
What do executives do, anyway? - panic
https://apenwarr.ca/log/20190926
======
dhouston
IMO this post has some good points but makes the executive sound like a
passive referee, ultimately misunderstanding what High Output Management (also
one of my favorite books!) is about. (Admittedly adding my own editorial here
from my experience founding a startup and now running it as a ~3,000-person
public company.)

The basic principle of HOM is that the fundamental job of an executive is to
deliver results ("output"), and that the measure of an executive is the output
of their organization. Importantly, there is no one right way to deliver
results -- successful CEOs can have very different styles and techniques.

That said, for every effective way to deliver results there are vastly more
that are ineffective. Complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty are not your
friends. Time is not your friend. Everything is situationally dependent. There
are many skills to develop and principles that can help but there's no
formula.

This also partially explains why the median CEO or exec is perceived as
ineffective, often because they are. It's a hard job, otherwise everyone would
do it well and there would be a surplus of good (and cheap) execs.

Contrary to what the post suggests, HOM does not say not that the job of an
executive is to wave some kind of magic culture or "values" wand and rubber-
stamp whatever emergent strategy and behavior results from that. CEOs and
executives absolutely do (and must) make important decisions of all kinds,
break ties, and set general direction. Occasionally they need to give commands
but more typically you work collaboratively with and (as the post correctly
suggests) empower your team and avoid doing too much as an individual
contributor.

If you're curious about what execs do and how to be a good one, HOM is an
incredible book. The Effective Executive by Drucker is another favorite.

[https://hbr.org/2009/05/what-only-the-ceo-can-
do](https://hbr.org/2009/05/what-only-the-ceo-can-do) is one of my favorite
articles about the responsibilities of the CEO.

[https://hbr.org/2018/07/the-leaders-calendar](https://hbr.org/2018/07/the-
leaders-calendar) is a fascinating study of where CEOs spend their time and
what they actually do day to day.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" The basic principle of HOM is that the fundamental job of an executive is
to deliver results"_

Just like every other job in the world.

------
dbcurtis
Well, I'm not going to argue much with Andy Grove. But my answer to "What do
executives do?" is: Work on environmental problems.

Problems can be put into three buckets: 1) Can be solved by things 100% under
your control. 2) Can be solved only by influencing others to participate, 3)
Things that are part of the environment and can really only be mitigated.

Area 1, control, is the realm of the first line manager. The FLM has the
people, the budget, the FLM's team has the know-how, so execute well and the
problem is solved.

Area 2, influence, is the realm of the middle manager, and also sales and
marketing. You need to borrow resources from somebody else, argue for
corporate re-allocation of resources, convince a sales prospect to become a
customer, etc.

Area 3, environment, is the realm of the executive. You have no control and no
influence, unless you can _find_ some levers and then delegate. But some
things will not have obvious levers. Example: It rains. No body will stop the
rain. But everyone can fix the holes in their roof. Likewise, companies have
competitors and an economic environment in which they operate. Predict and
make plans.

When I was at Intel, one of the great things that senior Mids got to
participate in was "red teaming" as competitors. Given all that Intel knew
about a competitor, a team would be give a data dump and a short number of
weeks to come up with a strategic plan for that competitor to Eat Intel's
Lunch. Then they presented to Intel executive staff. From what I heard, it was
an excellent experience all around and very valuable to the company. (Before
you ask, no.... I was not ever in any danger of participating....)

~~~
gruez
>Given all that Intel knew about a competitor, a team would be give a data
dump and a short number of weeks to come up with a strategic plan for that
competitor to Eat Intel's Lunch. Then they presented to Intel executive staff.

I guess it's safe to say that they didn't predict AMD's Zen?

~~~
ncmncm
No doubt they did predict Zen, and planned to counter it with super chips from
their new fab. Which didn't work. Not everything does.

Normally a well-run shop has several alternatives running, so when one flops,
another is there to step in. They often did that with next-generation chip
architecture. That's hard to do with your fab.

In principle they could have had a design ready to go on TSMC if their fab
flopped, but scheduling fab capacity takes long-term commitments that they
didn't plan to be able to honor.

