Its just the general feeling I've had about CEO's, Business owners, and managers. Its why I haven't really decided to go into Business.
I mean, when a manager sets up an interview with an applicant, they realize they might be screwing someone over when they send them home jobless right? What if that person needs a job to support themselves and a family?
I can see it from a Business owners or managers perspective, but what if a hardworking parent or teenager is fired from their job? Not that they did anything bad, but I know someone's mother who was fired from a Nursing Home just for being incompetent. She was a very hard worker, and to be called in and fired for one little nitpick seemed like it was overdoing it to me.
Its a tough thing to consider. The last boss I worked for was unsocial, and off putting. He only cared to talk to you when he threatened to fire you or send you home. I got threatened lots of times when I didn't wear my hair up in a ponytail.
If their employees are insufficiently productive to justify their wage... the employer will have to fire them or suffer losses to competitors. Whether this results in or encourages dour employers is situational. It's good that in a free enterprise system there are multiple employers and the prospect of setting up your own business... of any magnitude. If I had to work with gov't unions (and their members) and other nonsense stemming from the state, I'd also likely be more cynical. Firms that mistreat their employees tend to get a bad rep for it... especially in HRM crazed countries like the UK.
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Jon Irenicus: If their employees are insufficiently productive to justify their wage... the employer will have to fire them or suffer losses to competitors. Whether this results in or encourages dour employers is situational. It's good that in a free enterprise system there are multiple employers and the prospect of setting up your own business... of any magnitude. If I had to work with gov't unions (and their members) and other nonsense stemming from the state, I'd also likely be more cynical. Firms that mistreat their employees tend to get a bad rep for it... especially in HRM crazed countries like the UK.
The problem is with area's like mine, is that the town has legislation to keep chain stores out. The Nursing homes don't compete, they work to live up to the state's standards so that they don't get shut down.
Ugh, I used to work in a fairly large corporation in the UK and the middle management were a bunch of spineless, gutless, hapless lackeys. They spent most of their time pretending to be productive when, really, all they were interested in was getting into the good social books of their superiors. They never cared about motivating their employees, they never cared about the interests of our customers, they never cared about productivity (I was reprimanded once for working "too hard"), all they cared about was skipping out of the office as fast as they could so they could follow the senior managers down to the pub like a bunch of hysterical Teeny-Boppers.
The funny thing is once the financial crisis hit and our earnings collapsed the rumblings about downsizing and "merging departments" began sweeping through the corridors. All of a sudden every manager was trying as hard as they could to be noticeably working and following the productivity and customer reviews of their employees. Whenever the top brass would wander by they'd be up off their seats in a flash to greet them with all the "brilliant" ideas they had for improving business. It was like watching a bunch of rats fighting over a piece of cheese while the Titanic sinks.
In the midst of all this, my persistence paid off and I got promoted to a department with solid grounding in the company (so no risk of being retrenched). At the same in my old department another person was transfered and another person left, leaving my former boss grossly understaffed. I approached her with an offer to work my old job in between the hours and days of my new position. I even said I'd do it for less than double my current salary. She laughed hysterically because she obviously thought I was re-enacting a skit from The Office or something.
That's where hard work and diligence gets you with these kooks. They've got their heads so far up the brass's ass they have no idea about maximizing the potential value from their employees. To them, we're just little mice spinning on our wheels. Nevertheless, those of us in the know eventually get the last laugh... My old department was "merged" with another and my old boss was given the boot.
Hard Rain, sometimes the laws and regulations of the land dictate the incentives of employees, including managers, and employers and eventually stuff, like that which has been mentioned in this thread, occurs.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
I don't know, sometimes management ruins a damn company. Employees are unmotivated to do good jobs if they work with shitty people or a management team. This is something that is natural in free markets. Like I said, this may be different in towns with lots of business and chain stores. But the problem is unsolvable, since its town legislation which hurts this.
Daniel Muffinburg: Hard Rain, sometimes the laws and regulations of the land dictate the incentives of employees, including managers, and employers and eventually stuff, like that which has been mentioned in this thread, occurs.
It seemed to me to be like a corporate culture remnant of the "fat old days". I started at the bottom of the food chain in retail and we had no problems busting our asses and taking tons of overtime etc. When I moved up to corporate HQ it was more like club Med than serious business. Of course, that all changed by September '08...
