Comments on: Responsibility has been completely severed from authority

By: Foseti

Foseti — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:51:02 +0000

The staff jobs vs. line jobs distinction is interesting.

However, I wonder if it’s really all that new or surprising that most people prefer to have stability over authority?

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 01:21:33 +0000

I remember when you made that point about staff jobs vs. line jobs last year. Good insight.

By: David Foster

David Foster — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:20:12 +0000

Even in the private sector, there is a disturbing trend for many people to prefer “staff” jobs (analysis and advisory jobs with no direct decision-making authority or accountability) to “line” jobs in which they actually make the calls and get judged on the results. For example, many b-school graduates would greatly prefer a job analyzing potential acquisition targets to one managing 30 salespeople as a regional manager.

By: Ross

Ross — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:18:29 +0000

Exactly matches my direct observations. This is in no way exaggerated or twisted.

And the conclusions are, if not complete, utterly accurate per se.