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The Executive Mind

T

turf3

Sep 26, 2011
6,855
16,334
#1
So, anyone who's been in the corporate world a long time, like me, has a collection of "stupid executive" stories. The new processes that take three times as long as the old ones and constantly gum up the works. Directives that everyone immediately figures out how to get around. Outright falsehoods ("The rumors of impending layoffs are ABSOLUTELY UNTRUE"). Bad decisions that cost the company huge sums of money and dozens of people could have predicted it.

You all know the kind of tales, if you've been round the block a few times.

What I sometimes wonder, is how do the people doing this stuff THINK it's going to be received? Do they realize their subordinates make fun of them? Roll their eyes "Oh hell, the big boss attended another seminar"? Sarcastic comments? I mean, once upon a time even the CEO was a cubicle monkey like everyone else, at least for a little while. Did the coffee machine conversations and cynicism just go over their heads? Do they just figure that we lower-downs aren't smart enough to see how their bad decisions are actually great decisions? Or what?

Anyone here been a high up executive in a big company, or known one, or married to one? Is employee reaction to evident stupidity and bad decisions just written off as "those malcontents"?
 
#2
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#4
I was an exec in the Federal govt here in Canada for a while. (SES for our American colleagues).

Couldn’t stomach it at all so I went back into the trenches (GS-15 equivalent).

My mental health thanked me for that decision. Funny thing is I make more than average first rank of exec so there’s been zero impact on my pension or retirement.
 
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#7
My father was a senior engineer for an international printing corporation for decades, and he saw executives and other higher up managers come and go.

He told me that these people are just like anybody else regarding competence, integrity, decency, likeability, and common sense. You can get good executives and bad executives, and everything in between.
 
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#8
I've seen both sides.

One of our company owners calls a monthly meeting where he'll read the latest 'motivational' lesson he found online, then with a forced smile, say "let's go get 'em!" Everybody rolls their eyes and thinks about the 20 minutes we just wasted listening to empty words when we could have been doing something productive.

And while there's no doubt there are plenty of idiots higher up on the ladder than they should be, it goes both ways. No shortage of semi-worthless worker bees, either. Having to overcome stupid decisions/actions that cost the company money (or potential lawsuits), employees going AWOL and leaving everyone else scrambling to cover for them, those who spend half their working hours surfing the net, etc, etc.

As I've observed and learned over the five decades I've been in the workforce, there are about 70% who carry their weight, and 30% who don't. But guess which group does the most complaining? :smug:
 
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#10
I have seen some of the kinds of things you are talking about, but I have a bit of a different perspective on some of them. For example, you mentioned the "we're not laying anyone off" followed by layoffs happening. I was actually involved in a situation like that...

I spent 25 years as a manager in the credit operation of a major regional retail store. We operated seven different regional store chains that covered most of the country. This was during the height of the "eat or be eaten" era of retail (90s - early 2000s). Through our mergers we picked up one chain that had a large operation similar to ours in another part of the country. For a period of time, we operated both offices. For a number of reasons, executive management decided they would close the other office. I was in the loop of the pending closure due to the impact it would have on my area of responsibility. I knew for months what was coming, but had to deflect any mention of rumors as "just nonsense". The reason was obvious. There was much work that had to be done handle the switch, and if word got out people would have dropped like flies, and we'd been left shorthanded and unable to operate. It sucked knowing, and all of us that did felt completely slimy. Being "in charge" is nowhere as fun and exciting as most people think it is. There are far more hard, unpleasant decisions than anything else.
 
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#11
The CEO/upper mgmt of the company I work for has been pushing for us to be "climate positive" as an organization. However, there are still plenty of international business trips happening across all levels with all teams. And when employees have asked about potentially getting reimbursed for taking public transport to work, it always gets denied. But expensing garage or street parking is acceptable, for some reason.

Whenever this topic comes up in meetings, I roll my eyes. I can't be the only one.
 
#12
All I know is I sure I don't miss the private sector. Any innovation/new idea was in the service of profit (we think this is going to going be a big seller!). Truly helping people/making the world a better place was only an occasional side benefit. I'm much happier doing what I do now, though the pay isn't exactly wonderful. Peace of mind is priceless, however.
 
