making and direction setting for the organization holistically to maximize the value to the shareholders of the org. Depending on the size of the org, management might be a task they perform, but in larger orgs, CEOs rely on managers to manage.
- solraph 3y ago
  Even accepting that definition (I don't 100%, but nevermind), a CEO is still making strategic decisions that need to take into account the variety of people that report to them and how they work. For example, if a CEO in a large org demanded that engineers are all available via phone for level 1 support calls to cut support costs - that would be stupid, because even two short calls a day is going to have a massive impact on those engineers productivity on building the product(s), followed by any of the half decent engineers leaving for other jobs shortly afterwards.
  - kcplate 3y ago
    I am not saying that every CEO decision is a sound or good decision, but the failure in your example would be at whatever management level is between the CEO and the engineers because they provided could have provided sound advice. However, if the strategic need of the organization required that level of direct engineering support more than the specific engineering productivity…it could be a sound decision. As an example, I worked at a organization in the late 90s managing field engineers. For an entire week the CEO required our team to be in office instead of in the field. We thought it idiotic at the time, but apparently it help create the optics that convinced the owner of a small company to sell his company which allowed our company acquire a game changing product. None of us understood the big picture because we couldn’t see the forest through the trees.

kcplate 3y ago

> CEO is management I disagree, a CEO is not management in the sense you are describing. Being a CEO is more about decision making and direction setting for the organization holistically to maximize the value to the shareholders of the org. Depending on the size of the org, management might be a task they perform, but in larger orgs, CEOs rely on managers to manage.

solraph 3y ago
Even accepting that definition (I don't 100%, but nevermind), a CEO is still making strategic decisions that need to take into account the variety of people that report to them and how they work. For example, if a CEO in a large org demanded that engineers are all available via phone for level 1 support calls to cut support costs - that would be stupid, because even two short calls a day is going to have a massive impact on those engineers productivity on building the product(s), followed by any of the half decent engineers leaving for other jobs shortly afterwards.
- kcplate 3y ago
  I am not saying that every CEO decision is a sound or good decision, but the failure in your example would be at whatever management level is between the CEO and the engineers because they provided could have provided sound advice. However, if the strategic need of the organization required that level of direct engineering support more than the specific engineering productivity…it could be a sound decision. As an example, I worked at a organization in the late 90s managing field engineers. For an entire week the CEO required our team to be in office instead of in the field. We thought it idiotic at the time, but apparently it help create the optics that convinced the owner of a small company to sell his company which allowed our company acquire a game changing product. None of us understood the big picture because we couldn’t see the forest through the trees.