I an sympathize with the Mutualists on things like this sometimes. The CEO's of big corporations do absolutely NOTHING %90 of the time, they hire other people to make decisions for them while they sit back in their chair.
Novus Zarathustra: I an sympathize with the Mutualists on things like this sometimes. The CEO's of big corporations do absolutely NOTHING %90 of the time, they hire other people to make decisions for them while they sit back in their chair.
I only saw the CEO and other assorted bigwigs in person twice. In August '08 delivering "good news" and in August '09 delivering "bad news". They were only two floors above us for Pete's sake!
That's not always true. But yes, don't expect the CEO to clean the toilets. They delegate duties to others.
Daniel Muffinburg: Novus Zarathustra: I an sympathize with the Mutualists on things like this sometimes. The CEO's of big corporations do absolutely NOTHING %90 of the time, they hire other people to make decisions for them while they sit back in their chair. That's not always true. But yes, don't expect the CEO to clean the toilets. They delegate duties to others.
I'm probably just being a corporate idealist or something, but if I were the CEO of a big company, I'd at least spend some time going around the business and meeting employees, speaking with them, seeing how things are going etc. etc. I'm not expecting the CEO to clean toilets, but come down from the ivory tower and tell the toilet cleaners their doing a great job and the company's doing well etc. etc. Motivation, morale... silly things like that.
Ah, screw it. I'm a dreamer.
Hard Rain:I'm not expecting the CEO to clean toilets, but come down from the ivory tower and tell the toilet cleaners their doing a great job and the company's doing well etc. etc. Motivation, morale... silly things like that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdIbUAIRVEo&feature=sub
Believe me, I've seen far too many good businesses ruined by an "altruistic" approach or piss poor personnel management. My grandfather was forced to shut down his business precisely because he was too kind and his workers exploited the situation mercilessly.
You also need to understand that you never fire hardworking people willingly. If you are a big corporation you either have a bad human resources manager or struck a deal with unions to, say, only fire people the less senior no matter how good they are. Your productivity will decline in the long run but corporations just don't care (I can quote how a famous Japanese corporation got his image and profits busted precisely because of poor human resources management) since they can always find a way to keep going. In smaller businesses I've seen all sorts of idiotic decisions, like firing excellent accountants or forcing them to leave to keep you good friend's wife in her 4000€ monthly salary and all expenses paid company car.
You have to take responsibility in business: a bad decision now may force you to fire a good worker in three years time. That's just the way it is. If you don't feel like you can't do it, don't. Nobody will blame you.
Maybe getting fired wouldn't be such a big deal if there were more capital investment to raise real wages :)
Novus Zarathustra:Its just the general feeling I've had about CEO's, Business owners, and managers.
Be careful what you ask for. Selfishness is absolutely critical for the existence of life. Why not instead expect it, count on it, revel in it. Btw, when you were describing how your friend's mother was fired for incompetence you were ignoring the other side of the equation--the consumer.
Hard Rain:I'm probably just being a corporate idealist or something, but if I were the CEO of a big company, I'd at least spend some time going around the business and meeting employees, speaking with them, seeing how things are going etc. etc. I'm not expecting the CEO to clean toilets, but come down from the ivory tower and tell the toilet cleaners their doing a great job and the company's doing well etc. etc. Motivation, morale... silly things like that.
I've seen examples of company leaders doing things like what you describe above. The employees didn't appreciate it. Their response was along the lines of "what is this guy doing here" "why don't they just let me do my job." It's a moving target.
Novus Zarathustra: Its just the general feeling I've had about CEO's, Business owners, and managers. Its why I haven't really decided to go into Business.
I have run my own company, as such I dealt with clients and not employees and can only say that being cold and conceited would have been a disaster for business. However you have to keep a professional attitude towards clients as well, you aren't really yourself when you speak to them you are the company.
I think it is the same when you handle employees, you have to take a professional attitude and suppress your own personality. Alot of these people behave very differently in private then they do in the role of manager. You have to put the best of the company before your own personal notions and so forth. You can't give charity employment to people cause it is not your money you are handing out.
That said there is a lot of incompetence in middle level management. At the company where I work part-time it is a disaster. It used to be owned by the government which focused very hard on internal promotion. So the regional CEO had started his career cleaning toilets and had no education what so ever except a few courses arranged by the union he had taken early on. Ohh, yeah the only way to get promoted was to have a position with the union...
