Maybe I’m not right, maybe that’s my subjective opinion, but I think the biggest mistake is that Chevron no longer values skilled employees like it used to. Skillset and talent are slowly being devalued here. Proof are the many great employees they got rid of.
It will be interesting to see how the loss of a large number of experts will reflect on the future of the company.
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This is true and depending on how far down the food chain you jump, you can leap up the ladder. A team lead at Chevron can be a mid manager at ConocoPhillips, a GM at HilCorp, a VP at Marathon. I have seen it many times.
Chevron under MW is no longer looking for 'experts', technical innovators, risk-takers, etc. That's old school JW Chevron Way stuff. MW's Chevron is now looking for repetitive action performers, non-complainers, social trend cheerleaders, etc., i.e., robots. The whole goal of digital innovation is to automate everything and let the computer make all the decisions. Oh, and by the way, MW also wants the lowest-paid computers (uh, people). The old formula still holds, if you want big salary increases and/or promotions, you need to keep jumping companies every 5-7 years.
The fellows program has long been a hollow shell, filled with a few SME that know how to kiss a-s better than the rest. Fellows puff up with self importance and spend so much time pontificating at management meeting and in self congratulation sessions with MET participants that they rapidly fall off any technology cutting edge. All the young folks see the nonsense, and the real technology leaders just try to avoid them. Their usefulness is only in being shields for senior management in case of bad technology investments … ok it all went bad, but I checked with the fellows first.
The market place can be ruthless. When commodity prices are low, expenses need to be reduced and highly compensated experts are particularly vulnerable, unless they can clearly show that they add value to the companies bottom line. Unfortunately, most experts have a hard time doing that when capital budgets are being reduced and there is no place to hide their overhead.
Devaluing expertise is something that's been going on in our society in general recently, so why should Chevron be any different I suppose? You can read about it and why it's such a problem in "The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters" by Tom Nichols.
I agree the writing is on the wall for the Fellows. For one thing, the title is masculine and the CEO hates that.
The politicians are there own worst enemy. Most were blowhards with overinflated egos, attending every speaking opportunity possible and claiming credit for vaccine, economy etc. General public grew to hate them.
The cafeteria staff are their own worst enemy. Most were blowhards with overinflated egos, attending every professional society meeting possible and claiming credit for Gorgon, Tengiz, etc. Janitorial people grew to hate them.
The management are there own worst enemy. Most were blowhards with overinflated egos, attending every professional society meeting possible and claiming credit for Gorgon, Tengiz, etc. Technical people grew to hate them.
The fellows are there own worst enemy. Most were blowhards with overinflated egos, attending every professional society meeting possible and claiming credit for Gorgon, Tengiz, etc. Management grew to hate them.
@1woa - and does it really matter? we don't name chevron fellows until they're almost dead. that's the problem with the whole fellows thing. name your experts way earlier so they still have some time to make real changes. by the time they are fellows, they can barely stay awake in meetings.
The technical knowledge would age out if the greens had their way.
It's a commodity company now.
Despite all the future plans, it's all prepping and logistics now.
there used to be more than 30 chevron fellows. now there are less than 10.