I am a student of Warsaw School of Economics. I write a master's
thesis about a opinion on managers.

I would like to ask you to fill in the survey (link below) by you and
as many members of your group as possible. It will help me to write my
thesis. It takes only up to 7 minutes to fill it in.

The survey:
http://entropy.be/~mag/limesurvey/in...=94762&lang=en

If you could please also forward this mail to other members of the
group.

I will be rally grateful for your help.

Yours sincerely

Sun, Feb 10, 2008, 5:12am (EST-3) doth request:
I am a student of Warsaw School of Economics. I write a master's thesis
about a opinion on managers. snip

I respond. Most managers are lousy managers. Why you ask? Because
they were usually lousy supervisors who got promoted. Lousy supervisors
usually are not promoted from within a company, but are often hired
directly from college as graduates - so they think they kow it all, and
do not bother to learn what the worers under their supervision actually
do. And, I'm NOT going to do your homework for you.



JOAT - who does not welcome thread question e-mails..

10 Out Of 10 Terrorists Prefer Hillary For President - Bumper Sticker

I don't have a problem with a woman president - except for Hillary.

In article , (J T) wrote:

I respond. Most managers are lousy managers. Why you ask? Because
they were usually lousy supervisors who got promoted. Lousy supervisors
usually are not promoted from within a company, but are often hired
directly from college as graduates - so they think they kow it all, and
do not bother to learn what the worers under their supervision actually
do.

While that may be the case in the trades, my experience professionally
(as a programmer and software engineer) would suggest the opposite: that only
rarely is a newly-minted college grad placed into any sort of supervisory
role. Rather, supervisors are typically promoted from within the ranks of
competent workers -- and become incompetent supervisors. The phenomenon was
studied in some depth in the late 60s ["The Peter Principle", Peter, Laurence
J., Morrow & Co., 1969] and doesn't seem to have changed at all since then.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.

J T wrote:
Sun, Feb 10, 2008, 5:12am (EST-3) doth request:
I am a student of Warsaw School of Economics. I write a master's thesis
about a opinion on managers. snip

I respond. Most managers are lousy managers.

Promoted to the level of their incompetence.

I watched the process in action for 39 years. They never ceased to
amaze me.

How can you idiot proof management when the keep building
better idiots?

LdB

On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:54:29 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:

While that may be the case in the trades, my experience professionally
(as a programmer and software engineer) would suggest the opposite: that only
rarely is a newly-minted college grad placed into any sort of supervisory
role. Rather, supervisors are typically promoted from within the ranks of
competent workers

Not at the Fortune 50 company I, and at least one other participant on
this group, work for.

20-something MBA's are "fast tracked", where they never spend enough
time in one spot to have their actual effects measured. By the time
the "improvements" take effect, they're long gone. I am not a rank
and file hourly employee, but someone in a high enough place to see
far enough to know how clueless some of these "stars" are.

On the other hand, some of our rank and file folks actually take
overall compensation cuts, once benefit costs and overtime pay is
accounted for, to accept a "promotion". More and more of the
excellent employees are taking a pass on management, creating more
opportunities for the off-the-street manager.

---------------------------------------------
** http://www.bburke.com/woodworking.html **
---------------------------------------------

B A R R Y wrote:

On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:54:29 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:


While that may be the case in the trades, my experience professionally
(as a programmer and software engineer) would suggest the opposite: that only
rarely is a newly-minted college grad placed into any sort of supervisory
role. Rather, supervisors are typically promoted from within the ranks of
competent workers


Not at the Fortune 50 company I, and at least one other participant on
this group, work for.

20-something MBA's are "fast tracked", where they never spend enough
time in one spot to have their actual effects measured. By the time
the "improvements" take effect, they're long gone. I am not a rank
and file hourly employee, but someone in a high enough place to see
far enough to know how clueless some of these "stars" are.

On the other hand, some of our rank and file folks actually take
overall compensation cuts, once benefit costs and overtime pay is
accounted for, to accept a "promotion". More and more of the
excellent employees are taking a pass on management, creating more
opportunities for the off-the-street manager.


I worked for a number of those... some were really good. They usually
quit as they realized they could do better elsewhere.

For a short time I had a 24 year old plant manager (second level) who
had a total of three years with the company. The first day in our
office was the first time he had been inside a telco central office.

We had a lot of fun with that one!

After about eight months on the job was again promoted.

