All that and you still can't help bragging about how many people you've managed.

This is not news that matters. Normally I don't complain, but...

That's why you're not climbing the corporate ladder. Get more people under you ASAP. Learn to fight off your rivals. Or stay down.

Wrong. Managers are always scheming to get as many people below them as possible. Claiming savings is an effective short-term strategy that only works in specific circumstances, and it only works as a strategy when it results in more people below you on the org tree.

So true. Same with programming languages, too. Good engineers solve problems in the constraints they are given.

Why do you think their intent is to move faster?

If managers can slow you down, then they need to hire more people below them. That is a promotion for the manager.

Managers are actively trying to slow you down.

They don't sell to upper level management, they sell to second tier management.

If you're second level, you need to make "positive changes" in the company to climb the ladder, but you aren't smart enough to think of those changes yourself. Gartner sells the plan to second level managers, who sell it to top level in hopes of getting promoted.

Gartner, Forrester, etc are in the "help second tier managers get promoted" business.

Normally people become managers with zero training in management. It's not a high skill position.

If you want to manage, then this book will quickly get you into the 98th percentile of managers. Only 224 pages.

If you want to climb the corporate ladder, that is the difficult side of management. I don't know any good books about that.

Managers are largely judged based on how many people they've managed. The larger the number of people, the better. Thus their entire incentive structure is based on hiring new people below them, whether those people are useful or not.

It's the current meta for CxO suite: the idea is there are too many middle level managers. They don't have enough work so they spend their time playing office politics and in useless meetings.

The idea is to have bigger teams and fewer managers. Maybe instead of team sizes 4-6 move to team sizes 12-15.

Personally I think the problem isn't team size, it's a matter of having people who's entire job is to manage. If managers spend 50% (or some reasonable percentage) of their time doing practical work (ie, work that is not managing), then they are working alongside their teams and the problems will go away.

Last year Pakistan had a war against India, and this year they've had a war against Afghanistan, and that's the normal Pakistan government's way. Their government is controlled by the military.

Oh, he's annoying. My point is that's not what they cared about, they cared about money.

Board rooms C-suites are filled with assholes.

You can! But it will take some help.

There was a case where five guys were eating LSD while one was driving. Their emotions synced up so closely that one of them needed to pee, but none of them knew who it was (because they all felt it).

It's not really that surprising, if you walk in a room and everyone is happy, you will feel happy too.

Oh yeah. Even if Altman isn't a sociopath, he acts like one for money.

The board is just the same.