3M Minneapolis MIT fellowship trip (manager-spotting anecdote)

One time, my predecessor as department head couldn't make a trip. The senior executive vice president at 3M in Minneapolis wanted to give some fellowships to three departments at MIT, and he wanted to increase the interaction and have MIT leaders meet with 3M's leadership. He invited us all to get on a corporate jet and fly to Minneapolis one day in the morning and fly home in the afternoon. Since my department head wasn't available, I was asked to go to represent the department, and I did. Another guy, Bob Armstrong, went too — I don't remember why. He later became head of chemical engineering. At the time the head of chemical engineering was Bob Brown, who later became dean of engineering. Bob Brown wouldn't talk to anyone on that trip. This is when I first noticed he wouldn't talk to anyone he considered beneath him. He was there to work with the people he was moving up. And he did move up — he's president of Boston University. He had become provost at MIT. Bob is a manager. I learned it when I saw he wouldn't talk to us underlings, even on the plane. He'd find a seat that was away from us, the lower than the low. So you can actually start to spot these people if you're careful.

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