------
unnouinceput
Quote: "One of the book's claims, which I found shocking at first, was that in
a large organization, executives don't set strategy".

Yeah, let's agree to disagree and let's take a look at history. 1 - Microsoft.
Bill definitely had a strategy, one that almost cost him his sanity at the end
of 90's, but nevertheless made Microsoft in only 25 years a behemoth. 2 -
Apple. Steve definitely had a strategy when returned to Apple. Got all
hardware licenses back and worked on iPhone until was the game-changer. 3 -
Amazon. You going to tell me Jeff didn't had any strategy? Yeah right.

You know who didn't had a strategy after almost 100 years of strategies of its
CEO's? Kodak. Remember Kodak? Yeah, it took only 15 years of streams of CEO's
to be one per year with no strategy and a board full of idiots to make that
company disappear from the face of Earth.

~~~
cwyers
I think you misread the claim.

> So what, then? A company just drifts in the void, with no strategy?

> Not exactly. It's harder than that. What executives need to do is come up
> with organizational values that indirectly result in the strategy they want.

> That is, if your company makes widgets and one of your values is customer
> satisfaction, you will probably end up with better widgets of the right sort
> for your existing customers. If one of your values is to be environmentally
> friendly, your widget factories will probably pollute less but cost more. If
> one of your values is to make the tools that run faster and smoother, your
> employees will probably make less bloatware and you'll probably hire
> different employees than if your values are to scale fast and capture the
> most customers in the shortest time.

The claim is that as a CEO, you can't make the right decisions because you're
too far from the individual decisions that need to be made. If you intervene
in decisions directly, you risk overruling the people who are supposed to have
the information needed.

So you need a different lever than dictating the decisions made, even the
strategic decisions. You do that by having the right people and getting
alignment between them. That's what the author calls values. Telling everyone
"our strategy is to have a game-changing product like the iPhone" lacks
sufficient detail to be called a strategy. Getting into more detail risks
making decisions you may not have the information to make. So you set values,
like "we focus on the overall end-user experience, not just hardware or
software." You get people on board with them. If you pick the right values,
the strategy you want should emerge from the individual decisionmaking of the
people below you.

~~~
cjblomqvist
"we focus on the overall end-user experience, not just hardware or software."
sounds like strategy to me (perhaps it needs to become a little bit more
elaborate than that, but strategy at least).

Imo, Strategy at a high level is high level guidance. What is important to
focus on and what should we not focus on (and preferably why). Some companies
do however have these sneaky strategies like emergent strategy that is not set
from the top but let it emerge along the way, possibly from the bottom up,
based on the culture or whatever. Some companies simplify it to the extreme
with the "simple rules" strategy (1-3 simple rules which steers the company,
such as "turnover first, profit later").

Strategy can be very important, but usually takes a lot of time to affect the
bottom line. You don't need a strategy (well, that in itself is kind of a
strategy). Anyhow, the rest (the implementation/execution) is always more
important - just add with startups (the idea is 1%, execution 99%).

------
datadawg
This was a stimulating read and I'll be adding "High Output Management" to my
reading list.

I've worked in organizations where the company strategy was poorly defined and
this led to confusion and misalignment at the lower levels. I remember talking
to some of my coworkers, wondering whether we had an issue with our executive
team. It's interesting to think that it's not the role of the exec team to set
strategy, and the issue may have been with the management layer below the exec
team. Then again, maybe the problem was with the culture/value of diffuse
ownership set by the exec team...

~~~
js2
Ben Horowitz, when he was CEO at Loudcloud/Opsware, required his managers to
read H.O. Management. Here's the foreword he wrote for a recent edition:

[https://a16z.com/2015/11/13/high-output-
management/](https://a16z.com/2015/11/13/high-output-management/)

~~~
datadawg
Thanks, really enjoyed that foreword and it really pushed High Output
Management up on my reading list. Plus as a bonus I finally learned the name
of "The Peter Principle" (the idea that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to
their level of incompetence).

~~~
sixdimensional
The Peter Principle book is awesome too, by the way. Highly recommended!

------
p3rls
The duty of the general is to ride by the ranks on horseback, show himself to
those in danger, praise the brave, threaten the cowardly, encourage the lazy,
fill up gaps, transpose a company if necessary, bring aid to wearied,
anticipate the crisis, the hour, and the outcome. - Onasander

