[CarpetBench]

The most surprising part about this to me is that this matters at the top. Sure, for a middle manager it makes sense that it matters quite a bit. I'm pretty surprised that it matters much at the top, though.

If Elon Musk decided to head a major grocery chain I wouldn't stop to consider whether his lack of experience in retail groceries mattered much. But maybe it does?

Really interesting to see the analogy extend to sports, too. Professional sports teams, even successful ones, are almost universally run (coaches, GMs, etc.) by people who didn't play at a high level. Without actually pulling the numbers up, I'd estimate with high probability that the number of "all-stars" either managing or running teams is countable on one hand.

I mean, hell, this year's superbowl is being lead by two coaches who played D3 football, and one GM who played football for a Canadian university. One of said coaches is pretty universally considered one of the greatest coaches of all time.

For the most part these coaches/GMs absolutely could not do the job of the players on the field, nor could they ever.

[mrob]

But those lower level players still have strong knowledge of how to play, and probably tried just as hard as some top level players. They're not going to suddenly announce that they put some numbers in a spreadsheet and figured out that a 5 second 60 yard dash would guarantee victory, so it's time to start training for it.

In technical fields it's not uncommon for managers to ask people to do things that are literally impossible.

[cauterized]

In a large company, the VPE isn't managing engineers. S/he is managing managers. If the VPE is capable of people management, project planning, etc. (the line manager's actual responsibilities) in addition to the VPE responsibilities (strategy, hiring pipeline, and the like), then the line managers will be happy. If the line manager is capable of building software, the engineers will be happy.

The VPE doesn't have to be a software engineer, just a decent people manager with enough tech background to not be completely lost when the line manager informs them that we need to make room for a couple extra weeks of maintenance in the schedule next year because our vendor is changing their API format and we'll need to rebuild the integration. (The line manager is the one who needs to understand what the engineer means when s/he says that the vendor is discontinuing their SOAP API in favor of a RESTful JSON API.)

Domain knowledge (groceries, space flight, whatever) is important to a degree for an exec involved in strategy decisions. But they need domain knowledge related to the current shape of the market and the pros and cons of currently available solutions - not the technical details of how those solutions work.

[fpig]

I don't understand what your point is, coaches are precisely an example of a boss having deep understanding of the work being done, as opposed to being hired purely for his people-management skills. You don't poach the manager of a retail chain to be your basketball coach.

Obviously a coach can't replace a player on the field, that's primarily because playing is more important and pays better than coaching at the top level, so no sports star wants to be "promoted" to a coach, they will coach once they can no longer play. And even then, being a coach is not necessarily the life goal for super-rich star athletes. It's a downgrade from what they used to be in their prime.

[bluedino]

>> Professional sports teams, even successful ones, are almost universally run (coaches, GMs, etc.) by people who didn't play at a high level.

About 20% of the coaches in the NFL have played in the NFL.

However, what makes a person a great player doesn't make them a great coach. Usually the best players are insanely gifted at the physical level.

[midgetjones]

Did Elon Musk have a lot of experience in self-driving cars or space rockets before Tesla?

[mifeng]

But if you listen to his interviews, it's clear the guy has a nuanced, clear understanding of the technology and business model behind both Tesla and SpaceX. He may not be able to do every job, but he can do the job of his direct reports.

In contrast, there's the "professional manager" archetype, who Musk is definitely not.

[tokipin]

obligatory Elon Musk SpaceX tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xahiWQQKw7Y

[typetypetype]

He has a degree in physics, which is the fundamental science behind cars and rockets (and batteries and heat management, etc).

[wageslave2]

Elon musk already proved his rigor and discipline with coding the zip2 product. It is in no way match to the rigour in management. So he gets lot of respect with other tech guys. Where as it's hard to take order from a manager who has never build anything.

[quantumhobbit]

Maybe not experience, but he certainly had passion and interest in space. I don't think you could have consider him uninformed on the subjects.

[CarpetBench]

Also an excellent point!

[whatupmd]

The study is about employee happiness, not about company success.