I think you misunderstood the previous commenter a bit. They were not saying look at the painting example from the standpoint of the CEO, they were saying "Put the excuses" in the mouths of some painters. Also, there's quite a bit of depth and generalization in painting. There are many different types of paint that are better for certain tasks, eg eggshell vs satin finish. Painting walls is different then painting ceilings, then you add in moving furniture, some walls have edging, some walls will be multiple colors, plaster vs drywall vs wood, etc. That's just painting, lets say the company they work for has a CEO/manager that is demanding more jobs completed, now they have to deal with someone telling them "Do it in one day" and all the compromises that must be made to do so. Almost all fields have a lot of depth and generalizations.
So if had a horribly painted room that you just paid extremely well to have completed, and the painters came up to you and gave you a laundry list of reasons that they failed... Would you hold off on criticizing them until you had a complete understanding of what it takes to be a painter?
yes, if I claim that the painters did a bad job and they gave me a laundry list of professional reasons for it.. I would consider those reasons before criticizing. would you not?
trying to use painting as an analogous situation like that isnt transferable to the point i am making though. Putting the excuses in their mouth doesnt even make sense. We are presupposing that the painters did a horrible job.. while discussing how to decide whether or not a CEO did a horrible job. The only reason you know the painters did a bad job is because we are saying they did. the only reason we can use painting as an example is because most people can imagine a terrible paint job. i.e. we do have a full scope understanding of what it takes to be a painter. I am saying it is much harder to imagine the role of a CEO and what good results would look like than it is a painter.
Maybe my wording was fuzzy, but I am not saying you need a complete understanding of the CEO's role, but it does need to be of full scope. I see that reads near synonymous, so in other words it may be infeasible to account for the total depth of their role, but at the very least the entire breadth of the role should be looked at. If you default to "i gave you a lot of money to make it happen so it should be perfect" type logic; you're just being a "karen". the cost of something has nothing to do with the results, directly. Money needs to be converted into something that helps the work, and in that process we are all still limited by reality; diminishing returns, supply chains, quality of communication, availability of resources, etc. A CEO is at the focal point of all of this, and is human. Whether they get paid nothing or everything doesnt change how effective they can reasonably be.
But they do deserve criticism. it just needs a lot of work to do it right. you have to provide some sort of evidence that across all scopes of work the trade-offs do not make sense. maybe the CEO sacrifices on every front in order to provide the fastest service in the business and is successful in that. If you leave speed of delivery out of your criticism it becomes a meaningless criticism. "They charge a lot for poor quality". "These painters did a terrible job.. (even though I called them this morning, and they were done by lunch which allowed me to do a walk through with a potential tenant)".
All i'm really trying to emphasize is that we absolutely can criticize a CEO, but if you dont do it properly it is very easily washed away by the many unknowns of the position. however, if it is done right - it would be very damning as they cant default to company policy or directives from above as a scapegoat since they are the ones creating such things.
So if had a horribly painted room that you just paid extremely well to have completed, and the painters came up to you and gave you a laundry list of reasons that they failed... Would you hold off on criticizing them until you had a complete understanding of what it takes to be a painter?