Some weeks I feel like 100% of the staff needs to be rotated out.....
Price’s Law: Why Only A Few People Generate Half Of The Results
- Thread starter hermosabeach
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As pretty much all of my family are hard working "doers" . I came up with a saying years ago.
Those that do will always be asked to do more, those that do not are never even asked to do their fare share.
Those that do will always be asked to do more, those that do not are never even asked to do their fare share.
Maybe I'm to old, but when we seen any dead weight, they got cut.
I have worked all over the United states and Canada in a field that required production and accuracy.
If you didn't have the above skillsets you totally screwed the entire company on production or killed someone.
When you are working long hours making 150K in six months safety is paramount and fuck ups stand out pretty well.
We self police our own and took/take ( retired now) pride in our trade and company
I have worked all over the United states and Canada in a field that required production and accuracy.
If you didn't have the above skillsets you totally screwed the entire company on production or killed someone.
When you are working long hours making 150K in six months safety is paramount and fuck ups stand out pretty well.
We self police our own and took/take ( retired now) pride in our trade and company
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It seems that is rare anymore because of the lack of qualified help. Take the pipeline jobs for example, used to be mainly highly skilled people that were good at what they did and took pride in their work. Now, everyone has figured out what kind of money is involved and wants some of it. Not too mention, they can't find help so they sell permits to anyone that can pass a drug test. It was bad 10 years ago when I got out, can't imagine how bad it is now.
At one firm, we were allowed to hire temps for customer service.
some were ok, some awful- a few good.
We started interviewing 3-5 temps before taking one. More like you would with a full time associate.
if they were good, we kept and developed them. If not good, they were gone the same day
we hired the temps that were good.
While HR says we have a 90 day conditional employment, HR made it impossible to fire anyone without a series of verbal and written plans
while the temp route costs more.. it was a lot cheaper than a bad hire.
hbr.org
hbr.org
some were ok, some awful- a few good.
We started interviewing 3-5 temps before taking one. More like you would with a full time associate.
if they were good, we kept and developed them. If not good, they were gone the same day
we hired the temps that were good.
While HR says we have a 90 day conditional employment, HR made it impossible to fire anyone without a series of verbal and written plans
while the temp route costs more.. it was a lot cheaper than a bad hire.
It’s Better to Avoid a Toxic Employee than Hire a Superstar
A bad hire costs over $12,000, but a good one is worth only $5,000.
hbr.org
It’s Better to Avoid a Toxic Employee than Hire a Superstar
A bad hire costs over $12,000, but a good one is worth only $5,000.
hbr.org
Our HR guy is very typical. Zero skills in the actual field, but loooooves his Forms, Matrixes, papers, reports and endless manuals and emails on how to hire people, it takes up so much of my time to use his way it’s mind blowing. Not to mention the three people he hired all got fired for embezzlement, so wtf does he know? Lol.
Most of my experience fits Price's Law exactly
I have been a manager for 20 years, large teams, small teams, etc does not matter
80% of the work is done by 20% (or less) of the people.
People also seem to be more concerned with what other people are doing rather than their own work.
I have one rare exception right now. one of my teams is 100% full of top performers. The work is split pretty evenly, no arguments about who does what and how, its refreshing. What I know for sure is that it won't last
I am sure someone will get a better offer or change careers or something and leave eventually.
I have been a manager for 20 years, large teams, small teams, etc does not matter
80% of the work is done by 20% (or less) of the people.
People also seem to be more concerned with what other people are doing rather than their own work.
I have one rare exception right now. one of my teams is 100% full of top performers. The work is split pretty evenly, no arguments about who does what and how, its refreshing. What I know for sure is that it won't last
I am sure someone will get a better offer or change careers or something and leave eventually.
And while 20% of the people produce 80% of the results, companies don't realize, understand and/or care about the demotivators that will cause people to leave. The top 20% are the first to get demotivated with any bullshit, and are the first to leave.
