3 ms·

I'm here at Bayer right now and that is pretty much what is happening. The RIFs are finishing up and my team leader is now my peer. Our boss now has 10x the rep

I'm here at Bayer right now and that is pretty much what is happening. The RIFs are finishing up and my team leader is now my peer. Our boss now has 10x the reports. Even a 30 minute 1:1 with everyone would take his entire week. And some people just need (or want) to be told what to do. You can't have everyone be a Steve Jobs and dream up things with nothing concrete getting done. I believe this is just a smokescreen to make Wall Street happy - until they can figure out which USA politicians to buy and get the glyphosate lawsuits under control.

boznz 2y ago
Ouch! holocracy is never going to work in an already toxic culture or one where the beauracracy (paperwork) stays the same.
shinryuu 2y ago
Who thought buying Monsanto was a good idea to begin with? Lawsuits were bound to happen. Monsanto has been highprofile for ages, and not in a good way.
- leverknudel_tw 2y ago
  Monsanto was a 15 billion revenue dollar company in the same market (ag seeds and products) as 50 billion revenue Bayer. Werner thought he could handle the baggage. The US tort system is proving him wrong.
mft_ 2y ago
I think you're right that it's a smokescreen, but not for Wall Street. I think he's found what Bayer is: a deeply conservative slow monolith of an organisation, with lots of under-performing, busy-working, but long-serving employees protected by German employment law. In turn, I suspect a good proportion of those are 'middle management', and so this is a path that allows a rational removal of lots of those folks, without it looking like that's the primary goal. You're probably right that the new low-hierarchy, self-organised model won't work... but that's maybe fine in the short term. I'd expect another model (or a partial reintroduction of hierarcy) once the smoke has settled on the firings.

3 ms·

I'm here at Bayer right now and that is pretty much what is happening. The RIFs are finishing up and my team leader is now my peer. Our boss now has 10x the rep

by leverknudel_tw 2y ago

boznz 2y ago
Ouch! holocracy is never going to work in an already toxic culture or one where the beauracracy (paperwork) stays the same.
shinryuu 2y ago
Who thought buying Monsanto was a good idea to begin with? Lawsuits were bound to happen. Monsanto has been highprofile for ages, and not in a good way.
- leverknudel_tw 2y ago
  Monsanto was a 15 billion revenue dollar company in the same market (ag seeds and products) as 50 billion revenue Bayer. Werner thought he could handle the baggage. The US tort system is proving him wrong.
mft_ 2y ago
I think you're right that it's a smokescreen, but not for Wall Street. I think he's found what Bayer is: a deeply conservative slow monolith of an organisation, with lots of under-performing, busy-working, but long-serving employees protected by German employment law. In turn, I suspect a good proportion of those are 'middle management', and so this is a path that allows a rational removal of lots of those folks, without it looking like that's the primary goal. You're probably right that the new low-hierarchy, self-organised model won't work... but that's maybe fine in the short term. I'd expect another model (or a partial reintroduction of hierarcy) once the smoke has settled on the firings.