Current Events > In general, why are most management and high level employees at work stupid?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I have worked in finance for about a year now and when I first got hired here, I initially thought management, CEOs, CFOs, and all were the smartest and brightest people out there. I expected them to be the cream of the crop in terms of workers.

Not gonna lie im pretty disappointed that what I initially thought isnt the case. A lot of them seem like absolute morons. Like. they went to good schools like Brown, Stanford, MIT, Harvard, and all and they still seem like absolute morons. A lot of them dont seem any smarter than typical fast food workers or people in poor neighborhoods, which is a shame because a lot of those guys have to settle for crappy low paying jobs and these guys are making millions even if they arent that good.

Im almost convinced that a lot of people in poor neighborhoods can do these jobs. Its just that they never got lucky enough to meet the right people who can get them in this world.

Is this normal? I thought management and CEOs in finance are supposed to be the best and brightest?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

because they're not very smart

I would say there are some smart people stuck in crap jobs, and some dumb people in good jobs. But generally, smart people work their way up little by little, barring difficult life circumstances (like losing everything in a fire, etc).

The people very good at their job are too valuable to move into different positions, so they either get stuck or quit.
The people very bad at their job are just let go.
The people who are just okay at their job are too valuable to lose, but could be replaced with more competent people, so they get moved into a position where a familiarity with a product or a company culture is more valuable than raw technical contributions - like management.

back in the 80s, GM offered a buyout to certain classes of salaried employees. it was voluntary. in this way GM hoped to avoid involuntary layoffs.

to oversimplify things a little, anyone good enough to immediately get another good job took the buyout

It aint about what you know, it's about how well you're able to network and leave a good impression on others. Those idiots in high paying jobs were able to convince someone they had their shit together at one point or another and once they got their jobs they were able to go mask off. Those bright people stuck in crappy jobs highly excel at what they do, so of course their bosses don't want to lose their output.

s0nicfan posted...

The people very good at their job are too valuable to move into different positions, so they either get stuck or quit.
The people very bad at their job are just let go.
The people who are just okay at their job are too valuable to lose, but could be replaced with more competent people, so they get moved into a position where a familiarity with a product or a company culture is more valuable than raw technical contributions - like management.

ive seen this in action. checks out.

toreysback posted...

back in the 80s, GM offered a buyout to certain classes of salaried employees. it was voluntary. in this way GM hoped to avoid involuntary layoffs.

to oversimplify things a little, anyone good enough to immediately get another good job took the buyout

Well no wonder GM has gone to shit

you lose skills you learned when you don't use them

most management jobs are bs where most of what you do is tell someone else to work harder

thus even a guy who was a genius in college at a management job for awhile will get the brain rot

BuckVanHammer posted...

ive seen this in action. checks out.

It happens so often that there's a term for it: "failing upward"

the c-suite or jobs higher up the ladder are not for everyone. unless you're in a complete joke of a company, they're actually very hard jobs and the stress is not really worth the money. unless you really really like managing large teams and having to understand products and designs in and out and be good with potential customers and potential investors, and having to always be perfect in your recall of all company information...you're probably not going to like c-suite or higher-up manager type of jobs. those people are usually gonna have to be passionate about the business they're in in order to put up with that effort.

they get paid a lot but it's not for no reason, usually. many of those people are experts in their fields, even if some of their more recent hands-on exp is lacking, they still have a long tenure in whatever field/business they're in.

I always attributed it being able to "talk". Making noise but not saying anything. They can talk at length in business jargon and it sounds good.

They have high standards for lowers and then the highers suck....

Advancing in Corporate America is more showmanship than anything. The people making promotions aren't knowledgeable enough to tell the difference between competence and bullshitting.

ScionTC_07 posted...

Im almost convinced that a lot of people in poor neighborhoods can do these jobs. Its just that they never got lucky enough to meet the right people who can get them in this world.

Money goes where money is.

SiO4 posted...

Money goes where money is.

Oh and the last place I worked, all the management and a lot of the staff was all alumni of the same private high school.

sugarysyntax posted...

the c-suite or jobs higher up the ladder are not for everyone. unless you're in a complete joke of a company, they're actually very hard jobs and the stress is not really worth the money. unless you really really like managing large teams and having to understand products and designs in and out and be good with potential customers and potential investors, and having to always be perfect in your recall of all company information...you're probably not going to like c-suite or higher-up manager type of jobs. those people are usually gonna have to be passionate about the business they're in in order to put up with that effort.

they get paid a lot but it's not for no reason, usually. many of those people are experts in their fields, even if some of their more recent hands-on exp is lacking, they still have a long tenure in whatever field/business they're in.