In Sweden at least I think that a lot of the incompetence in management can be explained by our excessive labour market regulations. People never swap jobs no matter how much they dislike it cause there employment security depends only on how many years they have worked in the company.So people stay in jobs and companies they hate then get promoted to management still doing things they hate...
Escaping Leviathan - regardless of public opinion
"Democracy is the road to socialism." - Karl Marx
Has more to do with regulation (e.g. Poison Pill legislation) and shareholder indolence than a problem with the corporate structure.
How the hell is our free-market ideology supposed to work, if people who run Business are flawed in every way?
Novus Zarathustra: Its just the general feeling I've had about CEO's, Business owners, and managers. Its why I haven't really decided to go into Business. I mean, when a manager sets up an interview with an applicant, they realize they might be screwing someone over when they send them home jobless right? What if that person needs a job to support themselves and a family? I can see it from a Business owners or managers perspective, but what if a hardworking parent or teenager is fired from their job? Not that they did anything bad, but I know someone's mother who was fired from a Nursing Home just for being incompetent. She was a very hard worker, and to be called in and fired for one little nitpick seemed like it was overdoing it to me. Its a tough thing to consider. The last boss I worked for was unsocial, and off putting. He only cared to talk to you when he threatened to fire you or send you home. I got threatened lots of times when I didn't wear my hair up in a ponytail.
Then what the heck does the CEO of a company do other then sit back in his chair and let the cash roll in?
because in order to indulge themselves they must indulge their customers.......
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
Novus Zarathustra:Then what the heck does the CEO of a company do other then sit back in his chair and let the cash roll in?
http://managementhelp.org/chf_exec/chf_exec.htm
Novus Zarathustra:How the hell is our free-market ideology supposed to work, if people who run Business are flawed in every way?
Some people look at a glass and say it is half empty. Others look at it and say it is half full. I want to strongly encourage you to do the latter. Thoroughly flawed business persons do not represent a problem, they represent an opportunity. An opportunity for less flawed business people to out compete them, push them aside and reap the rewards. The free market takes care of itself--when it is allowed to. Interventionism short circuits the whole process.
They are?
Excellent points.
When government intervention is unknown, that is, when they are not able to pick winners and losers and arbitrarily bestow privilege, the consumers are soverign. The capitalists/entrepreneurs, who are looking for the highest possible rate of return ("greedy"), must service the needs of the consumers. This is the point of free market systems: the pursuit of self-interest turns those who care little for others into productive/socially useful members of society (incentivized altruism, if you like). Those who are most capable at servicing the needs of society receive the highest remunerations, and can therefore demand the most productive capital/labor. The point of the price mechanism is to direct scarce resources into the most capable hands assuring maximum efficiency. The motives of the entrepreneurs are meaningless insofar as the system is free from government interference. Once the government is powerful enough to disturb this process, then the greedy CEO's are indeed potentially dangerous (when they partner up with the politicians).
Another interesting thing to remember, and it has been touched upon, is the role of public relations. The consumers, even when they're not acting as consumers, are able to turn the public against certain firms. This makes charity profitable, which is why so many "greedy" CEOs and firms devote so much money to charitable causes. Also, the profit motive, and therefore competition, is the sole cause of innovation and risk-taking--something laborers aren't interested in.
Marxian agitation/propaganda turns people against each other and unleashes mans most evil faculties--jealousy being one of them. Some people are so jealous that they would willingly compromise their own economic welfare in order to destroy the wealth of others. They call this "social justice."
"If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."
Esuric: When government intervention is unknown, that is, when they are not able to pick winners and losers and arbitrarily bestow privilege, the consumers are soverign. The capitalists/entrepreneurs, who are looking for the highest possible rate of return ("greedy"), must service the needs of the consumers. This is the point of free market systems: the pursuit of self-interest turns those who care little for others into productive/socially useful members of society (incentivized altruism, if you like). Those who are most capable at servicing the needs of society receive the highest remunerations, and can therefore demand the most productive capital/labor. The point of the price mechanism is to direct scarce resources into the most capable hands assuring maximum efficiency. The motives of the entrepreneurs are meaningless insofar as the system is free from government interference. Once the government is powerful enough to disturb this process, then the greedy CEO's are indeed potentially dangerous (when they partner up with the politicians). Another interesting thing to remember, and it has been touched upon, is the role of public relations. The consumers, even when they're not acting as consumers, are able to turn the public against certain firms. This makes charity profitable, which is why so many "greedy" CEOs and firms devote so much money to charitable causes. Also, the profit motive, and therefore competition, is the sole cause of innovation and risk-taking--something laborers aren't interested in. Marxian agitation/propaganda turns people against each other and unleashes mans most evil faculties--jealousy being one of them. Some people are so jealous that they would willingly compromise their own economic welfare in order to destroy the wealth of others. They call this "social justice."
