CEOs are faking it, Stanford professor says

[Renew Deal]

CEOs deserve less credit for their company's fortunes than they receive

By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service
July 22, 2005

Your company's chief executive might be a pretender, and that may be a good thing, according to Stanford University Professor of Management Science and Engineering Robert Sutton.

Sutton, the author of a 2001 study of corporate innovation, "Weird Ideas that Work," says that a close look at the evidence shows that chief executive officers (CEOs) probably deserve less credit for their company's fortunes than they receive, and that the best of them manage a tough balancing act: secretly aware of their own fallibility, while also realizing that any sign of indecisiveness could be fatal to their careers.

"In just about every study I've ever seen ... the amount of control a leader has over the company is exaggerated," Sutton said, speaking during a keynote address at the AO05 Innovation Summit at Stanford Thursday. Although top executives of the largest companies are often considered uniquely powerful, their effectiveness actually dwindles as companies get larger, he said. "If you look at these Fortune 500 companies where they get paid a fortune, they have the least impact."

The notion of the CEO as a captain, steering the corporate ship, isn't so much a fallacy as it is a "half truth," according to Sutton, who has devoted a chapter to the topic in his upcoming book, titled, "Hard Facts, Dangerous Half Truths, and Total Nonsense."

http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/07/22/HNceosfakingit_1.html?source=NLC-TB2005-07-22

[getmeouttahere]

1. Quel surprise!

makes those ridiculous salaries and bonuses look criminal now, doesn't it?

[SlipperySlope]

2. Huh?

What crime was committed? Do you really mean criminal, or just unethical?

[djeseru]

3. So unethical it's criminal?

I've seen over the past few years dozens and dozens laid off while the CEO gave herself pay raises and private jets...

So they "asked her to leave" this past spring and gave her 45 million dollars to do so. Now, according to the new CEO, she totally fucked up the company. New layoffs were announced last week.

*sigh* That 45 million could have probably saved the jobs...

[SlipperySlope]

4. Carly Fiorina?

Ding-Dong, the witch is dead...

Is that who you mean?

P.S. - Walter voted my shares.

[djeseru]

6. *dingdingding* That's an art student fer ya.

I wish my art degree had paid sooooooooooo well....

[Double T]

5. The executive management of MOST companies contributes little.....

or nothing to the success of the company. Most of the 'mahogany row' crew is great for taking credit when the company does well and blaming others when things do not go well. It is the employees in the trenches that move these companies forward with success and the majority of companies would do better without the bloated egomaniac executives with their ridiculous compensation.

[garthranzz]

7. READ MOLLY IVINS!

Her column for July 21 is a MUST read for anyone interested in the future of the country. The economic destruction wrought by Shrub & Co. is multiple times worse than the cultural divide fostered or the treasonous war they started.

Here's the url:

http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=miv

:applause:

[oscar111]

8. "labor drives the economy" said a DU post-er

nice way to sum it up.

Co-ops can produce all is my favorite.

Mondragon spain co op has over a billion in anual sales, 8O OOO employees.

groceries, rural electric co ops, credit unions, auto parts, schools, insurance , huge oil refirery {mcpherson kansas}... everything!

[oscar111]

9. Co-ops can produce all. ///who needs CEO's?

Send them to Mr. Pinochet in Chile for his retirement home's lounge discussion group.

[AX10]

10. Well, what good is a corporate 'leader' without hard working...

and dedicated employees?

Worth nothing, that's what. Who is it that makes things work, it's the worker.