Why the wrong people thrive like maggots: a 51 year old lesson

No need to go to Canada to get it wrong. We have plenty of our own screw-ups, thank you

An excellent editorial in Money Week – Britain’s leading  and best financial magazine – discusses the new boss of the Bank of England, who has been drafted in from Canada.

It points out that during his tenure Canada’s economic situation has radically declined, partly because he followed the same disastrous policies as all the other central bankers – but if anything with more enthusiasm.

We have plenty of home-grown flops (like the man he is about to replace) so this import policy seems suspect.

It reminds me of one of our best recent jokes, when the New York Times imported Mark Thompson, the overpaid walking disaster previously running the BBC – just before the shit hit the fan there – and  paid him even more. He should have no trouble repeating his previous trick in a new playground.

Why does this idiocy happen? I will tell you.

1. Usually the people who hire know little or nothing about the job they are hiring for. They are the usual bunch of the “good and great” who have licked their way up the ladder. So they tend to choose others of the same ilk. People better at licking than at doing.

2. In the case of marketing, for instance, managing directors who know nothing about marketing, and therefore have no intelligent criteria to go by hire marketing directors. These drones last for well  under two years before being found out – then moving on to another cushy job. The good ones tend to get the job by chance and stay long enough to achieve something. They are not often on the market.

3. The first interview I had for a job in a big London advertising agency over 51 years ago – taught me why all this happens. The man thought my work good (it wasn’t, but he couldn’t tell, the buffoon). But he was worried that I hadn’t done the job before, so I didn’t get it.

4. This is how numskulls get hired. The hirers don’t look for someone who could do things better – because they can’t tell. They look for people who have done it before. The phrase is “Do we know anyone?” Accordingly in marketing useless people go from one big job to another, getting more and more money.

5. It happens everywhere. Take investment analysts, the overwhelming majority of whom fail to beat the market or even do as well. They thrive like maggots. Or take politics. A drone like Jeremy Hunt who probably thinks Shakespeare is the name of a pub is culpably useless as culture secretary so Cameron put him in charge of health – God help us. In few areas of human life is failure so richly rewarded.

So now you know.