Me & the WSJ (& Managerial Incompetence)
I'm in the estimable Jared Sandberg's Cubicle Culture column in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. The subject? Managerial incompetence, a subject of which I have made careful study over the years. [Insert self-deprecating joke here.]
Among other explanations for the ever-growing incidence of incapacity, I have developed what I call the cargo cult theory of competence. In essence, people have become highly skilled at giving the patina of being managerially capable -- they know to call meetings, hold strategic reviews, talk about core competence, and cc- others like mad -- but most of 'em don't have a fricking clue what it means to actually be an effective manager (as opposed to intermittently looking like one).