>> Every time (~5/month) I hear the "managers are idiots" rant I start to wonder, how is it possible that all the smart people: 1. aren't managers. 2. aren't able to convince the "idiots".
I guess you must have worked for completely different companies than I did, because in my experience it's not the smartest people who work their way up into management, just the loudest ones that don't have any specific skill that would make them hard to replace elsewhere.
IMO the smartest people I know at my workplace are the engineers who manage themselves into a position where they can work on interesting projects without getting dicked around by managers distracting from the real work all the time, and make a good living doing it.
"Ability" isn't a uniform stat. There's many factors that comprise our competence. Once of them is technical excellence.
Others include sales, politicking (or "managing up"), managing a team, empathy, oratory, etc.
The best technical minds don't necessarily want to become suits (I'm going to avoid using the term "managers" since engineering managers are very different from "suits" imo). Even if they become one, they may not have the negotiation skills or willingness to smooch that is required for a suit to succeed.
>how is it possible that all the smart people: 1. aren't managers. 2. aren't able to convince the "idiots".
For #2, a good counterexample would be, "the best athletes aren't always the best coaches".
Your point about different skill-sets (as well as the one below about replacing "smart" with "technically competent") is a great one. These are things missing from my post. Regarding
> "the best athletes aren't always the best coaches"
i think that's a very good illustration to whole this discussion. If the most talented athlete benefits from the help of a coach. However the critical part comes when the coach makes a mistake. Should athlete just put whole responsibility on his coach? Just lean back and say "my coach is an idiot and all I can do is to rant about it"? I believe it's a mutual responsibility for both sides to address the issues. If the athlete can't properly express his needs/doubts it's something what he should improve because waiting for the coach to "get smarter" may be a recipe for disaster. Of course the same works the other way too. Now if we replace coach/athlete with manager/employee it's clear where so many problems come from.
I really thought you were my coworker. He has been pushing for me to attack a niche at the company in spare time for months. 'Work on interesting things and move further away from meetings and people in general. You will lock yourself into being "that person."'
I never implied that working on interesting projects means you can't work in teams, and 'getting pushed into a niche' is quite different from getting yourself into a position where you can work on projects you actually like and make progress without having to tip-toe around office politics or waste time sitting in useless meetings or making planning spreadsheets based on when your manager promised a delivery to someone higher up in the food chain, instead of how long it takes to get the job done properly.
I'm not saying you don't need managers, or that no such thing as good managers exist. I'm just stating my observation that more often than not, who gets into management is based on the Peter principle, rather than how 'smart' or capable someone is.
I guess you must have worked for completely different companies than I did, because in my experience it's not the smartest people who work their way up into management, just the loudest ones that don't have any specific skill that would make them hard to replace elsewhere.
IMO the smartest people I know at my workplace are the engineers who manage themselves into a position where they can work on interesting projects without getting dicked around by managers distracting from the real work all the time, and make a good living doing it.