J. Clarke wrote:

The ones that did really well generally had at least two guys involved, one
the technical guy and the other the business guy...
snip

Yes, of course. Good managers don't try to do everything alone, they
assemble a team of experts and coordinate their efforts. The point
being that there is nothing inherent in the discipline of Engineering
which excludes it from top management. All these folks were Engineers
who very successfully filled roles in "top management" whether they
partnered with complimentary skills or not.

The reason you see more Marketing/Finance people in mid/upper level
management in large companies is purely political. These folks tend to
do a lot of presentations to executive management and receive a lot of
visibility for it. It colors everything that that top management sees.
Promotions naturally follow.

The big problem I see with engineers is a tendency to sneer at the marketing
people and the bean counters and the other non-engineering specialists who
are necessary to actually grow a business instead of filling a warehouse
full of widgets that nobody buys.

Finally, the real issue comes through! In my 17+ years with HP, I
worked in a position which was right in the middle between the lab
(engineers), marketing, finance, and manufacturing. So, I'm quite
familiar with the issues between the "propeller heads" and marketing
"weenies". Believe me, it goes both ways!

I am one Engineer who really appreciates the disciplines of Marketing
and Finance. Out of necessity I am forced to cover these functions
myself and I know they suffer as a result. Unfortunately, it's
difficult (impossible?) to find people in these disciplines who are
willing to "risk" some of their time and effort on their own abilities
(i.e. "pay for results"). The latest challenge has been developing a
Marketing Plan with which to attract the services of a Marketing
Agency. It's quite a "chicken and the egg" situation.

Ed Bennett

http://www.ts-aligner.com