The Chair Never Even Gets Warm
Explain this, because I can’t.
Something I’m seeing over and over again in the bios of “leaders,” especially of the girlboss-in-obnoxious-glasses variety, and read the “previously served” paragraph closely:
If we count the two Taco Bell jobs as one job, that’s at least eight companies and jobs in about three decades of work. Leading a brand “from April 2017 to January 2018” strikes me as a warning signal, not a sign of strength. If you name this person to lead a business, she’s going to do it for…a couple of years? Maybe? You’re not going to get stability and a sustained market strategy that takes your company forward over the course of the next decade or two; you’re going to get fourteen to twenty-three months of buzzwords, and then a parachute. I’ve worked for people like this. We’ve all worked for people like this.
See also the current Superintendent of Police in New Orleans, who came from a short tenure as the police chief in Oakland, California:
Prior to her tenure in Oakland, Kirkpatrick served as Bureau Chief in Chicago, where she was the liaison to the Department of Justice (DOJ) while the Chicago Police Department was under investigation for patterns and practice of civil rights violations, resulting in a consent decree. Kirkpatrick also served as Chief of Police in the cities of Ellensburg, Federal Way and Spokane, all in the State of Washington, as well as serving as Undersheriff of the King County Sheriff’s Office.
A cop who works as a senior leader for seven different police departments: a sign of maturity, depth, and commitment? Or a wind that blows through the office on its way to somewhere else? Why on earth does a mayor say, Oh, I want our city to be this person’s seventh police department!
Here’s a fawning profile of Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
In the 17 years following her graduation from law school, Jackson held a variety of legal jobs. She attained three federal clerkships, worked at four elite law firms, and served two stints with the Sentencing Commission. While much of that experience is typical for a Supreme Court short-lister, one line on Jackson’s resume is not: her mid-career decision to spend two years as a public defender.
It’s really impressive that she “worked at four elite law firms.” For example, “Jackson then snagged a highly sought-after spot as an associate at Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin, a Washington litigation boutique…Jackson left Miller Cassidy after a year for a third clerkship.” She often served at law firms, or in government jobs, for as long as two years. She was just that good, you see, so she never lasted anywhere.
Litigation moves slowly. It takes years to get complex commercial litigation to trial, or even to settle a consequential piece of commercial litigation. Serving at an elite law firm for a year is functionally meaningless. Cases are routinely parked for eight months at a time for quiet settlement discussions, or they grind through a year or two of “motion lawfare” before anything starts to happen. Someone who bounced off a long series of jobs like a stone skipping across a still lake has remarkably little experience taking a matter from opening controversy to final resolution. She spent thirty years catching little pieces of things, like a surgeon who did a residency in twenty-minute bites. “I was on a heart transplant Tuesday from noon to almost 12:18.”
But this has become an expectation. Picking something and sticking to it is a huge failure. The new CEO should come from eight to fourteen months of recent leadership experience, preferably in some form of musical chairs through different industries, Jaguar to Pepsi to Mattel, or the board has chosen poorly. Cultural incompatibility is especially sophisticated, and the former CEO of Saks Fifth Avenue is the perfect pick to lead NASCAR.
Target just replaced its longtime CEO, and the replacement is already regarded as a terrible pick and a huge crisis:
The 49-year-old Fiddelke rose through the Target ranks after starting as an intern. He has held positions across merchandising, finance, operations and human resources, including a recent stint as chief financial officer and his current role of chief operating officer. He also got tapped to lead the Enterprise Acceleration Office, a new effort that Target announced in May to kickstart its turnaround.
Yet Targets decision to hire the insider Fiddelke, instead of an external candidate, got a chilly reception. Investors responded to the pick with a stock selloff on Wednesday.
You can’t hire this loser, he has a bunch of…experience. Deep institutional knowledge and a long commitment to Widget Corp. makes Bob the wrong choice to lead Widget Corp.
I’ve watched city managers hire police chiefs, and they hate hiring the guy who used to be a patrol cop for the same department. An out-of-state hire is much sexier. With girlboss glasses? Massive win. It’s very creative and progressive, and the fact that they’ve never even laid eyes on your town before is, is, is — anyway, what were we saying?
What a strange cultural phenomenon. Your explanations welcome.
Lean In. Girlboss DEI hires received undeserved promotions for decades. Now our society is collapsing because of them. The iron rule of intersectionality. Once you make a diversity hire, every successor must be even more diverse. Top jobs transition from white man to white woman to bipoc woman to lgbtqi they/them.
Fiddelke can't be trusted and must be opposed because, having spent all these years with the same company, he might have allegiance to (or even just concern for) the employees, their families and their communities—that he may have other (inherently suspicuous) interests besides the needs of the market and the company's share price. This is a dangerous threat.
What the market and its priests and acolytes most fervently believe is that we are all undifferentiated human matter, loyal to nothing but cash and career, that every other place and every other person is (or needs to be) the same, that any person from any place can replace any other person, that CV matters more than character or culture, that any local or national concerns must be rendered suspicious and uprooted.
People who hop from job to job and place to place—Anywheres not Somewheres—can be trusted to say or do anything for cash and career. People who show loyalty to home or tribe are not to be trusted.
The Market God is a jealous God. He sees his reign as global and totalizing and demands that no other gods (religious or household) be worshipped before him.