From recent interview after the twitter acquisition
"I strongly believe that all managers in a technical area must be technically excellent," Musk tweeted on May 6. "Managers in software must write great software or it’s like being a cavalry captain who can’t ride a horse!"
Although this is more centered towards coding, I’d suggest this applies for virtually every position at XOM. Management seems to have a worsening habit of putting people into leadership positions (mainly HiPos) who have absolutely no technical knowledge or experience with the organization they are leading. So what you may say, let me explain what this does.
The new leader knows they won’t be in the position over 2-3 years (max) and they have to make a splash to continue up the food chain. The leader then second guesses the team on virtually every decision and makes changes the team knows will not work (surprise experience matters). Now that a wake of destruction has been completed it’s time for the leader to move onto another role leaving the team to clean up the remains.
The team- we see the new leader coming and say “here we go again” as many of us have seen this cycle many times. Of course we try and support the new leader however we all know this is temporary and eventually this leader will move out and another HiPo will move in. We cannot debate or discuss things with the new leader or we are instantly deemed as trouble will will certainly slide down the ranking. Remember we are all now on a one year contract. We remember the layoff where good, experienced and well ranked people were fired because “ they didn’t fit in”. Having seen this we just have to play the game to survive
Sadly this is the current XOM circle of life.
Solution? Promote from within the same group or at least job family. Make HiPos work more then the ranks than fast tracking thru various positions to get the box checked. Force supervisors to be judged on the longer than one rank cycle on their decisions. And of course overhaul the horrible rank process.
I’m sure you can add much more to this…
Thoughts?