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How common is it that companies are acting as credentialing institutions, and hand out expert titles to some employees? For example, "senior scientist", "chief architect", "or senior fellow"? almost like universities. This is unrelated to management hierarchy.
How common is it that these credentials don't match the abilities of any of the persons promoted/credentialed or not? For example, when the top 10% smartest people are not even among those having these credentials. With no overlap, or very little overlap.
How common is it that people with corporate "scientific" credentials are lecturing other people constantly like it was a classroom on every team meeting?
First, they are just titles in the company...they are NOT credentials at all. Second, why would you be under the assumption that the smartest people would have the best titles? Third, how in the world do you know who the "top 10% smartest" people are in your company?
at my place we have integration engineers that graduated from liberal arts colleges. i think abet duzzent care as long as they dont mis-title them as electrical / mechanical / civil engineer. cuz if peeple get electrocuted or a bridge collapses and that person isnt a licensed engineer then sumuwn going to jail.
Engineer and Architect are the most commonly mis-used titles. Ask one of these people to calculate the load bearing maximums for a structure. Also Doctor for someone without a medical degree.
A friend's brother was on an airplane as "Dr. Smith" (with a PhD in film studies), and he was summoned by the crew to attend to a cardiac arrest in first class. He sheepishly admitted he didn't even know CPR. The captain had the police meet the plane upon landing where he was loudly dressed down.
Engineer and Architect are the most commonly mis-used titles. Ask one of these people to calculate the load bearing maximums for a structure. Also Doctor for someone without a medical degree.
A friend's brother was on an airplane as "Dr. Smith" (with a PhD in film studies), and he was summoned by the crew to attend to a cardiac arrest in first class. He sheepishly admitted he didn't even know CPR. The captain had the police meet the plane upon landing where he was loudly dressed down.
You know "doctor" does not mean "medical doctor." It means "teacher," essentially who has learned enough in their profession to be one. Much like the term "master." So unless he claimed to be a medical doctor, there was no reason for a "dressing down."
At one point titles meant something and were more uniformed across industries. That is no longer the case. I recently interviewed for a position that had the title "manger" in it. When speaking to the HR lady I realized it's basically just an associate level position. For some reason they call their associates mangers, even though they don't manage personnel, only their work. There was another company that created "technical specialist" position, even though once again that was merely an associate level position. They just gave it a fancy name to attract more candidates.
You know "doctor" does not mean "medical doctor." It means "teacher," essentially who has learned enough in their profession to be one. Much like the term "master." So unless he claimed to be a medical doctor, there was no reason for a "dressing down."
People who are not medical doctors should not mislead with the honorific Doctor IMHO. It's crass at best and humblebrag to boot.
How common is it that companies are acting as credentialing institutions, and hand out expert titles to some employees? For example, "senior scientist", "chief architect", "or senior fellow"? almost like universities. This is unrelated to management hierarchy.
How common is it that these credentials don't match the abilities of any of the persons promoted/credentialed or not? For example, when the top 10% smartest people are not even among those having these credentials. With no overlap, or very little overlap.
How common is it that people with corporate "scientific" credentials are lecturing other people constantly like it was a classroom on every team meeting?
These are not credentials. Anyone can have part of their job titles be scientist, architect, fellow, counselor or engineer or whatever. These are simply job titles, they don't mean much outside of the company that named them. They hold no importance in their activities in the work place, nor are they conducting classroom-like lectures. Companies have meetings. They don't define 10% of the smartest people, because that would serve no purpose.
The issue is they are encouraged to show this behavior, as many people around them believe or pretend to believe the BS titles. Even if everyone knows how someone becomes "senior scientist" by sucking up to other senior scientists in a personality-basis. For example, John got promoted to "chief super architect guru", then Steve and Bob scold Michael to listed to John as he is the expert and Michael could learn a lot from him. Iven if they know it's not true. It is "2+2=5" territory. It reminds me of a mafia, also known as "a group of friends, nothing to see here".
There is no issue. No one is treating them differently or believes any different when everyone else has the same type of job titles. What you describe isn't how companies promote people. You are barking up the wrong tree with this way of thinking.
How common is it that companies are acting as credentialing institutions, and hand out expert titles to some employees? For example, "senior scientist", "chief architect", "or senior fellow"? almost like universities. This is unrelated to management hierarchy.
How common is it that these credentials don't match the abilities of any of the persons promoted/credentialed or not? For example, when the top 10% smartest people are not even among those having these credentials. With no overlap, or very little overlap.
How common is it that people with corporate "scientific" credentials are lecturing other people constantly like it was a classroom on every team meeting?
Re: the Bold part. How do you know who the "top 10% smartest people" are?
You posed the question with a pre-conclusion in mind. Why even bother? We all know what you think.
Here's some hard truth for you: "smart" does not equate to knowledge, and knowledge alone does not mean you can get things done. If that was the case, every company CEO would have a Ph.D. title after his/her name. It's well-known in my industry that Ph.D. are less competent and company sometimes go out of their ways to avoid hiring Ph.Ds. Only government agencies hire/promote people based on title, but government agencies do not need to get things done.
Established company has salary & title structure. People work hard day in & day out proving themselves over & over again. To discount them shows you're naive and the lack of knowledge on how real world works.
So, people who quite often tell incompetent anti-scientific garbage, who never heard of industry wide best practices, who say things that can be disproved using 1 hour explanation based on highschool-level physics, are by definition not the smartest.
People who acquire incorrect knowledge, that would not be too hard to check, and regurgitate that on several different meetings, are not smart. It does not require to memorize a whole library, just be able to have enough to judge new pieces of information for correctness. Thos who don't have it are in no business in being technical leads. They might be okay being in management, as long as they delegate 100% to technical experts, instead of incorrectly correcting them all the time.
So, people who quite often tell incompetent anti-scientific garbage, who never heard of industry wide best practices, who say things that can be disproved using 1 hour explanation based on highschool-level physics, are by definition not the smartest.
People who acquire incorrect knowledge, that would not be too hard to check, and regurgitate that on several different meetings, are not smart. It does not require to memorize a whole library, just be able to have enough to judge new pieces of information for correctness. Thos who don't have it are in no business in being technical leads. They might be okay being in management, as long as they delegate 100% to technical experts, instead of incorrectly correcting them all the time.
You don't sound bitter at all.
Sounds like it's time for you to change companies and find a new job.
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