[BigJohn043]

In my experience there are lots of different paths to the "top job" leading large businesses. Almost nobody in those positions are competent at every single aspect of the organization. I have seen examples of people from HR, Sales, Operations, and yes, Finance run companies. My personnel bias, based on experience, is that is almost always better that the organization be led by someone who knows what the company's expertise is and what it's products are, i.e. a medical operation is best run by a "doctor", an engineering firm by an engineer. However, that person has to be at least conversant with what the "support" organizations do and can "speak their language", at least to a degree. The leader has to know what the right questions are and have the ability to penetrate the jargon to the actual core of the matter.

FWIW Stanford offered (probably still does) an in-residence "instant MBA" that you can get over the summer :-). The main purpose of this for the vast majority of the people taking the classes is to be able to penetrate the fog of the finance folks. One such person described it as "learning to be an anti-nerd nerd". That appeared to work well, as both became "presidents" running business areas for large companies. These business areas did well. I can't claim to know to what degree the leadership was responsible, but I do know those guys were both very competent.

I also have two personal experiences with the CFO taking over the presidency of a company that is having trouble. In both cases, the CFO was a key member of the effort to oust the CEO. They were absolutely convinced they could do a better job than the CEO. In both cases, after the CFOs took over, things went from bad to impossibly worse. The problems centered around the new CEO's inability to recognize that the customers and products weren't just numbers. The company needed to actually sell and deliver product. The new CEOs had no idea how to make either happen. Their point of view and how they "looked at the world" was so far from reality those companies had no chance. For that reason, I am biased against the notion that the Finance people really understand what the companies they work in actually do. Certainly, there are exceptions, though I must admit I have yet to meet one :-).

I agree with much of this.

Doctors spend ~10 years training to be doctors.  I would assume they then spend at least 10 years as junior doctors.  They can then run departments but isn't this often a part time job while they continue to practice medicine?  My point of course is that the vast majority of their experience isn't really running anything.

In any case, I really wonder if doctors get put in charge of medical institutions because they are best positioned or because doctors have power in those organizations and they want one of their own.  I would make the same point about universities & professors.

Of course the largest organization in the country is the US Government and it has been run by people whose management experience is dealing with a <10 person Senate office.

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In my experience there are lots of different paths to the "top job" leading large businesses. Almost nobody in those positions are competent at every single aspect of the organization. I have seen examples of people from HR, Sales, Operations, and yes, Finance run companies. My personnel bias, based on experience, is that is almost always better that the organization be led by someone who knows what the company's expertise is and what it's products are, i.e. a medical operation is best run by a "doctor", an engineering firm by an engineer. However, that person has to be at least conversant with what the "support" organizations do and can "speak their language", at least to a degree. The leader has to know what the right questions are and have the ability to penetrate the jargon to the actual core of the matter.

FWIW Stanford offered (probably still does) an in-residence "instant MBA" that you can get over the summer :-). The main purpose of this for the vast majority of the people taking the classes is to be able to penetrate the fog of the finance folks. One such person described it as "learning to be an anti-nerd nerd". That appeared to work well, as both became "presidents" running business areas for large companies. These business areas did well. I can't claim to know to what degree the leadership was responsible, but I do know those guys were both very competent.

I also have two personal experiences with the CFO taking over the presidency of a company that is having trouble. In both cases, the CFO was a key member of the effort to oust the CEO. They were absolutely convinced they could do a better job than the CEO. In both cases, after the CFOs took over, things went from bad to impossibly worse. The problems centered around the new CEO's inability to recognize that the customers and products weren't just numbers. The company needed to actually sell and deliver product. The new CEOs had no idea how to make either happen. Their point of view and how they "looked at the world" was so far from reality those companies had no chance. For that reason, I am biased against the notion that the Finance people really understand what the companies they work in actually do. Certainly, there are exceptions, though I must admit I have yet to meet one :-).

Great post. Succession in the professions is always interesting. I worked for a midwestern law firm, specifically for one of two deputy CEOs. I was hired by a Yalie CEO who had a simple, brilliant strategy -- undercut the pricing structure of coastal law firms by using smart UMich lawyers to serve clients on the coasts. We had over 700 clients in California before we ever had a California office. My deputy CEO would have been an excellent CEO, she had excellent command of all the administrative functions. The other deputy CEO got the job and the firm had a sharp, pronounced downturn. I got out of dodge right as the new guy was taking office.

My experience is mainly with accounting and law firms where the same phenomenon exists; e.g., they take a spectacularly successful litigator, then ask that individual to manage a half-billion dollar enterprise. The accountants actually do a pretty good job running the Big Four firms. The lawyers...mixed bag. Depends on how much they let the professional administrators do their jobs. Also helps to have one lawyer in charge of top line revenue, and another in charge of cost management. The first firm I was with, based in Silicon Valley, was and is exceedingly well run. The others...man, I could tell you stories.

Really great example.  I have worked with lots of law firms and in my experience they are pretty poorly run.  Their HR, feedback & customer experience systems are often somewhere between antiquated and non-existent.  We can't do an employee survey because we might find that some of our senior partners treat people poorly.

FWIW, consulting firms are the exact opposite.  Very thoughtful 360 and feedback processes.

I would also note that by far the best run schools I ever attended was Wharton.