~~~
WilliamEdward
And get paid far more than the average worker - Onasander

~~~
rodolphoarruda
I don't think the average worker would agree to do the work of his general
without a change in his wage.

------
stupidcar
The management methodology The article presents is interesting, but a little
too neat. It fails to address some of the obvious practical problems that
would come from applying it (though perhaps the book does). In particular,
what happens when two reports simply cannot agree?

Many business decisions are time-sensitive. They cannot be endlessly deferred
until a consensus is reached. And even reasonable people, with access to the
same information, can reach opposite conclusions that will never be
reconciled. In these cases, somebody has to break the tie, as even a sub-
optimal decision may be better than a non-decision.

Also, in the matter of strategy, it's true that knowledge workers are better
informed within their domain, but they are also usually blind to larger scale
factors. The individual soldier knows the ideal outcome is to defeat the
enemy, and is best informed as to how to overcome a particular local strong
point. But it doesn't follow that he is best placed to make the tactical or
strategic decision to attack or not. Nor does it follow that a war-winning
strategy will spontaneously emerge.

~~~
eesmith
I think it did address that case, with "If it continues, people have to get
fired, because they are bad at making decisions." "Bad at making decisions"
includes being unable to make time-sensitive business decisions with
incomplete and ambiguous information.

If there are two reports who cannot agree, then in the methodology given,
there's no reason to think their executives can either.

So, what's the executive to do? Flip a coin? In that case, can't the two
reports decide to flip a coin?

Or, bring in more people to advice the executive? In which case, why can't the
two reports bring in more people?

If they can't, fire the one who won't flip a coin - or fire both if neither
can accept a reconciliation plan - since the corporate culture in your
scenario includes the ability to make time-sensitive business decisions with
incomplete and ambiguous information.

~~~
repolfx
That sounds completely alien to the high output corporate environments I
recognise. Sounds like the book may well be a wrong summary of Grove after
all.

The best executives are people who understand their reports work well enough
to do it themselves, if only they had the time. That means an executive
absolutely can and should not only break ties, but even override their reports
regularly if they aren't making the right decisions (hopefully with training
so they come into alignment with the executive's way of thinking).

The idea that a man like Steve Jobs did nothing but create vague 'values' is
absurd. Yes, he did that. He also "micro-managed" decisions like how many
buttons a phone should have, what programming languages developers should use
and so on. Without this kind of decision making how should an organisation
ever learn how to translate values into concrete decisions?

Your depiction of an execute implies a completely passive entity who simply
aggregates decisions made below them, with no insight or experience of their
own. There certainly are execs like that - ineffective ones.

~~~
eesmith
There's no way Jobs could have done Bill Atkinson's job well to do QuickDraw,
so I don't know what you mean by "well enough to do it themselves."

"A completely passive entity" sounds exactly like the example of the Queen's
Governor General ratifying everything.

~~~
repolfx
_If_ Apple was primarily an algorithms company then yes, he'd have been a
failure. Apple's relative disinterest in R&D during Jobs' tenure was quite
legendary though. They were first and foremost a design company. Once they
started trying to compete with Google on raw technology grounds like AI,
mapping etc, they started to struggle much harder. They were always the
strongest in the areas where Jobs can and did override his lieutenants
sometimes.

The way Apple seemed to be constantly balancing over-design against
engineering concerns seems like a case in point. Once Jobs was gone the
consensus seems to be that Jony Ive became unrestrained and had nobody above
him who could do what he did anymore, so he kind of went a bit wild and then
disengaged.

~~~
eesmith
The thesis is that "the only other responsibility of an executive is to
enforce company values."

(Note, there's no place where the author said those values need to be
'vague'.)

Your example of how 'many buttons a phone should have' could be interpreted as
enforcing a specific design value.

You ask "Without this kind of decision making how should an organisation ever
learn how to translate values into concrete decisions?" I don't see how your
question is necessarily incompatible from the thesis.

