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Friend, as a software engineer who’s become a CEO I can’t disagree with you more. The traditional culture of CEOs in the western world isn’t healthy: it’s top
by happytiger 3y ago
Friend, as a software engineer who’s become a CEO I can’t disagree with you more.
The traditional culture of CEOs in the western world isn’t healthy: it’s top down focus and focus on pushing down responsibility and departmental compartmentalization tends to create a lot of the problems the very same management theory fancies itself to solve.
Having an actual “buck stops with me” CEO who has experience in the trenches and not managing other people to get the results that would reassure the market and has been shown to work very well in company after company.
First principles and the culture of questioning need to be nurtured by competent leaders, and not MBA lead presentations and check in meetings for progress. Sleeping in the factory until this situation is fixed is what needs to happen and it is not this board and management team.
Also, this is a board issue first, a CEO issue second.
Of course: I’m biased.
- RandomLensman 3y agoThat is not really related to my point unless you want to say that engineer CEOs are intrinsically better/not susceptible to bad culture etc. I have worked with great, bad, and middling CEOs and I would not say that it comes down to their degree background where they place in the spectrum of quality. Not having experience in managing other people but only some sort of trench experience will likely fail at a place of the size and complexity. A lot what you describe is more like poor management. And, yes, there is a big role for the board to play.
- brigadier132 3y ago> unless you want to say that engineer CEOs are intrinsically better/not susceptible to bad culture etc Yes, that's what we are all saying.
- RandomLensman 3y agoThen show the evidence. This feels like a testable hypothesis.
- brigadier132 3y agohttps://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/22/more-top-performing-ceos-now-have-engineering-degrees-than-mbas/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/22/more-top-...
- RandomLensman 3y agoThat just compares MBAs and engineers (not sure what happens if someone has both), not the many other non-engineer educations CEOs can have (law, mathematics, physics, ...). MBA is quite US centric. Also, performance measures play a role. I found this, for example, which says there is no relationship: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2011/06/18/does-ceo-education-matter/ https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2011/06/18/does-ceo-educatio...
- happytiger 3y agoWith evidence. Of the top performing companies in 2018: > 32 have an MBA, up from 29 last year. 34 have an engineering degree, up from 32 last year. It has shifted further in this direction since, especially with 2020. https://hbr.org/2018/11/the-best-performing-ceos-in-the-world-2018 https://hbr.org/2018/11/the-best-performing-ceos-in-the-worl... Edit: the point has been made. Please do some of your own research rather than constantly sea lioning. https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-called-when-someone-keeps-asking-for-evidence-on-a-forum-argument https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-called-when-someone-keeps-a...
- RandomLensman 3y agoHow many have law degrees? The majority of CEOs in the top 100 were not engineers it seems. And performance is stock performance/TSR, if I understand correctly. Edit: How is it sea lioning if your link is not establishing what you claim? An intrinsic link between being an engineer and being a high performance CEO would, for example, be that proportionate more engineers than MBAs, etc. are good CEOs.