I really wish managers had a better understanding of behavioral economics. I work for a large fortune 50 company in O&G, and the managers are hired based on their technical merit (it's an engineering world), rather then their management and leadership skills. They are much more concerned about meeting silly arbitrary metrics then they are about their people. These people have no clue how to motivate their workforce, and they lose A LOT of the top talent - we hemorrhage it, but management is too daft to realize what's going on or care. They just think it's part of having a business - yet it's completely in their control and they can stop the bleeding, if they sat down and pulled their heads out of their asses for just a minute.
I was a top 5% performer for my first ~6 years at the company. All the bullshit they put me through in the last couple of years, combined with all the corporate bullshit, has completely demotivated me. Needless to say, I'm leaving this company very soon. Way too much bullshit with no reward.
I really wish managers had a better understanding of behavioral economics. I work for a large fortune 50 company in O&G, and the managers are hired based on their technical merit (it's an engineering world), rather then their management and leadership skills. They are much more concerned about meeting silly arbitrary metrics then they are about their people. These people have no clue how to motivate their workforce, and they lose A LOT of the top talent - we hemorrhage it, but management is too daft to realize what's going on or care. They just think it's part of having a business - yet it's completely in their control and they can stop the bleeding, if they sat down and pulled their heads out of their asses for just a minute.
I was a top 5% performer for my first ~6 years at the company. All the bullshit they put me through in the last couple of years, combined with all the corporate bullshit, has completely demotivated me. Needless to say, I'm leaving this company very soon. Way too much bullshit with no reward.
I have to respectfully disagree to some extent. My experience is that first level managers are by far and large the best example of the Peter Principle. Just because someone is good at making a widget, fixing a widget or selling a widget doesn't mean they have what it takes to manage people or a team. So they are promoted one level above their skillet or abilities and so in their failure they make those below them miserable also. Lets be honest first level
manager is a pretty tough place for those with no spine. You catch it from both sides and you have to be a shield to those above you.
As for 80% living off the teet and 20% doing. Check out the government sector. Its more like 5% and 95% I worked a contract job years ago at an airport for a while. I told the wife I had to leave or it would ruin me for life being around those people.
The funny and alarming thing about the Peter Principle was that it was written as satire. I found a copy in our office library and was confused until I realized that it was basically comedy that is so on-point that it has become business cannon.
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Your describing the vast majority with little to no leadership skill. That lends itself to Price's theory. Only about 20% can lead effectively. And government contractors are really no different than the government agencies that contract them. You're referring to bureaucracy, which is an incentive to produce slowly. Bureaucracy is just barriers but the same 20% do most the work in that environment.
Price merely came up with a mathematical formula for the insanity of Catch-22. He figured out a way to make it compute.
Price's law is not far off, but there's a lot more to the equation to be successful.
No one man is a island, it's a coordinated symphony.
Especially, if you're in a large corporation.
I left that shit show 18 years ago or we wouldn't be having this conversation, because I'd be dead of a heart attack.
I was in the top 10 "producers" out of 300+ stores in 13 states.
Corporate was more of a problem than help, we got into a few pissing contests more then I care to remember.
But they had no problem asking me to help fix some of their self induced issues, which had nothing to do with my operation.
And @Bender I would have done the same. Go for all you can get, just make sure you are not losing money doing so.
No one man is a island, it's a coordinated symphony.
Especially, if you're in a large corporation.
I left that shit show 18 years ago or we wouldn't be having this conversation, because I'd be dead of a heart attack.
I was in the top 10 "producers" out of 300+ stores in 13 states.
Corporate was more of a problem than help, we got into a few pissing contests more then I care to remember.
But they had no problem asking me to help fix some of their self induced issues, which had nothing to do with my operation.
And @Bender I would have done the same. Go for all you can get, just make sure you are not losing money doing so.
The military is one of the finest examples of "Price's Law" ever conceived. Why? Because the military is socialism in action.
In the military, everyone of the same rank makes basically the same money. You get a bump for time in service and a bump for some special skills but otherwise the top fighter pilot in the Air force earns the same cash as a flying retard running 2nd seat for life on cargo planes. The best aircraft avionics tech and the retard serving in the chow hall make the same cash if they have the same rank.