I don't know about the 'what programming languages developers should use'. Is
that Pascal (on the Mac), Dylan ("created in the early 1990s by a group led by
Apple Computer"), Objective-C, Swift, or something else? I'm guessing Obj-C.
What role did he play in choosing that as the language?

~~~
repolfx
Yes, Jobs believed Objective-C was fine and nobody would ever need or want
another language. Swift had to wait until Jobs passed away, as he'd have never
authorised it otherwise despite lots of people telling him Objective-C was out
of date.

As for the rest, yes, fair point. Usually in corporate English "values" are
very vague indeed, but I suppose you can consider it to be precise.

~~~
eesmith
I had not heard that Jobs played any important role in the choice to use
Objective-C. Looking around now, I can't find corraboration of that.

For example, [https://www.quora.com/How-did-Steve-Jobs-invent-
Objective-C](https://www.quora.com/How-did-Steve-Jobs-invent-Objective-C) has
one person commenting "I’m not even sure if it was Jobs’s decision to include
Objective C with NeXTStep, though he might have had a role in it." This is
based on Jobs' seemingly lack of understanding or experience with OO
programming.

(Other links also offer no pointers about Jobs' involvement.)

Now, to be certain, Jobs knew about the decision. He negotiated with Stallman
about the licensing for the Objective-C front-end. But that's different than
making the decision.

Once the decision was made, I could see why he might argue that it's fine. We
see, for example, companies which make a decision to only use one or a small
handful of languages. He could be using his reality distortion field to keep
that decision in place, rather than allowing a large diversity of languages
in-house.

------
vincent-toups
This doesn't seem useless, but it hardly seems worth 1000x the wage of a
regular worker either.

~~~
czbond
When you have the responsibility of 1000's of people's livelihood, their
paychecks rest on your hands - you don't think that's worth a heck of a lot
more than an average worker? And before anyone downvotes this - think about
the responsibility for a bit. Companies don't just plod along - they actively
manage into greatness, or actively manage into death.

~~~
ta092378
> When you have the responsibility of 1000's of people's livelihood, their
> paychecks rest on your hands - you don't think that's worth a heck of a lot
> more than an average worker?

No, this is absurd. Their paychecks don't simply rest only in the hands of the
executive, but in the hands of the worker as well. I'll concede it's a more
valuable position, but not 1000x or 100x or even 10x worth the value of the
avg. line worker.

Taking it further, frankly most of the executives I've worked with aren't
responsible at all. They're generally sociopaths as well!

The Gervais Principle holds.

~~~
kofejnik
you're totally free to start a few companies and pay 'fair' salary to the
execs you hire

or, if an executive at some publicly-traded company is paid way over his/her
value, it would mean that the company is inefficient; subsequently, you may
want to invest in the competition, or short this company's stock to exploit
this inefficiency

in other words, put your money on the line to prove your argument

------
m12k
The point about strategy vs culture reminds me of an article on here yesterday
about how cephalopods have neural subsystems for controlling each limb
separately, and they obviously have attention and intent - but it's still
impossible to say if they have 'consciousness' such as wee know it. Similarly,
it can be hard to tell if companies are run by intent from a central place or
it's mostly the enduring culture in the subdivisions that produce the actual
results.

------
zamfi
I wonder to what extent this should also apply to e.g., schools or churches,
or even parenting.

Conflict between kids? Make them decide together on a mutually acceptable
outcome. Set values, don't make decisions. Mediate. I guess the difference is
you can't fire your kids.

~~~
NateEag
Below a certain age you _can_ make them sit in a room without toys or
electronic devices until they decide to be cooperative.

It's not firing, but it can be motivational.

