The Best And The Brightest

I remember marveling at the knowledge and qualifications of my college professors. They seemed brighter and more accomplished than even the best of my high school teachers. Over time, the depth and breadth of their understand became even more impressive. 

Even in the upper level classes, students sometimes asked for an explanation of a problem over which they had struggled for hours or even days. The professor would walk up to the blackboard and solve the problem in a few minutes. Then they would throw in a comment about how simple the problem was and how we should have been able to solve it. We'd walk out of the classroom feeling like idiots.

I was naïve enough to expect something similar when I entered the corporate world. I expected management to comprise the best and brightest individuals in the company, people who had worked hard to develop an impressive knowledge of the operations of the firm and the underlying processes and technologies that support those operations. The truth was rather disappointing.

Of people for whom I have worked over the years, very few could have done my job, even poorly. This might make sense in cases where I was brought in as a subject matter expert later in my career. But even as an inexperience newbie straight out of college, I was amazed at how little my bosses understood about what they were asking me to do. 

When your boss doesn't understand what you do, they won't understand the challenges that you face, either. Their ability to support you and to give you a fair assessment at the end of the year is compromised. And forget training and mentoring. Even in my first job, I found myself explaining things to the bosses more often than they explained things to me. 

Over the years, I did work for very good managers. Some were technically proficient. Some were organized and knew how keep a project on schedule. Some were good at attracting and developing personnel. Some had a knack for coming up with creative ideas. 

But a surprising number of my bosses were organizationally ineffective, technically challenged, or both. I remember wondering how some of these folks came to hold positions of responsibility. 

Was it a matter of being in the right place at the right time? Had an unexpected vacancy forced the department to fill a role with whomever was available? Had they relied on contacts, perhaps in the ranks of upper management? Did they present themselves impressively in an interview despite their apparent lack of ability and qualifications?

I still don't know. Promotion of people into and up through the ranks of corporate management is one of human society's great mysteries, like Stonehenge or crop circles. 

Perhaps those aren't fair comparisons. Stonehenge was an impressively engineered astronomical calendar. Crop circles are hoaxes brilliantly coordinated by skilled pranksters. Corporate management is neither impressively engineered nor brilliantly coordinated, although it does make use of calendars, its budgets can be astronomical, and it could be perceived as a hoax - just not one that's perpetrated by skilled practitioners.





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