Part of the problem is that a manager brought in without any relevant experience will often see their job as an exercise in making numbers bigger- they will attempt to cut costs and increase revenue in the short term without understanding which costs are really important or what the revenue is based on. This leads to brief increases in profit margins followed by customers fleeing to the competition, which the manager responds to with another round of cost cutting.
Even worse, the lack of deep understanding means that the manager cannot distinguish good ideas from bad ones, and often cannot distinguish talent from bluster, leading to poor hiring decisions and directionless leadership.
Everyone knows that putting a untrained business major in charge of a squadron of soldiers would end badly. He might be able skate by until they got into combat, maybe, but after that they wouldn’t listen to him for long. But for some reason we think that putting an mba in charge of an engineering team is a good idea.
Even worse, the lack of deep understanding means that the manager cannot distinguish good ideas from bad ones, and often cannot distinguish talent from bluster, leading to poor hiring decisions and directionless leadership.
Everyone knows that putting a untrained business major in charge of a squadron of soldiers would end badly. He might be able skate by until they got into combat, maybe, but after that they wouldn’t listen to him for long. But for some reason we think that putting an mba in charge of an engineering team is a good idea.