I'm intrigued both by the original idea and your thought of applying it to
parenting. I've found that most good management technique turns out to be
relevant to parenting.

~~~
bjornsing
Where I am we call that false imprisonment and indict people for it...

------
Gpetrium
Whenever a conversation about executives come up, many tend to jump into the
"this is not fair" band wagon. Below is a different take on senior executives
that may help shed light on why some things are the way they are.

To become a senior executive, the individual must often pass through many
trials and tribulations which entails risk taking. A portion of that comes
with taking a leap into different verticals, inheriting and resolving other
people's mess, taking a strategic perspective on things, etc. But you must
think, "other's also have to go through that" and it is true, but for
potential and new executives, it tends to happen more often and at a greater
risk to the self and the organization. The risk they take also needs to
account for competition, time without family/friends, emphasis in the company
not in the self, etc. All of these are risks, and when compounded can increase
the compensation value of an executive. If the market functioned differently
it is likely that a lot less people would be interested in taking that jump,
specially in today's economy, where most computer & IT occupations have a
similar median pay than a top executive [1][2] (USA numbers).

As they become the 0.01% of the 0.01% in their area of expertise, they are
able to command better compensation for their time. By being part of that
equation, you often have to jump into publicly traded companies and become a
public figure (internally & externally) which is viewed as a premium in market
led opportunities (artists, sports players, etc).

A simpler way to visualize the demand aspect of it is to ask yourself: If you
had $1m, would you prefer to put it in the hands of someone with reputation or
in the hands of the average Joe passing by? Would you pay $300k to get the
best doctor to treat your illness with a 5% higher odds of survival or would
you be fine to do it with someone else for $50k?

Of course, there are still questions regarding market distortions, cronyism
and many others that should be taken into account and potentially acted upon
to create what society perceives to be fair. It is just important to be
mindful of the overall picture.

[1] [https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-
technology/...](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-
technology/home.htm) [2] [https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/top-
executives.htm](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/top-executives.htm)

------
strikelaserclaw
Like anything, there are good executives and bad ones. The good ones have
worked in the domain for a long time, they have built a-lot of experience, and
have good leadership qualities. The bad ones are professional "management"
material, they seem to rely more on politicking than actually generating
value. The latter make me think i could easily do their job, and it makes me
resent the fact that i'm doing all the work and they are making much more
money than me.

~~~
bjornsing
Agree. So how do we get more of the former category and less of the latter?

------
cryptica
Executives leverage their personal relationships with shareholders and other
executives to enrich themselves at the expense of shareholders and taxpayers
through lobbying or shady deals. That's what they really do. All the other
stuff they do is just a pretext to deflect attention away from what they're
really doing.

------
JohnJamesRambo
I’ve always thought the film Margin Call got it so right:

John Tuld : Let me tell you something, Mr. Sullivan. Do you care to know why
I'm in this chair with you all? I mean, why I earn the big bucks.

Peter Sullivan : Yes.

John Tuld : I'm here for one reason and one reason alone. I'm here to guess
what the music might do a week, a month, a year from now. That's it. Nothing
more.

------
Merrill
When a company does well it is usually because the mid-level management is
effective. This article doesn't say much about the hiring, training and
promotion of an effective mid-level management team, which are all key tasks
that must be managed well from the top.

On the other hand, when a company does badly, it is usually because top level
management has made a bone-headed decision, e.g. makes a big investment in a
product that fails in the market, fails to respond to a major change in the
market that obsoletes current products, or makes a big acquisition that is a
disaster.

------
decebalus1
This book [1], written by a renowned scholar of executivology describes
exactly what an executive does.

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7177278-how-to-relax-
wit...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7177278-how-to-relax-without-
getting-the-axe)

------
sgt101
But wait! Where does my budget or authority come from? Andy Grove does not
answer the question that underpins corporate life. How are resources
allocated?

------
debt
I've recently been very intrigued about executive pay.

Because your average work makes like, what, 1/1000 of what an executive makes.
But those 1000 workers help that executive earn very high compensation, but
then I guess managing 1000 workers is 1000 times more valuable than the work
those workers do.

But all that sounds like an idea an executive would invent to justify earning
1000x more than what an average worker makes.

~~~
souprock
That isn't how it works out. Normally the executive gets far less than his
workers get. Remember, there are many workers.

When I divide the pay of Boeing's CEO by the number of Boeing workers, I get
just $100 per year. I am confident that the typical worker earns far more than
that. The CEO pay is insignificant. He could sacrifice his entire pay to give
raises for the workers, and they wouldn't gain even 1%.

Clearly, that CEO's work is not considered "1000 times more valuable than the
work those workers do".

