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This seems interesting - I will go look for it. Does Miller discuss the Principal/ Agent problem of managers extracting what "should" belong to shareholders? My experience is that the managers of many firms have decided that their real job is to maximize their individual return not the shareholders return.

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My library is 8,000 miles away at the moment, but I recall a very late Drucker book in which he described management as "the welding together of different knowledges." The interesting thing to me is, the manager in this view is not a specialist. In other words, specialists come to the manager with far deeper knowledge of their area than the manager will ever have (unless the manager is a specialist of the same type, a common "Peter Principle" case which creates its own warping of organizational strategy). The manager, to me as a strategy consultant, seems to be in a similar situation to the average consumer of services - almost all the time, a specialist is telling him or her, "The sponduloid cable is disconnected from the dweeble, and you need to fix this now or the animation chain will rupture and take down the entire carboxygenation system, and that'll be $3,000." And you have a vague recollection of this same thing happening, and you did something about it that you regretted, but it's been JUST long enough since then that you have forgotten everything about this situation, and the expert is standing there with his hands on his hips and an expression saying, "I can't believe this CIVILIAN doesn't completely understand this thing that I do 30 times a week. What a dope." Now have ten or 12 of these experts meet with you regularly, demanding decisions from you, each of them thinking, "I can't believe this Finance MBA CEO doesn't understand the dweeble manufacutring process, it's the entire basis of our business," or "How can I expect a rational decision on ad spend from this knuckleheaded wrench-bender who came up through operations?" And the manager has two basic ways she or he can go - do the Peter Principle thing of pretending that their own specialty is the only one that matters, and favor its prerogatives above all else; or else try to weld the various knowledges together in such a way that it makes strategic sense. I think the former is far too often how things go. And numbers are far too often used to justify that approach. CEOs from finance backgrounds run spreadsheets, make "strategies" like one one of my former CEOs did ("Achieve 10% ROI, period") and act as though the numbers can guarantee future outcomes; operations-background CEOs figure out costs and processes and try to go for efficiency, thinking that will allow them to be the last boy standing on the burning deck of their marketplace. Meanwhile some huge trend (or multiple ones) is/are sweeping towards them from deep left field, ready to transform their whole strategic situation. But only the most strategic of thinkers are capable of removing themselves completely from the tangle of specialties lobbying them for the supremacy of their guilds, and seeing not just to a present-day optimal balancing of present political interests and present employee satisfaction, but to a stable future equilibrium, a green and fertile valley over the next ridgeline, safe from all the tsunamis that are sweeping in (and the metaphors mixing like frogs in a blender).

Just another bleated protest against the supremacy of numerical thinking uber alles (a la Robert Rubin's Yellow Pad - https://patrickmarren.com/2024/02/robert-rubins-russian-roulette-the-yellow-pad-making-better-decisions-in-an-uncertain-world). Numbers all involve assumptions. Assumptions need to be examined, varied, and rigorously re-imagined.

Or not. It's your sponduloid cable. I'm just standing here with a bemused expression on my face, in my blue shirt with the nametag on it.

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Friedman's POV totally overlooks externalities. How much should management take account of non-Pigou taxed externalities or lobby for Pigou taxation of those externalities. On other points shareholders may (for better or worse) want management to undertake some non profit-maiimizing activities. I'd argue that it is NOT management's job to advocate for policies affecting the personal incomes of shareholders. For example, management as management should favor reducing business taxes and recouping the revenue from personal taxes.

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Hey! You're messing with Dan Davies' schtick here!

Have you read Karl Sigmund's book on the Vienna Circle, "Exact Thinking in Demented Times". It's great, but the amazing thing is that none of your favorites appear in it because he is focused on the philosophy of science. You could write a another complete Vienna Circle book! Maybe two!

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I have long wondered -- what is the job of top management. What does it look like on a day to day basis. You come into work on Monday morning what does your schedule look like. Think about a university like the one where Mr. DeLong's. You have presidents, chancellors and deans. What do they do anyway. Do professors need to be reminded to teach or do research. Do they need to be told what to teach or research. Classes may need to be approved. Grants need to be written. Sr. managers may have to function as umpires navigating friction between departments and individuals, and of course over money --e.g. who gets it. But is that really a full time job or does sr. management use their elevated position to increase power and authority that may align with their own interests but not the interests of their employer.

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If they are "One Minute Managers", what effort are they really making? University administrative jobs from chancellor downwards often seem like "make work", parasitic on captive students' ability to pay. Arguably "looting" the public and private purses. We already know that CEOs and senior execs get paid even when miserably failing, not something the plebs get in any organization.

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I've sorta played that role. Part of (much of) the job is translating what more senior mgmt is saying into tasks that can be acted upon... e.g. Jack says "Increase ROI" . Denis(who works for Jack) says "we need to make more money without adding assets" Bob (who works for Denis) says "Go find some way of doing what Denis wants - and tell me how much capital it will take to do it" I say to my small team "We've got a technique for taking existing assets off balance sheet" Go talk to the business and see whose got some equipment that fits the following arcane criteria...

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