He pretty much played by the rulebook outlined by this article:
- " Be flagrant in your pursuit of the powerful and the soon-to-be-powerful, and when you have their attention, praise them to the skies"
- " Discover similar interests or experiences." he did that
- "you need to work hard at networking" he did that, he put an incredible amount of effort at networking after hours, managing events, organizing dinners and barbecues, etc...
He was a bit of a douche, mostly by shirking low-visibility projects and getting disproportionate amounts of credit - he didn't shirk "hard" projects per se, but he'd only take them if they were very high visibility, and he'd priorize small but visible over obscure but necessary work.
He was also very good at getting credit without being obvious about getting other people's credit.
However, he did put in the hours, and he is a very good motivator and very charismatic. He was just very good at playing the game.
It doesn't sound like he's not doing anything useful. In fact, it sounds like he has a strong idea of how business works. Lots of people can do the job (unless you're doing something super technical), the person who gets the job and the credit for it is usually the one who gets along best with the people in charge. Its not about a flaw in the system, it's about acknowledging how the world works and acting accordingly.
Why hate for the game? The dude sounds like he's really good at what's he doing, and I think that the company that he leads will profit a lot from his skills. Would be a shame to keep a person like that in engineer position.
Indeed, I thought he was going to make an excellent presales consultant or sales guy, he was wasted at a "junior programmer" position. He vastly exceeded my expectations.
That kind of skills are pretty good for a CEO, I'll give you that.
But I've seen another CEO at work with the same general style (oodles of charisma, very strong networker, no studies or technical background) and he really messes up technical and financial decisions, he basically has to blindly believe whatever his CFO or CIO say (and the CIO messed up pretty often, the CFO seems pretty solid OTOH).
An actual example: he spent an entire meeting speaking about returns on "bonuses", buying "bonuses", etc.. when he meant "bonds" (he was blindly parroting what the CFO told him, only he messed up).
A programmer in a management or CEO role could make the lives of every programmer underneath him better. After all, he actually knows how to make software. By extension, he knows what's possible and what's not, what's reasonable schedule-wise and what's not. Most managers/CEOs don't.
Does he? It sounds like he avoided responsibility for anything that might have carried risk, and only picked easy wins with good visibility in order to make himself look good.
I know there are people who climb the ladder in the manner in which you state. Is this guy one of them? Maybe. Maybe not. But one thing is certain: at the very least, he has the base minimal understanding of the software life cycle, which is always beneficial in a manager. Even one who shirks responsibility for visibility. ;)
Sure, but assuming he is such a person, you are implying that this minimal understanding of the software life cycle is better for engineers at his company than integrity and a desire to see engineers justly rewarded for their efforts. I doubt that.
> I'd call him a douche, but this is a clear case of don't hate the player, hate the game.
In other words: put too much effort in networking, and hate yourself for being a douche. Put too little effort in networking and hate yourself for missing out on opportunities.
Like most things in life, it's about finding a balance that works for you.
He was REALLY good at getting management signoff for expenses and subcontrating... that is an incredibly valuable skill to have, to be sure, but it sucks if it's one-sided (other projects had such requests denied).
He personally did very little programming or designing himself (I guess that does make him a good manager :) )
- " Be flagrant in your pursuit of the powerful and the soon-to-be-powerful, and when you have their attention, praise them to the skies"
- " Discover similar interests or experiences." he did that
- "you need to work hard at networking" he did that, he put an incredible amount of effort at networking after hours, managing events, organizing dinners and barbecues, etc...
He was a bit of a douche, mostly by shirking low-visibility projects and getting disproportionate amounts of credit - he didn't shirk "hard" projects per se, but he'd only take them if they were very high visibility, and he'd priorize small but visible over obscure but necessary work.
He was also very good at getting credit without being obvious about getting other people's credit.
However, he did put in the hours, and he is a very good motivator and very charismatic. He was just very good at playing the game.