

Why your boss is incompetent  - dimas
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427392.600-why-your-boss-is-incompetent.html

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lutorm
"The longer a person stays at a particular level in an organisation, the more
most measures of their performance fall - including subjective evaluations and
the frequency and size of pay rises and bonuses. It is a finding entirely
consistent with the idea that people eventually become bogged down by their
own incompetence."

That's a conflation of cause and effect if ever I've seen one. It's also
entirely consistent with the fact that people who don't get promoted (the
majority, given the pyramidal structure) are stuck and get fed up with their
jobs as they aren't challenged any longer.

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btilly
This reminds me of _First, Break All The Rules_ (see
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684852861?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684852861?ie=UTF8&tag=randomobser0b-20)
to get the book). They point out that many promotions require different
skills, and that sometimes works badly. This is particularly true when people
are promoted to manager.

To avoid this problem they recommend giving people promotion possibilities
within job roles _AND_ requiring that moving into management always come with
a pay cut to make people honest about whether they are seeking the job because
they think they would be good at it, or because they want a raise. (A manager
who is good would likely make up the pay cut with interest over time.)

~~~
pyre
> _requiring that moving into management always come with a pay cut to make
> people honest_

What about people that can't afford a pay cut financially?

~~~
hugh_
If you can't find a way to deal with a pay cut, you're probably not cut out to
be a manager.

If you're spending 100% of your income then you're not good at planning ahead.

If you can't find things to cut in your personal budget, you'll suck at
managing the company's budget.

And if you can't talk your wife into making do with less, you're not
persuasive enough to handle employees.

~~~
pyre
You know... sometimes life throws you curveballs. If you believe that planning
will prevent _any and all_ financial problems from appearing then I have a
bridge to sell you...

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luu
They've shown that random selection is good when there's zero correlation
between performance at level N and level N+1.

Personally, I'm more interested in what happens if the correlation is non-
zero, and performance at level N+1 has more impact than performance at level
N? How does the best promotion strategy change as the level of correlation and
impact of being higher up the ladder changes?

~~~
roundsquare
They didn't give the details of the model. But I don't think you need the
model to make some reasonable statements.. Let r = correlation between level N
and and N + 1

r = -1 ==> promote worst performers r = 0 ==> promote at random or based on
completely independent criteria. r = 1 ==> promote best performers

And you can fill in everything in between. Putting it this way almost makes it
seem obvious. In fact though, the hardest part is judging r.

 _impact of being higher up the ladder changes?_

They did do this:

 _measured as a weighted average of employee competence, with higher-level
positions counting for more_

Edit: Missed a word.

