The youngest person on team (also with most tenure) got promoted to manage it

[Ralph_Kirk]

Originally Posted by sas318

I sure wouldn't want a 27-year old kid telling me what to do. Experience and qualified or not, I still couldn't take it.

You mean like a 27-year old firefighter telling you how to get out of a burning building?

If you were arguing that you were smarter, more experience, more qualified to be a leader, and wanted the job, you might have an argument.

[Oklazona Bound]

Originally Posted by fishbrains

Nonsense. I am in my 50s, and some of the people I manage people in their 60s.

When I was my 40s, I managed people in their 50s-70s.

When I was in my 30s, I managed people in their 40s-60s

This was for a variety of companies in public and private sector, including two companies that I started. All of the private companies were profitable, all of the public entities well run. I sold the companies I started for a profit.

What is problematic in any of that?

I have a similar history and agree with you.

I suppose its a problem to some because its human nature to blame other factors for being where one is in life instead of looking in the mirror. It is easier to complain about a situation than do something about it. And I guess at some point there might be little one can do to change the situation which breeds frustration. I get that.

Some here seem to think the oldest persons in the organization should be promoted first just because they are older or at least it should be taken into account. I think that is preposterous. On top of that I have had employees that were decades older than myself and they were often the most difficult to manage.

[oldtrader]

This young person may have talents you know nothing about, and he was hired to use those talents. He may have this position to help train him to get ready for the next promotion. He sounds like he may be being fast tract to higher management positions.

I know back in my Corporation days, I worked up to division sales manager over half the country. I was one of them that was fast tracked. I did the same for several people I brought into the corporation.

[lvmensch]

I spent my working career dealing with this. In the first 25 years it was not a problem. We were an organization that was basically created over those 25 years. So we had a wide mix of ages from low 20s to the 50s. But all were either graduate engineers or techs. Even our programmers were EEs. Aside from a few specialists like human factor people they were all hard core engineering types.

The system got its leadership almost by acclamation. We all knew each other well and we knew where the talent lay. There were a few questionable calls over those years but not many.

At around the 25 year point it got complex. The problem was the PhD and other outside credentials became important. As you reached the tops of the technical ranks the people making the decision became the corporate leaders who in general had no technical insight at all. So now we got into the phase where the outsiders who came up through academic and non tech position became competitors.

And note the age thing has now turned around. The brilliant outsider was often younger. And some of them were very good. In terms of the ability to sell themselves to the non knowledgeable.

An old boss years after he retired told me the worst call he ever made over a 40 year career was to back a PhD outsider against me for a position. The guy had actually been a "Mr Science" on a kid tv show in the midwest. And he was a talent. But it was not at running big tech endeavour. He was a showman and a smart guy. But simply did not even vaguely understand how one runs big high tech.

So after years of the young pup manager you end up the old dog. And then you find out that most high management is not able to function in the high tech arena.

Fascinating how blind luck works part of the time.