A media release popped into my inbox from an old client recently. It was, to put it nicely, a total load of corporate tosh from an organisation that has been captured by its time serving management.
Having dwelt on this for a while, I went to write something about how this company had blown wonderful opportunities competing against a stodgy incumbent which had been given the opportunity to re-invent itself partly because of a new generation of smart, dynamic managers.
Then a little voice said “no, they’ll never invite you back; the mark of epically incompetent management is holding permanent grudges for pointing out their failures.”
So I didn’t write it.
In one way it doesn’t matter; much of what ails the Western world’s business communities is how a culture of managerial incompetence has been allowed to develop.
Almost everyone knows individuals who waddle from corporate disaster to debacle yet, despite causing the destruction of great slabs of shareholder value, move onto to higher positions and better paid jobs.
Some even get invited back to companies they’ve previously trashed.
We know who those people are; boards and big shareholders know who they are, yet they’ll still get hired.
Which is why its best not to upset them too much. For the moment, history is on their side.
The “Peter Principle” is still alive and well.
One place I did some work at had the ‘Peter Principle’ squared – most of the managers had been promoted at least two levels above the limits of their competency.