I think I've found the next Henry Hazlitt.
Capital Pumper:I think I've found the next Henry Hazlitt.
CEOs do way to much for it to be possible to answer your question...
I was at an interesting lecture with the CEO of Volvo Corporation not so long ago. The lecture ended in a very open debate about his job and life.
Trying to recant what he said here wouldn't do it justice but it gave a very good idea about the kind of life they have.
He started by saying that he doesn't have a job in the regular sense.It is a lifestyle and he is basically working 24/7 every day of the year.
The fact that everyone is trying to get his attention at the same time and this goes on around the clock can probably make him seem very cold professionally. Especially towards the people that have no business talking to him about whatever it is but should solve it themselves.
Håkan Kindström Arnoldson: Novus Zarathustra:Then what the heck does the CEO of a company do other then sit back in his chair and let the cash roll in? CEOs do way to much for it to be possible to answer your question... I was at an interesting lecture with the CEO of Volvo Corporation not so long ago. The lecture ended in a very open debate about his job and life. Trying to recant what he said here wouldn't do it justice but it gave a very good idea about the kind of life they have. He started by saying that he doesn't have a job in the regular sense.It is a lifestyle and he is basically working 24/7 every day of the year. The fact that everyone is trying to get his attention at the same time and this goes on around the clock can probably make him seem very cold professionally. Especially towards the people that have no business talking to him about whatever it is but should solve it themselves.
They hire a group of officials and executives to make decisions however.
I find it really depressing that left-wingers propose a CEO Salary cap. Mutualists especially who think CEO's don't do jack shit.
Mutualists support interventionism? I thought they were free market, but took it beyond the "rules of engagement" and into how the "playing pieces" arose in the first place, and made a few alterations to the rules.
In response to the OP, I understand your concerns and they seem like valid ones.
The problem is that intervening is tricky stuff. I don't personally want to see hard working mothers lose their jobs or anything like that. But what's the alternative? Step in and force companies to hire or keep certain employees? Is that really a viable solution? Maybe, I don't know. Just seems risky to me.
Novus Zarathustra: I mean, when a manager sets up an interview with an applicant, they realize they might be screwing someone over when they send them home jobless right? What if that person needs a job to support themselves and a family?
How is not hiring someone unqualified screwing them over? It seems if you hire an unqualified person you are puting everyone elses job at risk. They have families too. They will have to work harder to carry the dead weight. It doesnt seem very compassionate to everyone else. How about customers who are harmed by incompetent employees. Especially in a nursing home. Forget to medicate one of the residents and they could suffer all night in pain.
Novus Zarathustra:I can see it from a Business owners or managers perspective, but what if a hardworking parent or teenager is fired from their job? Not that they did anything bad, but I know someone's mother who was fired from a Nursing Home just for being incompetent. She was a very hard worker, and to be called in and fired for one little nitpick seemed like it was overdoing it to me.
I worked in residential construction during the boom times. My first boss ran his own company and had more work than he could handle. He was a really good guy and did all he could for those who worked for him. During the good times he was constantly pressed and manipulated by the hourly workers for more pay and he usually gave in because he felt that the company was a success because of them. As the housing market collapsed he did everything he could to survive except fire people. He is no longer in business. The second guy I worked for still a good guy but very tough to work for. Paid well if he felt you earned it and fired you if he felt you didnt earn your pay. When things got tough he cut everything including workers. He is still in business. The first guy employs no one and the second guy still employs twenty or so. So whose workers are better off? Take a step back and take a look at the big picture there are always effects not so obvious.
Also, declaring that all managers/owners are cold and concieted is simply not true. There are different management styles for diffrent types of business. It also depends on who is working for you. You dont manage a bunch of teenagers in a fast food joint the way you manage engineers at a design firm. Many managers keep a distance from their employees to prevent friendships and emotions from clouding thier judgement and puting at risk their and their other employees livelyhoods. Being a business owner is a huge responsibility and I have never known any business owner to take the well being of their good employees lightly.
The corporate world is different, but the corporate world is a very distorted free market.