~~~
jefftk
_> 1000 times more valuable than the work those workers do_

With a salary of $23M, Boeing's CEO is paid ~1000x what a worker is paid,
which is how I read it.

~~~
perl4ever
"managing 1000 workers is 1000 times more valuable than the work those workers
do" sounds like it's referring to the total work. At least it's ambiguous and
ill-phrased if it means one worker.

~~~
mlyle
That's the thing. If a top executive even makes the tiniest productivity
impact across his organization compared to the next best candidate, he has
enriched shareholders significantly compared to his comp. This is what makes
competition for top executives intense, and fuels the crazy pay.

------
ilaksh
Part of this doesn't make sense. It says the executive is supposed to have a
meeting a ratify the one decision. But right before that it says that the two
people disagree.

It seems to imply that those two people are magically going to agree to
something before the meeting.

Is the idea that they are forced to either compromise or cancel all of their
plans? It seems like a common outcome might be for them to pretend to agree
and then go back to their own section and just do what they want.

I feel like there needs to be some kind of verification to ensure that
different perspectives are actually being integrated rather than people just
talking past each other. Also, sometimes just mashing two ideas together
creates a third idea that doesn't work even though either one of the two
original could work. Also, even if they come up with a viable idea, someone
has to check that they are actually implementing it.

I think the article might be a little bit of a simplification. Sometimes an
executive needs to integrate different perspectives and choose a direction
that neither party could see.

~~~
dbcurtis
During the Grove era, Intel practiced "consultative decision making". The
leader of the meeting owned the decision. The leader consulted all the meeting
participants. Then the owner of the decision makes the decision (NOT NOT NOT
voting.) One person owns the decision. As a participant, you get your chance
to make your case. After the decision, you either "agree and commit", or
"disagree and commit". To disagree and not commit is to undermine, and that is
a "career limiting move".

> Sometimes an executive needs to integrate different perspectives and choose
> a direction that neither party could see.

Exactly why "disagree and commit" is so important. The decision maker is
expected to have the integrated perspective that you may not have.

edit: Added clarification

~~~
avinium
This approach is really appealing to me, it sounds like a good way to cut
through all the dancing around egos.

In retrospect, though, is this effective?

~~~
dbcurtis
Absolutely it is effective. Of course, it presupposes consultative decision
making as a cultural norm.

The idea of a single person owning any decision cuts a lot of crap, blame-
shifting, and responsibility-dodging. The idea that you are _expected_ to
gather input from those that have it, and synthesize that into the best
decision you can, makes information flow up the organization where it does
some good.

The “disagree and commit” works both ways. I once had an issue that I felt
_very_ strongly about and made a “disagree and commit” phone call to a VP 3
levels above me on an issue I had been intimately involved in. I stated a
coherent case. He heard me out with respect. I executed a plan I disagreed
with. Life went on.

Also, in cases where I was the decision-maker, when things went bad, I knew
who to go to when creating Plan B. When you own the decision, you own the
recovery plan.

—- Edit to add: W.r.t. egos, the cultural norms play a role there, too. At the
time I was there, people outside Intel viewed Intel people as arrogant — but
inside the company that exact same behavior was not viewed that way at all.
Being very direct and expecting clear thinking was just the way we interacted.
It was kind of an inside joke that once you had absorbed Intel meeting
culture, going to, say, a PTA or church board meeting would drive you nuts and
you had to be careful not to seem abrasive when all you were trying to do is
surface issues in a clear and cogent way.

~~~
avinium
That's fascinating, and exactly the type of working environment I'm looking to
create.

Outside the US, I think we (rightly or wrongly) view American working culture
as blunt and direct. From what you've said here, Intel seems like a very good
case study to learn from.

------
rhizome
I almost asked this a few days ago: with all of the applications that deep
learning AI/ML etc. have been put to, how come none of it ever touches the
C-suite?

This is to ask: why haven't CFOs been automated?

------
teddyh
See also _The Manager FAQ_ by Peter Seebach, 2001:

[http://www.seebs.net/faqs/manager.html](http://www.seebs.net/faqs/manager.html)

------
alexandercrohde
But how can we quantifiably score the talent of executives?

~~~
roenxi
There are many things that can't be quantified for practical reasons.
Executive talent is one of them.

The article says "There's even an algorithm for this. It seems too easy to be
real." \- I think that might be literally true; there is no reason why the
highest job in the hierarchy should be the hardest. So there may not be
anything there to quantify.

