Someone here really made an excellent point. Especially lately, our execs are more focused on headcount than anything else that real leaders should focus on.
They focus on cuts rather than on research and making concrete plans for a better future of the company in general.
What does that mean? For every talented and skilled employee who is still here, this means that they urgently need to look for better opportunities because there is no future here.
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Guys, by now it's very clear that Exxon doesn't want us anymore. Period. The company wants us to leave. That's it. It doesn't matter if you are a high flying executive or VP, customer developer, sales person, HR employee, an engineer in the plant, or a scientist in research. It doesn't matter if you are in Singapore, Shanghai, Houston, Clinton, Baytown, Dallas, the Permian, etc. Nothing matters. The company just wants you gone. That's it. This is not a strategic headcount reduction. This is a brutal, across the board, disrespectful, massive layoff. So, what everybody at Exxon should do is just leave and let Darren, Jack, Neil, and the board run the refineries, chemical plants, etc. Let them enjoy the hard labor we do every day. Let us all leave NOW.
Need to focus on finding new reserves or buying small operators with proven reserves.
So many parallels with EM... Including the "rank and yank" system Welch was a big fan of.
====
The Man Who Broke Capitalism
How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the
Soul of Corporate America―and How to Undo His Legacy
By David Gelles.
Take-Aways
• Jack Welch spurred a shift in the way US companies treated workers, regulators and government.
• At General Electric, Welch embraced layoffs, acquisitions and financialization.
• When Welch took over at GE, he assumed the helm of the world’s most influential company.
• Welch saw himself as a visionary leader.
• Under Welch, GE Capital became the most important part of General Electric.
• Welch ushered in the era of the cost-cutting CEO as a celebrity.
• “Welchism” can be reversed.
Recommendation
Jack Welch’s tenure at General Electric during the 1980s and 1990s coincided with a sharp turn in America’s
economy, as factory jobs moved overseas and employment for life gave way to the ever-looming threat of
layoffs. But Welch didn’t just reflect the free-market ethos of the time, journalist David Gelles argues; Welch
actively promoted it, in no small way through the many GE alumni who led rounds of cost-cutting and
union-busting at major corporations. It might seem a stretch to blame just one CEO for America’s current
wealth inequality, but Gelles makes a compelling case that Welch played an outsized role in creating today’s
economic inequities.
As a shareholder, I’m worried that the brain drain will hurt long-term competitiveness.
Like Rex’s Tree we are dying from the inside…soon there won’t be assets left or people to deliver what we are reaping today.
Cute response. You clearly don’t work for the company right now.
The policies and pay are chasing off the high performers in larger numbers than PIP is addressing poor performers. HR is chasing $1 savings and compromising the future of $100,000 talent.
As a shareholder I am glad to see that management focusses on the things that make XOM competitive.
Expanding downstream????? Are you kidding???
Exploration for new reserves and expansion of downstream capacity should be main focus of EM Execs in this time of high cash flow.
Headcount reduction and WE3 distract from getting real work progressed and are unrelated to the long term success of EM.
It's a shrinking company in a shrinking business. Reality is that investing in a future is the wrong strategy. Riding the donkey until it's lame is where it's at!