This is actually very accurate. The problem is that there is a mismatch in the skill required to do these top-level jobs and the people that are eventually hired to do them.

Generally speaking, the ones that do it well you won't hear about, because they are too busy taking care of their companies and producing results while staying scandal-free. The ones you hear about are the bad ones, because they often make news headlines for their incompetence. It's hard to say if there's more competent ones or incompetent ones out there without doing a statistical study of it. Mere hearsay and anecdotes will always make it seems like the incompetent ones are more numerous.

I do want to add another point to this conversation of how the incompetent ones get promoted. I've been in hiring committees where we hire Vice Presidents and the advantage of applying for jobs that high up is that you can claim the credit of every department below you as your doing. I had VP candidates tell us about these breakthrough products or processes developed by their departments that impressed the rest of the hiring committee. In one particular example, I happened to know in detail about that particular product, so I questioned them with finer details about it (things that someone who really had a hand in its success would know). They stumbled through their answer, showing me they really had no idea what the product was and that they just had a really competent team and he had nothing to do with their success.

But to people who don't bother to ask for follow-ups, candidates like that can build an impressive resume of product launches, initiatives, fundraising campaigns, and partnerships created by their strong teams, even if the teams completed these tasks in spite of them and not because of them.

Meanwhile an individual contributor at a company can be the key person to launch a successful venture, but they don't get any credit for it because they only worked on a piece of it, and the boss gets the full credit.

s0nicfan posted...

The people very good at their job are too valuable to move into different positions, so they either get stuck or quit.
The people very bad at their job are just let go.
The people who are just okay at their job are too valuable to lose, but could be replaced with more competent people, so they get moved into a position where a familiarity with a product or a company culture is more valuable than raw technical contributions - like management.

Yeah I literally watched multiple people get passed up for lead positions because "they know too much on the line, we can't afford to promote them".

Zanzenburger posted...

In one particular example, I happened to know in detail about that particular product, so I questioned them with finer details about it (things that someone who really had a hand in its success would know). They stumbled through their answer, showing me they really had no idea what the product was and that they just had a really competent team and he had nothing to do with their success.

This is all too common. These higher ups often don't know jack shit and just hand down vague initiatives. Other times they will hand out dumb shit marching orders that teams have to force to work. So many times, teams succeed in spite of management, not because of them.

Zanzenburger posted...

Meanwhile an individual contributor at a company can be the key person to launch a successful venture, but they don't get any credit for it because they only worked on a piece of it, and the boss gets the full credit.

They also don't get full risk if it goes south. Some people prefer handling less risk even if it means that the person who shouldered more risk gets more reward. It's a very different type of job to interface with a customer base and take their criticisms and feedback and try to understand what their requirements actually are. It's very stressful unless you like people a lot and teams and products and complexity. It's stressful to be the fall guy if things go south. I think anyone aspiring to have a c-suite job in the future should prepare for that. It's not an easy type of work.

In many (most) cases, being a higher-ranked individual contributor is the sweet spot between good-enough reward vs tolerable risk. Some people have more appetite for risk so they don't mind having to be the person who is to blame if things fail, but it's definitely being stressful in that position...give me the IC role every time ha.

Because dumb people fail upward.
People who are actually good at their jobs are never promoted because the dumbasses at the top see them as a threat. And the job needs to get done, so the good employees are stuck at that level forever.

Questionmarktarius posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

Came in to post dis.

Because they got connections

ScionTC_07 posted...

Im almost convinced that a lot of people in poor neighborhoods can do these jobs. Its just that they never got lucky enough to meet the right people who can get them in this world.

Is this normal?

It's absolutely normal. If you don't have connections then you can't get anywhere.

nepotism

ScionTC_07 posted...

Is this normal?

Yes.

Imit8m3 posted...

Because dumb people fail upward.
People who are actually good at their jobs are never promoted because the dumbasses at the top see them as a threat. And the job needs to get done, so the good employees are stuck at that level forever.

You are not wrong