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#13
When I was in school I always thought engineering was a discipline that required one to be on the ball to successfully navigate, until I took a job programing machine tools for a mega corp engineering firm. I quickly discovered there were plenty degreed engineers who fell through the cracks in school. I spent my professional career on the bleeding edge of high precision, close tolerance manufacture of shovels and rakes and other implements of destruction for our Uncle, and met plenty of higher ups whose only function seemed to be making everyone else's job harder. People blowing an entire contracts tool budget on some nonfunctioning, overly complicated Rube Goldberg holding fixture, then us scrambling to build an actual working fixture from scrap laying around the shop. My personal fave was a retired USAF colonel who got hired as our production division manager. He had an MBA, but zero production management experience. In less than a year he gutted the employee retirement fund in an attempt to refurbish an ancient large capacity close tolerance grinding facility in spite of three surveys which all determined the current equipment was worn beyond repair. His MBA informed him it was less expensive to refurbish than replace so that’s what he did. He then secured contracts for the facility and it took less than week to determine we were never going to meet contract requirements with our equipment and were forced to sub the job out. Since he drained the pension fund for the refurb, we wound up going in the hole on the job due to costs associated with transporting and subbing out the work. At the end of his first year he was let go, and paid 100K per year for the four years remaining on his contract. It was at that moment I realized I’d made a big mistake concentrating on making the best possible product when I should have been getting an MBA. :D
 
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#14
Reflecting on my last two CEO’s I realized I could never be the top dog (I am CFO of a $100mil healthcare company). If I were CEO I would have to come in an hour later than I do now, leave a half hour earlier and take off every Friday afternoon. I just can’t work like that. Plus I would have to constantly come up with new ideas that will never work and make everyone chase after them. Not my thing.
 
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#15
Bassguy61 said:
I have seen some of the kinds of things you are talking about, but I have a bit of a different perspective on some of them. For example, you mentioned the "we're not laying anyone off" followed by layoffs happening. I was actually involved in a situation like that...

I spent 25 years as a manager in the credit operation of a major regional retail store. We operated seven different regional store chains that covered most of the country. This was during the height of the "eat or be eaten" era of retail (90s - early 2000s). Through our mergers we picked up one chain that had a large operation similar to ours in another part of the country. For a period of time, we operated both offices. For a number of reasons, executive management decided they would close the other office. I was in the loop of the pending closure due to the impact it would have on my area of responsibility. I knew for months what was coming, but had to deflect any mention of rumors as "just nonsense". The reason was obvious. There was much work that had to be done handle the switch, and if word got out people would have dropped like flies, and we'd been left shorthanded and unable to operate. It sucked knowing, and all of us that did felt completely slimy. Being "in charge" is nowhere as fun and exciting as most people think it is. There are far more hard, unpleasant decisions than anything else.
Click to expand...
Stuff like this is why I'm glad that I'm not in management.

WG Plum said:
All I know is I sure I don't miss the private sector. Any innovation/new idea was in the service of profit (we think this is going to going be a big seller!). Truly helping people/making the world a better place was only an occasional side benefit. I'm much happier doing what I do now, though the pay isn't exactly wonderful. Peace of mind is priceless, however.
Click to expand...
And this is why it's difficult to be in healthcare, knowing the profit-motive involved and how that informs a lot of the decision-making at work. There are a lot of...um...seemingly weird initiatives at work, particularly with respect to staffing.
 
#16
definenredefine said:
Stuff like this is why I'm glad that I'm not in management.


And this is why it's difficult to be in healthcare, knowing the profit-motive involved and how that informs a lot of the decision-making at work. There are a lot of...um...seemingly weird initiatives at work, particularly with respect to staffing.
Click to expand...

I'm healthcare-adjacent, on the social work side of it. I'm sadly all too familiar with the realities of the profit-motive in medicine.
 
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#18
WG Plum said:
I'm healthcare-adjacent, on the social work side of it. I'm sadly all too familiar with the realities of the profit-motive in medicine.
Click to expand...
That aside (and at the risk of thread derailing), thank you for what you do. Social workers do great, underappreciated work in helping us keep folks out of the hospital.
 
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