--
Jack Novak
Buffalo, NY - USA

On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:54:29 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:

In article , (J T) wrote:

I respond. Most managers are lousy managers. Why you ask? Because
they were usually lousy supervisors who got promoted. Lousy supervisors
usually are not promoted from within a company, but are often hired
directly from college as graduates - so they think they kow it all, and
do not bother to learn what the worers under their supervision actually
do.

While that may be the case in the trades, my experience professionally
(as a programmer and software engineer) would suggest the opposite: that only
rarely is a newly-minted college grad placed into any sort of supervisory
role. Rather, supervisors are typically promoted from within the ranks of
competent workers -- and become incompetent supervisors. The phenomenon was
studied in some depth in the late 60s ["The Peter Principle", Peter, Laurence
J., Morrow & Co., 1969] and doesn't seem to have changed at all since then.

Never was the Peter Principle more in evidence than in the Air Traffic
Division of the FAA. I can't speak to other divisions, but I have my
opinion. The difference between your experience and mine in the FAA
was that for the most part, people who chose the management track were
people who couldn't work airplanes very well and were scared, or in
rare cases, people who could work airplanes competently but were
scared. It was often the case (too often to be coincidence and far too
often to just be a minor statistic) that when the airplanes came they
weren't to be found. We called them "rush duckers." They were first in
line when staff specialist jobs (necessary boxes to be checked for
consideration for promotion, but better yet, a perfect hiding place
for rush duckers) became available.

They may even have become decent staff people, but as anyone who has
been in the trenches knows, there's a huge difference between line
experience and competency and staff experience and competency. That
said, there were some lousy managers with long time line experience
(the true Peter examples) and there were some decent ones (rarely) who
had been rush duckers. Of course one couldn't have much respect for
the latter, because being a rush ducker not only made the rest of us
have to work harder, but they also occupied a place that a potentially
competent candidate could have taken to check his own box.

The thing that amazed me in 30 years was how consistent the FAA was in
choosing horrid managers. I could write a book. Actually, I'm working
on one, but I don't know if it's publishable.

--
LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999

http://www.woodbutcher.net
http://www.normstools.com

Proud participant of rec.woodworking since February, 1997

email addy de-spam-ified due to 1,000 spams per month.
If you can't figure out how to use it, I probably wouldn't
care to correspond with you anyway.

"B A R R Y" wrote:
Not at the Fortune 50 company I, and at least one other participant on
this group, work for.

20-something MBA's are "fast tracked", where they never spend enough
time in one spot to have their actual effects measured. By the time
the "improvements" take effect, they're long gone.
snip

I left major corporate America more than 25 years ago.

As I read this post, I'm reminded of an old saying, "The more things change,
the more they stay the same."

Lew

Sun, Feb 10, 2008, 8:54pm (EST+5) (Doug*Miller)
doth sayeth:
While that may be the case in the trades, my experience professionally
(as a programmer and software engineer) would suggest the opposite: that
only rarely is a newly-minted college grad placed into any sort of
supervisory role. Rather, supervisors are typically promoted from within
the ranks of competent workers -- and become incompetent supervisors.
The phenomenon was studied in some depth in the late 60s ["The Peter
Principle", Peter, Laurence J., Morrow & Co., 1969] and doesn't seem to
have changed at all since then.

Not really sure what you mean when you refer to "the trades". Yes,
I'm well aware of the Peter principle. While that did apply at my last
job, NOT in the trades, it did not apply in the job before that, also
NOT in the trades. It that one the company "accepted applications" from
people in the company, but almost always they were not competent for
whatever position, so hired outslide the company. I say ALMOST because
they did accept a transfer as a suprvisor for one of the human resources
people. The plant closed a year or two after that. I was in MIS and
the last department head there could a a guy, again from inside the
company, who could about write in basic.

Any supervisory position I ever had, I too care learn what the of
everyone under me was, and how to do it. Within 6 months I could do
anyone's job under me, a lifesever at times when we were shorthaned, and
tell when someone was not doing proper work. Only had maybe one
supervisor that even knew what I was supposed to be doing, let alone
know how to do it themselves. One position, when I left, they wound up
with a total of 5 people, to do the same job I did on my own, and even
relaced the new supervisor I think twice. Hehehe Their own fault, I
told them they needed to get someone in to learn the work, but in their
"wisdom" they figured anyone would just take over. That one was a hard
lesson for them. The Peter principle applied there, because the boss
was a dick. LMAO



JOAT - who does not want e-mail from people I don't know...

