Business: failure in a position can be "career-ending"?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In his book The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins writes, “When a new leader fails, it is a severe, perhaps career-ending blow to the individual.”

I’m just on page 5 of the book (which seems quite interesting), but he has already said something like this twice. I’m wondering whether you think this sentiment is…

A. A bromide, a truism without any real thought behind it.

B. A fact–above a certain level in the corporate world you can’t really polish your resume enough to remove a black mark.

I’ll give my own perspective, then I’d like to hear yours. Even with an MBA (which I have), it’s rather hard to get a true leadership position in business. Most MBAs are just given higher-level functional work: project management, market research, analysis, etc. Sure, there’s lots of teamwork, etc., involved, but I suspect that most of my classmates are not managing other people at this point. And it seems that, mostly, your typical MBA will only be three or so layers removed from top execs: s/he might have a manager, above which there will be a VP, above which will be senior VPs or the CEO him/herself.

But as far as this functional work itself goes, it’s not really leadership per se, and I see no reason why most people would end end their careers even if they botched it up pretty bad. On resumes, this stuff is just so easy to spin.

So I suppose that the supposed “career-ending” failures would have to occur at the level where you’re doing actual management of people. But, overall, I feel that the quote above is just A, a bromide.

2

In my experience, once you get to a certain level of job, you are almost guaranteed an equal level job somewhere else if you fail. I’ve seen first hand numerous higher ups bounce from job to job with no repurcussions. The President of my old company f***** it up within a year and was promptly snapped up by a larger company for more pay, though a lower level position (he went from president to COO).

Seeral reasons, I think:

  1. It’s easier to pass the buck on to subordinates for reasons of failure (my last boss did this to me, even though I knew he was and tried to stop it. Fucker :mad:)
  2. There really aren’t that many people with high level management experience, so they are able to pretty much write their ticket
  3. High level people usually aren’t “fired”. They “leave to pursue other opportunites” or “transition into another position”. Part of this is spin, part of it is CYA on the company’s part. You can be sued for disaparaging someone too much in a reference.
  4. It’s really not that uncommon for managers to lose their jobs, so it’s not the black mark that it might be for a lower level person
  5. High-level business people have a load of contacts and networks, which is how you get those type jobs anyway.

Of course, if they’re fired for breaking the law or some other high profile situation, then they’ll have a hard time.

I’ve actually heard that sometimes failure is seen as a positive, especially in a small company. They figure you’ve dealt with hard times and tough decisons or some such spin.

Senior level business people really live in a different world than the average worker, even mid level managers.

So, I guess I’d go with “A”

3

Make that “Fucker” :mad:

It’s been over a year, and I still avoid him for fear I’ll say or do something unwise, as he’s fairly well-known in my local business community

4

I cannot think of any of the idiots I’ve known who screwed up a company or a division who did not move on to screw up some other outfit.

In the U.S., today, it seems that once you get a “C” initial in your job description, you are guaranteed employment for life: CEO, COO, CFO, CIO (well, a few of these guys have been hurt), etc.

Even such pro-business publications as Fortune have noted the terrible inconsistency between pay and performance vs accountability at the top reaches of corporate America.

(At the operational level, I suppose that some idiots (or victims of politics) have had their careers scratched by a bad review.)

5

The explanation I’ve heard is that a high-level executive who’s “failed” is seen as someone who’s willing to take risks, and therefore, he or she would still be desirable for high-level executive positions.

6

I suspect that the reason is much more prosaic. Too many people in business actually believe that there is some mystique to being a C*?*O and are afraid to give the job to anyone who has not already attained that “honor,” making the assumption that the people doing the hiring at some other company must have recognized the appropriate characteristics in the boob when they gave him that job.

Some clown who has “taken risks” and left multiple companies in the dirt should eventually be recognized as not up to the task, but I see no evidence that such people ever actually suffer unemployment.

7

Gad, this all sounds so cynical…but accurate.
I’ve seen some of the absolute worst screw-ups toddle along quite nicely, thank you, spreading chaos in their wake. A lot of reasons have already been given: the plethora of scapegoats, spin about risk-taking, etc.
There’s also a poweful (bullshit) mystique about leadership. Once conferred it’s almost never recinded, even for ample cause. It’s the Inverse Damage Tag Law. Everybody answers to somebody, and often it’s a group of equally clueless somebodies, e.g boards of directors, nervous superiors, etc. So a leader screws up. None of those clueless somebodies will eagerly go on record for giving the screw up that much power in the first place.
So the shit gets redistributed, often in the form of behind-doors pressure and public accolades. The most effective way to clean house is to make high profile losers marketable to others. Why go through all the expensive nastiness and embarrassment of firing, litigation, severance, etc. when you can finesse the loser onto some other sucker?
I’ve seen it in action many times. High profile shits don’t get openly called onto the carpet; they get swept onto somebody else’s carpet. Tag! You’re it! All faces saved.
In all honesty, it can work well when it removes someone from a toxic, impossible situation. They still have their careers and can go on to do well. But it also tends to shift losers all around the board–and real losers can ride out all those shifts for a hell of a long time.

8

It seems mostly the same. There is a class of foreign execustive types who’ve been here since the old days. Their Japanese is often complete sh*t, but that’s OK–they were here when a “gaijin” who could say konnichiha was a valued commodity. Trouble is, these old-timers have egos far bigger than their skills, and they bully around people like me who actually have them (both skills and egos). :cool:

Two examples. I had a dickhead boss who could barely speak and only sorta read who had about the nastiest personality I’ve ever encountered in business. Pure poison. But this guy has gone from company to company, adding lots of value, I’m sure.

In my current company, there’s an old “gaijin” who can’t read at all, his speaking is pretty par-for-course, but since he’s been there a few decades he gets to do all the traveling around the world with the chairman and president and whatnot. There’s no question that he’s paid his dues, but the fact is there are better people now to do that. He’s the ultimate yes-man, though, and he bullies and plays mind games with all the other foreign employees. He’s not an evil guy, but he’s one of the most mentally mixed-up businessmen (if you can call him that) I’ve ever encountered.

In Japan, of course, once someone finds a comfortable place with a comfortable salary attached, they never go away. And they’re never fired either, barring the commission of a crime or something. The old f*ckers just sit around, spouting bromides like “have a goal” or something like that, and never letting anyone young do anything of substance.

This country is ridiculous. I’m gonna bail soon with few regrets. Oh I’ll visit now and then and have a good meal.

9

As you mentioned, most MBAs don’t jump right into a management position. Most of the ones in my class work in “associate” level positions at banks and consulting firms which is really still entry level, it’s just entry level requiring a graduate degree.

In my experience (as a management consultant), it is very hard for a manager to “fail” in a career ending manner. Corporations can limp along with dysfunctional cultures and weak management for a long time. The trend towards “teams” and “decision by committee” has served to do nothing but difer responsibility and accountability. Even if a project “fails” (hard to define what failure actually is, but IMHO, sufficiently behind schedule and over budget) it can still go on and on since no one wants to kill it. Short of creating some Enron level fiasco, there is very little

People in the business world are not particularly clever or smart. Most managers are managers because they a) worked in the same position for a period of time and just sort of floated up to their position or b) developed a set of credentials that identified them as “management” material (ie a few years working at a prestigeous company). Half of them seem to barely understand their job.

Perception is reality in the business world. If you have a job, then you must be desirable in that role. If you worked a summer filing papers at Morgan Stanley then you have “banking experience” and are qualified to work in a bank. Same goes for being a manager.