On top of that, if you work hard, volunteer for extra duties and put in extra hours on special projects you will in fact make not one damned dollar more than the guy sleeping in the truck, doing nothing all day. If you have a dirtbag for a supervisor ( 80% chance of that) he will take credit for your hard work on his next EPR or credit his friends for your efforts and reward them.
In my shop, I worked like a dog and got promoted to E-5 on the first try. I got a commendation medal as an E-4 for a huge project that I absolutely killed it on. The hard work of 5 or 6 junior enlisted got my base commander his first star, he loved us. On the flipside, my shop chief hated my guts, my shift supervisor hated me and they took every chance to stick me with any extra duty they could pile on so they could take credit for my work. Our shop had 45 guys, ten of them did 70% of the work. Several of them produced absolutely nothing on any given day, they simply pencil-whipped any trouble report and sent the broken junk back out to the plane.
In the end, I left the active side for the guard and finished my career in the ANG. Civilian world worked basically the same. I retired from my last job and moved onto a third career because my boss was a drunk who did nothing all day except be buddies with the department director. Every assignment he failed to do, dropped on my desk with three days left. I refused most of them, politely of course. He then screamed about the words, "other duties as assigned" in my job description. I reminded him of the legal requirement for the drunk, PE to stamp the paperwork, not the foreman. It was a pleasure to retire.
In the military, everyone of the same rank makes basically the same money. You get a bump for time in service and a bump for some special skills but otherwise the top fighter pilot in the Air force earns the same cash as a flying retard running 2nd seat for life on cargo planes. The best aircraft avionics tech and the retard serving in the chow hall make the same cash if they have the same rank.
On top of that, if you work hard, volunteer for extra duties and put in extra hours on special projects you will in fact make not one damned dollar more than the guy sleeping in the truck, doing nothing all day. If you have a dirtbag for a supervisor ( 80% chance of that) he will take credit for your hard work on his next EPR or credit his friends for your efforts and reward them.
In my shop, I worked like a dog and got promoted to E-5 on the first try. I got a commendation medal as an E-4 for a huge project that I absolutely killed it on. The hard work of 5 or 6 junior enlisted got my base commander his first star, he loved us. On the flipside, my shop chief hated my guts, my shift supervisor hated me and they took every chance to stick me with any extra duty they could pile on so they could take credit for my work. Our shop had 45 guys, ten of them did 70% of the work. Several of them produced absolutely nothing on any given day, they simply pencil-whipped any trouble report and sent the broken junk back out to the plane.
In the end, I left the active side for the guard and finished my career in the ANG. Civilian world worked basically the same. I retired from my last job and moved onto a third career because my boss was a drunk who did nothing all day except be buddies with the department director. Every assignment he failed to do, dropped on my desk with three days left. I refused most of them, politely of course. He then screamed about the words, "other duties as assigned" in my job description. I reminded him of the legal requirement for the drunk, PE to stamp the paperwork, not the foreman. It was a pleasure to retire.
You have to wonder how amazing Merica would be if the 20% of producers was say 50% how much could we produce. Then you stop and think, we pay farmers not to farm because if they produced everything they could just in the USA we could feed the world but then it jacks up their economies. Oh well.
I’ll give you my law! It’s short and sweet. Lots of people are just assholes and look out for themselves!
But then it jacks up power and control over their economies.
Gather up enough of something be it grain, money, or even people and somebody will want power and control over it.
That rule #10 has far reaching implications.
Sounds like you worked backshop avionics.
Treated like a bastard child, day in and day out.
Fuel cell guy here. Same, same.
Where I have worked they tout the top salesmen as the top producers and most valuable employees because, literally, 10% of the employees bring in 100% of the cash sales. The 90% of us are useless and in the way according to a few of the top sellers.
But ask their clients *why* they buy from these guys and they'll tell you to your face that they buy from our company to get the Support and Technical Services and Programming which is all done by the 90% who are considered losers by the Bean Counters.
Without us loser technicians and excellent support people (that make us not one thin dime) all of our clients would buy from Amazon and get their support/service/programming from third parties. But according to "the top men" the rest of us are all just taking up space and slacking and should be/could be sent packing.
That's my take on it. It's a team effort and the top salesman wouldn't be selling shit without without the Support that lives to make them look good.
