The Mystery of Executive Success Re-Examined

Talents, activities, or accomplishments that distinguish executives from other people-or even from specialized subordinates in highly developed organizations-cannot easily be found. To ascribe to them intuitive powers of decision making is mystifying rather than helpful. If, however, we consider the tests of success that must be met by executives in imperfect organizations, we can enumerate the resources that they draw upon, and show, even in the case of information, how these resources are deployed in environmentally determined repertoires of stratagems. Executives may be very inarticulate about their stratagems, but this does not imply that they have mysterious powers of intuition. It is a consequence partly of their being less fully cognizant of their stratagems than outside observers might be, and partly of their not having to meet the same sort of tests respecting articulateness that experts of a certain sort have to meet.' David Braybrooke is associate professor of philosophy and politics, Dalhousie University, Canada.