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by j_baker
5650 days ago
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I don't see him as coming out as "holier than thou", although admittedly a bit contrarian. Plus, the point about Kitchin wasn't that she was unsuccessful. Quite the opposite in fact. The point was that these decisions affected the whole company. And for the record, I think that Enron goes well beyond having "hit snags". |
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Gladwell tries to come off from a moral high ground where he preaches about certain concepts (in this example the benefits of talent) by self-selecting evidence.
I really find it funny how the entire employee grading process has become a huge area of contention amongst arm chair quarterbacks. Recently, there was another article where it talked about Wall Street's excessive competitiveness as having caused the crisis. Gladwell and similar authors forget the one company (and the one manager) credited with popularizing this entire concept: General Electric and Jack Welch. I like the off-handed way Gladwell mentions a specific quote from a G.E. exec without talking about the success G.E. had with this approach I can use Welch and G.E. in order to argue against this entire article. In fact, Welch's biographies do the job. Not only did he grade employees into three tiers, he graded entire businesses into tiers. If a business wasn't #1 or #2, its shuttered. I will bet I can actually construct a better argument for supporting the quest for talent.
Enron blew up because upper management was a bunch of liars. What does talent have to do with it? In fact, Enron failed at following the "promote talent" concept. If they did take this philosophy to heart, they would have fired the international heads that bled billions of dollars from Enron's bottom line. In fact, Skilling and the top protected those sub-par managers and execs leading to the shady accounting to hide the carnage. The talent they picked up in their energy trading department was (and is) great. Go into any of the nation's energy trading floors and Enron alumni enjoy great reputations.
As for the record, I think Gladwell goes well beyond being "a bit contrarian". ;)