VooDoo
But ask their clients *why* they buy from these guys and they'll tell you to your face that they buy from our company to get the Support and Technical Services and Programming which is all done by the 90% who are considered losers by the Bean Counters.
Without us loser technicians and excellent support people (that make us not one thin dime) all of our clients would buy from Amazon and get their support/service/programming from third parties. But according to "the top men" the rest of us are all just taking up space and slacking and should be/could be sent packing.
That's my take on it. It's a team effort and the top salesman wouldn't be selling shit without without the Support that lives to make them look good.
VooDoo
What I find interesting about all of this, is that every person I talk too tells me how good they are at their job. They all complain about management, how the company operates, and give me the feeling that without them, the company would basically fall apart. I have yet to hear one single person I know, tell me how shitty of a worker they are and that 80% of their co-workers out perform them. Maybe I only associate with the 20% of the people doing all the work.
I have noticed that some of the hardest workers do NOT make the company the most money, and most times it is the best bullshitters and lazy asses that are some how our top earners.
I have noticed that some of the hardest workers do NOT make the company the most money, and most times it is the best bullshitters and lazy asses that are some how our top earners.
As a pilot...that is BS, not the best example.
From what I have read...some of you looking to hire have said, "I'm not going to hire ____ again, I'm only going to hire ___" I see this at the company I fly for and everyone thinks they should look for guys with the same resume just like theirs. Flew the same plan, same squadron, same school, same GPA...its all flawed logic. Then HR rolls in saying you are not divers enough, we are only taking the 'best of the best of the best'...also poor logic.
I have found that if you STOP looking for the right Resume...and START looking for the right person, you will hire great employees with lots of potential. People equate resume to performance and then think hey they must be a good person, have integrity, and character. I can teach a fighter pilot OR a 2nd seat cargo pilot to fly where I work (Im instructor qualed) BUT I can not teach integrity & character.
I would rather have someone that can learn and grow with the job that is honest, and does the right thing, has humility, and learns from their errors. I have had former Blue Angel pilots (they look for the same criteria by the way), Top Gun instructors, astronauts, civilian pilots from a regional airline, "2nd seat cargo pilots", and lots of Marine pilots. The resume got you to the door...it what you do when you step through it.
I am also a believe in having co-workers take a personality test for their benefit, it's amazing what they learn and how to work with others, rather than everyone learn to work with them.
Automate that shit...
I guarantee there is some type of app for an ipad along with either QR code stickers or what not you can put on the inventory. Scan the part as it comes off the truck and the ipad auto sync's a few times a day or whatever you choose and your main system is kept up to date and billing can be done automatically. There are a couple of apps that you can design custom forms in also.
This is true in many job fields, some of the most qualified resumes from people I have managed (mostly inherited, did not hire myself) have been the worst employees. They are just playing the qualifications game, but they are ridiculous to manage and don't want to perform. I rarely will hire what I view to be an overqualified person, there is usually a reason that person is looking for a job that is unrelated to their skills on paper.
It's all about the intangible qualities people have that make them good employees. The key word scanning resume machines of today's Human Resource/Recruiting teams help create the situation that helps resume only people get jobs.
I have more real life examples than I can type out.
In the industry that I work in, Oil & Gas, confidence (overconfidence) and bullshit gets some people way further then their actual skillset. I work in engineering and operations group, so unlike sales, bullshit and overconfidence can be a very dangerous thing, and left unchecked can end lives.
Some people are great at baffling people with their bullshit, backing it up with their confidence. I saw it a lot, especially when I used to work in the deepwater group for this fortune 50 company I'm working for, it can be frustrating. Thankfully those people eventually hit a wall when people around them figure it out, but it goes on a lot longer then it should.
And at the end of the day, EVERY single person is replaceable. From the CEO down. Once you leave, someone will fill the void and you'll be forgotten in 6 months. My leaving won't make a blip on the stock price, and I'll be forgotten in 6 months. The company loses out on all the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars they've invested in developing me, and the resulting skillset and leadership skills I've learned, but the void will be filled quickly.