~~~
alexandercrohde
We like to think that, don't we. But the more I think about it, the less true
it seems.

We seem to be able to measure every other form of talent. I think those with
power vehemently resist measurement because they know it opens them to
scrutiny.

------
bigred100
Execute misbehaving underlings

------
Yizahi
There is no question that executives do important stuff in the company. I've
observed on several occasions their decisions that almost failed the company
and the ones that succeeded and almost decimated much more experienced and
rich competitors. The questions is - should they be payed x50 to x500 of the
median yearly wage of the regular and senior staff in their own company? Their
work may be x50 more important (debatable but possible) but it is definitely
not x50 times harder, it is not even x10 times harder, it is at most x2-x3
times harder and slightly different. Question number 2 is - should they have
almost complete financial and reputational immunity for their "bad" actions
and decisions? (unlike regular staff)

~~~
mhluongo
Should athletes be so well paid? How about musicians?

Construction work is much harder than office work, maybe 2-3x. Should office
workers be paid less, or construction workers more?

Whether something is "harder" has very little to do with compensation in a
market-driven economy.

~~~
jononor
Majority of athletes and musicians are paid extremely little, if anything at
all. It is only the top 0.1% that takes home serious money.

~~~
hirako2000
Spot on. And excutives are the 0.1% of the staff. They climbed up to the top
levels of responsibility.

Whether they bullshited their way through is another story. But I do see some
artists who climbed their way to the top selling charts, with little artistic
talent.

Why people buy the bullshit from imposters, whether them be artists or
executives, that is an interesting question.

~~~
jorvi
> Spot on. And excutives are the 0.1% of the staff. They climbed up to the top
> levels of responsibility.

I think you meant top levels of decision making.

Executives rarely deal with the fall-out of bad decisions. Management and
normal workers get axed, executives get a golden parachute and a cushy board
job at another company from one of their fellow executives. In other words,
they carry zero consequences and thus zero responsibility for their actions.

~~~
tomnipotent
> Executives rarely deal with the fall-out of bad decisions

This is a fantasy. Executives come-and-go at the same cadence as regular
employees as a % of staff. Look at any exec on LinkedIn and you'll see the
same 18-36 month stints as everyone else.

~~~
Yizahi
Yes, they come and go, by their own decision. For promotions, bigger salaries
and other reasons. How many executives were actually fired for
underperforming? What is even underperforming for that type of job?

~~~
tomnipotent
> by their own decision

Another fantasy. Plenty of execs are fired, it's just handled differently at
that level.

> How many executives were actually fired for underperforming?

A lot.

> What is even underperforming for that type of job?

Poor performance, just like anyone else that's fired.

------
BrainInAJar
> parallels with Canadian parliament, where theoretically all decisions must
> be ratified by the seemingly powerless Governor General, who represents The
> Queen

This sounds to me a lot like the executive is superfluous, much like the
monarchy can be discarded

~~~
Zenbit_UX
He'd be a fool to intervene in the affairs of a sovereign nation, he only has
this grandfathered position because he's never been fool enough to use it.

------
techslave
> To paraphrase the book, the job of an executive is: to define and enforce
> culture and values for their whole organization, and to ratify good
> decisions.

For larger orgs, sure. For small and quickly growing orgs, ie the majority
audience here, no.

~~~
brandmeyer
The transition from small to large insofar as it defines an executive's role
happens pretty fast. I'd guess it should happen in as little as one quarter of
a person's monkeysphere. Not many people would consider a 30-ish person
organization to be "large".

~~~
mlyle
I think you can still have quite a bit of understanding on the overall status
of a 30 person company. The CEO has 4-5 direct reports, of which the biggest
departments have 10 reports. The CEO can have a pretty good handle on what's
going on overall, and people can know their departments damn well.

This stuff definitely starts coming into play at around ~100; then as a
department head who's been there since the get-go, you might have 30 reports;
on some topics you're an expert who should be directly involved, sometimes
not...

