How long was your glide path? What advice can you share?

[brett]

delete

 

[brett]

During my last few years at megacorp it became increasingly difficult to promote high performers to management positions.

Especially sales management and business management. There was an ever increasing feeling in the firm that management, especially first level management, was not a desirable position and that the compensation did not match the headaches/responsibilities/staff issues.

Many were of the opinion that senior individual contributor positions were the sweet spot in terms of compensation/responsibility and home life balance.

 

[Koolau]

During my last few years at megacorp it became increasingly difficult to promote high performers to management positions.

Especially sales management and business management. There was an ever increasing feeling in the firm that management, especially first level management, was not a desirable position and that the compensation did not match the headaches/responsibilities/staff issues.

Many were of the opinion that senior individual contributor positions were the sweet spot in terms of compensation/responsibility and home life balance.

I lived through Megacorp "de-layering" of management. Hundreds of middle management were shuffled off to staff positions or essentially management in name only (no reports, no power, etc.) I thought "Now that's great. 2 or 3 levels of management have been removed between me and the CEO." At that point, virtually NO one was being promoted to middle management - even the very good people.

But once that de-layering was completed over 2 or 3 years. Megacorp once again re-layered. I suppose the upper management was really just doing "house-keeping" with the middle management.

I knew a guy that got de-layered. He had been my department head before he was promoted to middle management. I dropped into his office for a brief "hello" when I was at the corporate center. There he was in his nice office. He shared a secretary with several other de-layered folks. He had virtually nothing to do. His goal was to get back into a science lab - any lab. He didn't care what they called him (title wise) but he couldn't stand being shuffled off to oblivion. I told him he should be happy he was still getting his pretty nice salary but he just wanted something to do other than shuffle papers. Sad, really. He retired the day he was eligible for his benefits. He came back to our plant site for his retirement party. That's where his friends were.