Stephen Roach 1998

Stephen Roach in 1998 wrote about "Global Restructuring: Lessons, Myths, and Challenges".

He states:
80's were manufacturing restructuring, ex. "tool & die makers".
90's were service restructuring, ex. "mid-management" 

00's what did we restructure here? the "knowledge-base" workers?
10's what are we restructuring now "executives" workers.

Truth be told, if you look at the numbers, the stats, execs haven't performed any better. Well, actually you can't easily measure the effectiveness of the Executive Brand.

It's easy to give only vague metrics that make it difficult to evaluate executives. The ability to talk easy, shake hands, network effortlessly, and access to other executive circles. These skill sets are transferable over different industries: IT to biotech to mining for gold. Any street hood-Eddie-Murphy-Trading-Places has got loads of these skills, right? Well, except access to executive circles.

Any tool-and-die maker or bench-top scientist can think critically. It is the appetite for risk taking that is missing. And the handshake network. 

Even a chemist knows that the way to a job is via a handshake and not another user account and password.

The Market will restructure and we, the mean we, will always bear the brunt of our risk taking failures. And those that randomly succeed perpetuate the system because it worked for them, so it must be working for everybody else, except for those who aren't doing it right.