My company doesn't care that they hemorrhage talent. I've asked a lot of high performers when they left if management asked why they were leaving, or if they tried to keep them. Answer was always "no". These were all top quality people, I was always disappointed to hear this, as you would want management to value their most important asset. I've come to learn that my company, and probably most others, just consider people expendable assets. They don't care. I do believe this attitude they have effects them significantly in a way they can't tangibly put a metric next to, so management is too stupid/daft to realize it. But the unseen costs have got to be tremendous.
It's dangerous to have the attitude that you are irreplaceable, because I promise you that you are very replaceable in the eyes of your management and company.
@kthomas man you said some serious truth there. Everyone is replaceable in the eyes of those up on high. I have seen top talent leave and cause a major void. Everyone suffers from it but no one will address it.
As for the find the busiest guy and give him the task. I once worked with a guy that had everyone snowballed. He walked at almost a run pace everywhere he went and always carried 2 sheets of paper. People saw him on the move and never stopped him because surly he was busting ass and taking names. In reality all he was doing was walking fast with 2 sheets of paper because he knew no one would stop him to ask what he was doing. After I showdowed him a couple days for cross training it was clear. This guy wasn't doing a damn thing, but he had everyone thinking he was. In reality it was pretty brilliant if you didn't want to do any work.
As for the find the busiest guy and give him the task. I once worked with a guy that had everyone snowballed. He walked at almost a run pace everywhere he went and always carried 2 sheets of paper. People saw him on the move and never stopped him because surly he was busting ass and taking names. In reality all he was doing was walking fast with 2 sheets of paper because he knew no one would stop him to ask what he was doing. After I showdowed him a couple days for cross training it was clear. This guy wasn't doing a damn thing, but he had everyone thinking he was. In reality it was pretty brilliant if you didn't want to do any work.
@kthomas you are dead on
Everyone is replaceable! I have had some people on staff that I was sorry to see go, and yes small ripples were made upon them leaving, but in the end, everyone is replaced and the business moves on. Does it matter that you are great and quit? only in the short term
and don't get me started on the pile of shit that is Diversity Hires
Everyone is replaceable! I have had some people on staff that I was sorry to see go, and yes small ripples were made upon them leaving, but in the end, everyone is replaced and the business moves on. Does it matter that you are great and quit? only in the short term
and don't get me started on the pile of shit that is Diversity Hires
Depends on the industry. In my industry Management is just now waking up to the fact that there are no more "turn key" technicians and that if they do not placate/retain the current techs they are fucked. Been coming for 30 years but it has arrived - talented and driven experienced finish workers like electricians, electronics techs, finish carpenters, etc. can literally find work in 20 minutes.
They are not replaceable where I am. Maybe different other places but I get two job offers a week and had 3 gigs in 2017...every time I moved I got more.
Not all are replaceable if they have skills. if they fry burgers or sell shit? Easy peazy as anyone can do that. Fix electronics, run a piece of technical medial diagnostics, do finish wood work/cabinet work, electrician, or any specialized and fine craftsmanship? I can make my HR and Boss cry just by saying I have a better offer. I can't be replaced and can get more money just by asking and I'm an old dog with almost 50 years on the job.
I have verified and fine skills. I'm not replaceable and hear it every day. There is little skilled labor loose now days and replacing skilled craftsmen that the Bean Counters pissed off is unlikely.
VooDoo
They are not replaceable where I am. Maybe different other places but I get two job offers a week and had 3 gigs in 2017...every time I moved I got more.
Not all are replaceable if they have skills. if they fry burgers or sell shit? Easy peazy as anyone can do that. Fix electronics, run a piece of technical medial diagnostics, do finish wood work/cabinet work, electrician, or any specialized and fine craftsmanship? I can make my HR and Boss cry just by saying I have a better offer. I can't be replaced and can get more money just by asking and I'm an old dog with almost 50 years on the job.
I have verified and fine skills. I'm not replaceable and hear it every day. There is little skilled labor loose now days and replacing skilled craftsmen that the Bean Counters pissed off is unlikely.
