PROMOTIONAL LUNACY

I've never understood why, in some fields, high performance is rewarded through promotion up the management ladder. This creates a unique anomaly whereby the system pulls you away from your area of expertise - you, and the organisation, become hapless victims of your success. And, of course, not only does the organisation lose a talented professional, it may well inherit an incompetent manager.

Now this works fine if the person is actively seeking a supervisory role - but I wonder how many seek management because it is the only way of achieving real recognition for success.

Is this mechanism based on the premise that those that are good at their profession are necessarily good at organising others in the same profession? Should, therefore, Wayne Rooney manage England?

I've seen this phenomenon manifest across many sectors... but it seems particularly destructive in the Engineering sector where I've seen brilliant engineers devolve into inept managers, aided and abetted by the organisation. And all for a job title that is percieved to have more kudos.

Doctors sorted the kudos challenge out many years ago. The better a doctor, the more patients he sees, the more operations he does and the more esteem he is held in. The ultimate clinical status symbol is to drop the Dr and replace it with Mr.