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'''You spend more time managing other people''': We take this to be a trivial observation: the contractor at the call-centre in Belarus has no direct reports, so spends zero time-managing; the CEO ultimately has every direct report, so spends almost all her time line-managing. The gradations between are not inevitable — every firm has those grave, grand elders who float about sprinkling their ineffable magic on things without having any portfolio in particular or any direct reports — but, as a rule the further up the chain you go, the more time you spend managing. Especially given fat-bird syndrome: the porky tweeters on the upper branches don’t really have anything else to do ''but'' manage their lines (and [[Dotted line|dotted-lines]]!) | '''You spend more time managing other people''': We take this to be a trivial observation: the contractor at the call-centre in Belarus has no direct reports, so spends zero time-managing; the CEO ultimately has every direct report, so spends almost all her time line-managing. The gradations between are not inevitable — every firm has those grave, grand elders who float about sprinkling their ineffable magic on things without having any portfolio in particular or any direct reports — but, as a rule the further up the chain you go, the more time you spend managing. Especially given fat-bird syndrome: the porky tweeters on the upper branches don’t really have anything else to do ''but'' manage their lines (and [[Dotted line|dotted-lines]]!) | ||
'''The more homogenous you become''': Over the course of a working lifetime, [[Diversity|cognitive diversity]] is systematically eliminated by means of [[Evolution by natural selection|natural selection]]. Life as a corporate grunt is not for everyone: a large portion of the population self-selects by | '''The more homogenous you become''': Over the course of a working lifetime, [[Diversity|cognitive diversity]] is systematically eliminated by means of [[Evolution by natural selection|natural selection]]. Life as a corporate grunt is not for everyone: a large portion of the population self-selects by not applying for employement in the financial services sector from the get-go. Those who inadvertently fall into it — perhaps by misapprehension, inattention or cruel accident of fate — make it their business to exit via the first available gift shop and, we are given to understand, thereafter live fulfilled lives as actors, restaurateurs, HGV drivers and whatever else the ''hoi polloi'' get up to by way of making ends meet. Those aspiring bankers who stay on, and who grasp the survival techniques quickly enough to hang on — are already homogenous enough, and that is before they are rigorously chiseled, sanded, polished and buffed to a high sheen by the ebbs, flows and microclimates of their organisation. The longer you stay the smoother you become, and the more a functional part of the organisation ''as it currently is'': ''the firm'' domesticates ''you''. You grow ''fitter''; ever more perfectly adapted to the organisation’s ''prevailing'' ecosystem. Just as you don’t bite the hand that feeds, nor do you seek to ''change'' an environment which already lets you live your best life. | ||
The graduate intake might have all kinds of pink-haired, wild-eyed loons on induction day: by the end of the year most of them will be gone. The class of senior administrators, by contrast, will be interchangeable; rendered thoroughly in the corporation’s image. You may have difficulty telling them apart. | |||
'''The people you manage need less management''': It is equally trivial that the Belarusian contractor, fresh off the bus from the job-centre in Minsk, knows nothing but what he is told: his reliance upon his manager for practical guidance and the dispensation of wisdom and experience is total. By contrast, the forty-year industry veteran [[chief financial officer]], who narrowly missed out on the [[CEO]] job herself, knows exactly what is expected of her, what to do, how to react to any crisis and has little need of guidance and instruction from the jammy sod who ''did'' get the big job. Thus, note a shift in line management ''content'' as we ascend into the Gods: [[The battle of substance and form|''substance'' drops off, and ''form'' takes over]]. Line management becomes progressively more about the ''appearance'' of good governance than its delivery: more ''[[performative governance|performative]]''. Were the CEO to be accidentally run over by his Lear Jet, the organisation would not skip a beat. Take out a section of associate directors, on the other hand, and it will grind to a halt. The challenge, therefore is selecting the right portion of associate directors to excise so that you trim mainly fat and do not “cut into the muscle”. | '''The people you manage need less management''': It is equally trivial that the Belarusian contractor, fresh off the bus from the job-centre in Minsk, knows nothing but what he is told: his reliance upon his manager for practical guidance and the dispensation of wisdom and experience is total. By contrast, the forty-year industry veteran [[chief financial officer]], who narrowly missed out on the [[CEO]] job herself, knows exactly what is expected of her, what to do, how to react to any crisis and has little need of guidance and instruction from the jammy sod who ''did'' get the big job. Thus, note a shift in line management ''content'' as we ascend into the Gods: [[The battle of substance and form|''substance'' drops off, and ''form'' takes over]]. Line management becomes progressively more about the ''appearance'' of good governance than its delivery: more ''[[performative governance|performative]]''. Were the CEO to be accidentally run over by his Lear Jet, the organisation would not skip a beat. Take out a section of associate directors, on the other hand, and it will grind to a halt. The challenge, therefore is selecting the right portion of associate directors to excise so that you trim mainly fat and do not “cut into the muscle”. | ||