Too Much Talent

If you've ever been employed by a large organization where superstar managers made your job impossible, you should read The Talent Myth, an article currently on The New Yorker's website. Here's a sampling:

"The broader failing of [consulting firm] McKinsey and its acolytes at Enron is their assumption that an organization's intelligence is simply a function of the intelligence of its employees. They believe in stars, because they don't believe in systems. In a way, that's understandable, because our lives are so obviously enriched by individual brilliance. Groups don't write great novels, and a committee didn't come up with the theory of relativity. But companies work by different rules. They don't just create; they execute and compete and coördinate the efforts of many different people, and the organizations that are most successful at that task are the ones where the system is the star." [emphasis added]

As someone who used to work for a large organization (which shall be nameless) under a "superstar" manager (who shall be nameless) with a Wharton MBA--but no people skills--I can say that the author of this article is saying something that needs to be said. The organization I worked for (at least in my department) had no logical system for getting the work done--or even adequate resources. They just hired "talented" people and expected them to wave their magic wands. This led to chaos, fear, paranoia and low productivity. Top management's answer to the problems was to fire people and hire more "talented" replacements--which did nothing more than start the whole cycle over again.

And that, dear readers, is one big reason why I work for myself today.