VooDoo
The company I quit last year seemed to want the turnover rate so they could pay $12 an hour to start out vs. $22 topped out. They had engineers making shit dummy proof so people with minimal experience could build the trucks. They kept dumbing it down to the point it made it almost made it more difficult for the experienced people. They changed stuff to all bolt on to get away from welding so anyone off the street could do it. They didn't care about quality as long as you made hours, they decided it was cheaper to have warranty claims than to have a quality product go out. The backlog was big enough that they didn't seem to care if they lost customers because of poor quality.
The people that baffle them with bullshit only get away with it because management isn't usually experienced enough to know whether it's right or wrong. As you said, the confidence those people project is a large part of why they are successful for so long.
A lot of management in big companies got their positions via the "screw up - move up" method. These losers could care less about the bottom line. They only care about justifying and preserving their useless positions. When they see a resume that's better than theirs is, its immediately thrown out because an employee with more drive and experience than them would be a threat to their borderline existence. They always make sure to keep everyone that's under their thumb dumber than they are.
I liked your post but I do have a question? Are you saying that while in the military you made more as an O-3 than other O-3's because you were a better pilot?
I wish we had the luxury of hiring the guy with the best fit instead of the best resume. I've trained up guys who started out with basic skills and what I felt was the right personality and set of values and had awesome results. That is not what most companies in my field want. They want a turn key journeyman, no one wants to waste three years and $250K training a guy who might quit or bail for a different company the day he or she gets their journeyman card. That's three years they cannot operate alone and unsupervised. I do some entertaining stuff alone as most guys in my field do. Unless it is something overly complicated or deadly enough for a two man policy, its 12 hours of whatever and you might only talk to someone for 2 minutes via phone or radio a shift.
Finding a guy who won't die or go mental on 12 hour rotating shifts is tough enough, adding a minimum of three years of experience, vocational training or college and a journeyman card means you are trying to steal a guy from another plant and most HR types will gladly send you 2/3rds of a corpse if they have a good resume. If your company is massive, you only get to pick from what they decide to send you, not from the entire pool of applicants. From what I can tell, 99% of HR types have no idea what a good employee looks like in a non-typical career field like mine or yours for that matter.
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Yeah man. Started in Electronics Warfare flight line and back shop. I killed it for years and then the cold war ended it for 40% of the field. In more than one of the units I worked for we had fully qualified supervisors up to and including E-7's who would hide in closets and dumpsters to avoid work, have appointments every day of the week or one of those fake back injury profiles to not work. It was pathetic, like working with the developmentally disabled. So I took my GI bill and separation pay, Palace Fronted into the ANG and went to college. Got my degree, got a couple of new AFSC's and finished out 27 years of fun. I got into my current civilian career field after college.
Every military unit has a "Hotdog Harry". I was in Korea back in the day, our unit had a worthless guy who ran the snack bar for a living, every one called him "Hotdog Harry". I bet his wife called him Hotdog Harry at home. The commander called him Hotdog Harry to his frigging face. He made E-7 pay, like every other E-7 and while some guys supervised sections of 36 people, wrote a dozen APR's, had equipment accounts with $20,000,000 in equipment and multi-million dollar budgets to manage, Hotdog Harry got paid the same money to stock four dorm refrigerators with frozen burritos, soda and hotdogs while simultaneously keeping the shelves of his work area stocked with chips and candy bars. He had the job for his last 10 years of service, when he hit 28 years of so they high year tenured him out.
Well one day a retirement flyer got sent to every section, Msgt ??????? is retiring, everyone be here at 1500 on whatever day for the big send off? One of the guys asked me, "who is Msgt ???????" I honestly said, "no fucking idea". So I asked the Chief at the daily brief. He looked at me funny and said, "You know,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Hotdog Harry."
So yes, I do honestly believe the top 10-20% of any organization is carrying the other 80% in most cases.
Not at all...rank is rand and pay is pay. Previous post implied a fighter pilot 'should' get paid more over a cargo pilot. I do not agree. Military pilot training is a little different than the civilian world even though we teach the same exact thing. In the military there is competition. I pilot would get choice of aircraft based on performance in training. After that it means nothing - IMHO. This translates to the way SOME young people perform today...there is little to no competition , everyone is a winner! People tend not to push themselves in this environment. "Good enough" is the mentality. Competition has been replaced with diversity.
