4 ms·
Has anyone tried laying off most of the executive team - instead of the workers?
by p1esk 3y ago
Has anyone tried laying off most of the executive team - instead of the workers?
- no_wizard 3y agoI always wanted to see an experiment where you take a really knowledgeable about the business front line employee, and hoist them to the C suite with all the same support systems executives have (and there's more than you might expect) and see if they do the same or better in that chair. There's only be limited studies done in this vain, and the results, while limited, seem to suggest that any reasonably smart person with knowledge of the industry could do a good job but the studies are pretty limited, and don't construct the circumstances as I described, so its hard to say its true or not true.
- crazygringo 3y agoThey would do terribly. They're completely and utterly different skill sets. It makes as much sense as taking an oboe player and asking them to conduct an orchestra, without any conducting experience. Do you know how to handle investor relations and different factions on the board? Managing sales and marketing strategies? Assessing the regulatory environment in Europe and the legal risks of expansion in China? Can you speak confidently and charmingly at conferences with billionaires? Do you understand how to manage different interest rate environments? Is it obvious to you which law firms to hire for different needs? This isn't just stuff you can learn on the fly. It takes many years of experience, and often a business degree in the middle, to become even moderately competent in this stuff.
- danaris 3y agoI have yet to see evidence that what gets done in the C-suite of many (not all, possibly not most—but many) companies is making use of any skill set at all, besides self-aggrandizement and bullshitting. To be charitable, for some of these, what's happening is that rather than leveraging their skills, they're leveraging their relationships. And that can be valuable, sometimes, but it's not a substitute for actually knowing what the hell you're doing. The real problem is that far too many of these people—skills or no skills—primarily bring their egos to the table, and operate mostly based on that.
- crazygringo 3y agoThen you're not paying attention. If that's what you think, you simply have zero actual experience with C-suite jobs. You "have yet to see evidence" because you haven't actually tried to learn accurate information about it.
- p1esk 3y agoAll these tasks you listed - what makes you think an average CEO knows how to do any of them? How do you know if the company is doing well because of the CEO or despite them?
- ta2234234242 3y agoWhat's funny is that people assume the executive team must be high performing. In reality, they are able to fire the people with the least amount of power.
- valval 3y agoUntil they no longer choose to cut employee costs, or what would be the end goal here?