10 Out Of 10 Terrorists Prefer Hillary For President - Bumper Sticker

I don't have a problem with a woman president - except for Hillary.

Sun, Feb 10, 2008, 4:42pm (EST-1) (L*D'Bonnie) doth
sayeth:
Promoted to the level of their incompetence. snip

Sometimes they were promoted ABOVE the level of their incompetence,
to try to get someone in the position that was actually competent.
Sometimes it worked, sometimes not.



JOAT - who does not want e-mail from people I don't know...

10 Out Of 10 Terrorists Prefer Hillary For President - Bumper Sticker

I don't have a problem with a woman president - except for Hillary.

Nova wrote:

B A R R Y wrote:

On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:54:29 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:


While that may be the case in the trades, my experience professionally
(as a programmer and software engineer) would suggest the opposite: that
only rarely is a newly-minted college grad placed into any sort of
supervisory role. Rather, supervisors are typically promoted from within
the ranks of competent workers


Not at the Fortune 50 company I, and at least one other participant on
this group, work for.

20-something MBA's are "fast tracked", where they never spend enough
time in one spot to have their actual effects measured. By the time
the "improvements" take effect, they're long gone. I am not a rank
and file hourly employee, but someone in a high enough place to see
far enough to know how clueless some of these "stars" are.

On the other hand, some of our rank and file folks actually take
overall compensation cuts, once benefit costs and overtime pay is
accounted for, to accept a "promotion". More and more of the
excellent employees are taking a pass on management, creating more
opportunities for the off-the-street manager.


I worked for a number of those... some were really good. They usually
quit as they realized they could do better elsewhere.

For a short time I had a 24 year old plant manager (second level) who
had a total of three years with the company. The first day in our
office was the first time he had been inside a telco central office.

We had a lot of fun with that one!

After about eight months on the job was again promoted.


Thus far, where I work this has not been the case. OTOH, customer
relationships are a huge part of our business, you don't get and keep
contracts without a well-established track record and good contacts. One
example, a number of late-30's early-40's people were in a conference room
prior to a meeting in which customers would be present. The senior
customer walked in the room, looked around at the people chatting with each
other (this was about 10 minutes prior to the meeting, so nothing was wrong
with that), muttered "Where are the @#$% adults?" and walked out until the
program senior manager came into the room.



--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough

J T wrote:
Sun, Feb 10, 2008, 4:42pm (EST-1) (L D'Bonnie) doth
sayeth:
Promoted to the level of their incompetence. snip

Sometimes they were promoted ABOVE the level of their
incompetence, to try to get someone in the position that was
actually
competent. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not.

Now, for an example of incompetence in high places, one place I worked
they had a policy of laying off the junior people and demoting the
senior people any time there was a downturn in business. The end
result after 50 or so years of this was that they were staffed almost
entirely by old guys who couldn't get another job. Most of these
people they had left didn't _have_ a level of competence.

Not sure if that beats another place I worked where the boss thought
that her job was to fire people. She fired at least one a month,
sometimes more.

JOAT - who does not want e-mail from people I don't know...

10 Out Of 10 Terrorists Prefer Hillary For President - Bumper
Sticker

I don't have a problem with a woman president - except for Hillary.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

B A R R Y wrote in
:

On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:54:29 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:

While that may be the case in the trades, my experience professionally
(as a programmer and software engineer) would suggest the opposite:
that only rarely is a newly-minted college grad placed into any sort
of supervisory role. Rather, supervisors are typically promoted from
within the ranks of competent workers

Not at the Fortune 50 company I, and at least one other participant on
this group, work for.

20-something MBA's are "fast tracked", where they never spend enough
time in one spot to have their actual effects measured. By the time
the "improvements" take effect, they're long gone. I am not a rank
and file hourly employee, but someone in a high enough place to see
far enough to know how clueless some of these "stars" are.

On the other hand, some of our rank and file folks actually take
overall compensation cuts, once benefit costs and overtime pay is
accounted for, to accept a "promotion". More and more of the
excellent employees are taking a pass on management, creating more
opportunities for the off-the-street manager.

---------------------------------------------
** http://www.bburke.com/woodworking.html **
---------------------------------------------


Sounds like IBM. They started their 'fast track' program in the seventies
and set a standard for management incompetence. I hope they stay in
business for another 34 years (I'll be 100 years old at that time and
plan on getting shot out of the saddle by a jealous husband) without
raiding the pension funds.
Hank