This does touch on another side of things I see with 'goal oriented' personalities. Individual set a goal, work their butts off to achieve it, and then another, and another. Planting a garden or climbing Mt Everest it fills something inside. I see this with pilots that get on with a major airline, build seniority (no recognition on performance), reach top year of pay, check out as Captain on the biggest aircraft...and THEN! Then what...there is nothing left to achieve.
Trapped in a seniority based system, no recognition for performance, no more goals you made it to the top of your profession making lots of money...life should be great. They are depressed, drink more, pissed at everyone, and all around unhappy. They stopped setting goals, they have no hobbies to fill that fulfill that feeling.
This is one reason we are all here. Outside of work this hobby keeps our interest, and there is always a new challenge.
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You had good leadership that realized this guy was a soup sandwich and all he could do was this job and if he touched anything else he fucked it up. While we may not like the fact that "those guys" are getting the same pay as everybody else for doing something meaningless, it keeps them out of the way, and as long as they dont give a shit to stock the snack bar, everybody gets along better. Every company has "those guys" in certain jobs even some "more important" jobs... I know we have a few in my company. Some of the guys with higher up jobs shouldnt even be there, but they stay in their little world and dont fuck things up so nobody says anything.
Actually, good, or even decent leadership would have ensured that MSgt Hotdog got performance reports that matched his abilities and productivity.
Senior NCO or not, he should have been shown the front gate.
Instead, we have weak leadership that rewards poor and often times dangerous performance with cushy jobs like Dorm Manager.
Everyone sees it, even the E-1. It doesn't set standards, it lowers them.
It causes a lot of top performers to say Fuck It.
Why should they work so hard to get paid the same.
Many of them back off and get on the lazy train.
In the Air Force, there's an early promotion program for SrA (E-4) Below-the-zone.
It's designed to acknowledge and promote top performing Airmen First Class.
Instead, it's become a fast track to the good ol' boy network.
Most top performers are too busy working their asses off to schmooze with the Sr NCOs.
The ass kissers have figured out that name recognition gets you promoted quicker than working hard.
I lost more than one great Airman with reenlistment because they saw through the bullshit. They refused to be part of that system.
Great leadership recognizes great performance and rewards it where they can.
They also recognize poor and substandard performance.
It's either corrected, or the individual is removed, not moved.
I was implying a marginal pilot that everyone felt was not suited for a "pilot in command" position is paid the same as the guy who flies thru hurricanes or runs an A-10 into AAA.
No worries Mike, using the Airman/NCO of the month/quarter or Below the zone for buddy system crap has been around since Reagan was my Boss. I lost Below the Zone to my buddy Ted because he was from a "good family" and had a year of college. I had one college class, a couple of IG outstanding performer awards and mad skills. I got 12 of 12 questions right on the board, he got 7 of 12 but he had college and rich parents. I asked an LT I played football about it, he said the guy has a nice family, Dad's a VP of somesuch company, doesn't matter if he knows the material.
Like most companies, the Air Force in particular is interested is deep tongue ass kissing more than slightly abrasive, task oriented guys who want to get the job done. I think it's gone downhill since they stopped letting you drink beer at Commander's call.
Went through basic in January of 84, so Ronnie was my first boss too. ?
I really miss the two beer limit lunch thing.
A couple of pints of bitter made the afternoon go a lot quicker.
Oh...what you are talking about is PERSONALITY. Yea, you can't pay people based on how they get along with others. See a pilot (fighter or cargo, single seat or multi crew) meets the qualification standards or they don't. If you are a "PIC" or "Aircraft Commander" you use your left hand and the guy/gal in the right seat uses their right hand. There are no marginal pilots...if you don't meet the qualification standard you don't fly.
The people that 'everyone' can tell are not suited to be in command and have a leadership roll are people that don't work well with others, typically do not see their errors or flaws, and are typically the proverbial victim. They see themselves as overqualified and always passed up. Those guys do work better in a single seat aircraft...or by themselves. They are typically more self-centered and don't help others. Yea...I agree not everyone is capable of being a Pilot in Command. I teach our Captain upgrade course at a major airline...I've seen it all.
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