[BigJohn043]

In my experience there are lots of different paths to the "top job" leading large businesses. Almost nobody in those positions are competent at every single aspect of the organization. I have seen examples of people from HR, Sales, Operations, and yes, Finance run companies. My personnel bias, based on experience, is that is almost always better that the organization be led by someone who knows what the company's expertise is and what it's products are, i.e. a medical operation is best run by a "doctor", an engineering firm by an engineer. However, that person has to be at least conversant with what the "support" organizations do and can "speak their language", at least to a degree. The leader has to know what the right questions are and have the ability to penetrate the jargon to the actual core of the matter.

FWIW Stanford offered (probably still does) an in-residence "instant MBA" that you can get over the summer :-). The main purpose of this for the vast majority of the people taking the classes is to be able to penetrate the fog of the finance folks. One such person described it as "learning to be an anti-nerd nerd". That appeared to work well, as both became "presidents" running business areas for large companies. These business areas did well. I can't claim to know to what degree the leadership was responsible, but I do know those guys were both very competent.

I also have two personal experiences with the CFO taking over the presidency of a company that is having trouble. In both cases, the CFO was a key member of the effort to oust the CEO. They were absolutely convinced they could do a better job than the CEO. In both cases, after the CFOs took over, things went from bad to impossibly worse. The problems centered around the new CEO's inability to recognize that the customers and products weren't just numbers. The company needed to actually sell and deliver product. The new CEOs had no idea how to make either happen. Their point of view and how they "looked at the world" was so far from reality those companies had no chance. For that reason, I am biased against the notion that the Finance people really understand what the companies they work in actually do. Certainly, there are exceptions, though I must admit I have yet to meet one :-).

I agree with much of this.

Doctors spend ~10 years training to be doctors.  I would assume they then spend at least 10 years as junior doctors.  They can then run departments but isn't this often a part time job while they continue to practice medicine?  My point of course is that the vast majority of their experience isn't really running anything.

In any case, I really wonder if doctors get put in charge of medical institutions because they are best positioned or because doctors have power in those organizations and they want one of their own.  I would make the same point about universities & professors.

Of course the largest organization in the country is the US Government and it has been run by people whose management experience is dealing with a <10 person Senate office.

---

In my experience there are lots of different paths to the "top job" leading large businesses. Almost nobody in those positions are competent at every single aspect of the organization. I have seen examples of people from HR, Sales, Operations, and yes, Finance run companies. My personnel bias, based on experience, is that is almost always better that the organization be led by someone who knows what the company's expertise is and what it's products are, i.e. a medical operation is best run by a "doctor", an engineering firm by an engineer. However, that person has to be at least conversant with what the "support" organizations do and can "speak their language", at least to a degree. The leader has to know what the right questions are and have the ability to penetrate the jargon to the actual core of the matter.

FWIW Stanford offered (probably still does) an in-residence "instant MBA" that you can get over the summer :-). The main purpose of this for the vast majority of the people taking the classes is to be able to penetrate the fog of the finance folks. One such person described it as "learning to be an anti-nerd nerd". That appeared to work well, as both became "presidents" running business areas for large companies. These business areas did well. I can't claim to know to what degree the leadership was responsible, but I do know those guys were both very competent.

I also have two personal experiences with the CFO taking over the presidency of a company that is having trouble. In both cases, the CFO was a key member of the effort to oust the CEO. They were absolutely convinced they could do a better job than the CEO. In both cases, after the CFOs took over, things went from bad to impossibly worse. The problems centered around the new CEO's inability to recognize that the customers and products weren't just numbers. The company needed to actually sell and deliver product. The new CEOs had no idea how to make either happen. Their point of view and how they "looked at the world" was so far from reality those companies had no chance. For that reason, I am biased against the notion that the Finance people really understand what the companies they work in actually do. Certainly, there are exceptions, though I must admit I have yet to meet one :-).

Great post. Succession in the professions is always interesting. I worked for a midwestern law firm, specifically for one of two deputy CEOs. I was hired by a Yalie CEO who had a simple, brilliant strategy -- undercut the pricing structure of coastal law firms by using smart UMich lawyers to serve clients on the coasts. We had over 700 clients in California before we ever had a California office. My deputy CEO would have been an excellent CEO, she had excellent command of all the administrative functions. The other deputy CEO got the job and the firm had a sharp, pronounced downturn. I got out of dodge right as the new guy was taking office.

My experience is mainly with accounting and law firms where the same phenomenon exists; e.g., they take a spectacularly successful litigator, then ask that individual to manage a half-billion dollar enterprise. The accountants actually do a pretty good job running the Big Four firms. The lawyers...mixed bag. Depends on how much they let the professional administrators do their jobs. Also helps to have one lawyer in charge of top line revenue, and another in charge of cost management. The first firm I was with, based in Silicon Valley, was and is exceedingly well run. The others...man, I could tell you stories.

Really great example.  I have worked with lots of law firms and in my experience they are pretty poorly run.  Their HR, feedback & customer experience systems are often somewhere between antiquated and non-existent.  We can't do an employee survey because we might find that some of our senior partners treat people poorly.

FWIW, consulting firms are the exact opposite.  Very thoughtful 360 and feedback processes.

I would also note that by far the best run schools I ever attended was Wharton.