Thread regarding Chevron Corp. layoffs

Communicating at a TH! MWirthless is clueless!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Things were bad at:

1. Delivering major capital projects (Gorgon, Wheatstone & the latest cluster that is TCO). That means increasing reserves through acquisitions is less value erosive than developing them ourselves
2. Communicating bad news that is true up the line and senior leaders also being curious about the truth instead of the koolaid they’re fed... The market surprises with our MCPs are linked to this, especially Q3-23 share price pummeling is squarely at MW
3. Having worked with a number of our commercial growth folks & worked elsewhere im not sure our most promoted commercial growth folks are actually the most talented. The market reaction to some our acquisitions seems to validate this

We’re bad at backing down from the Cali governor. If all of us walked out of work for ONE day to say sc--w you, what would happen!? GN has no plan in place for electrical infrastructure upgrades to hold his electric vehicle mandate…why can’t anyone see him for what he is?!

Sure is interesting how come he didn’t fly in an electric helicopter to make the news conference for te Borrelli fire a few weeks back.

We’re obviously bad at sandbagging earnings estimates to make sure we hit targets.

• Holding people accountable.
• Following written policies, procedures and processes.
• Knowing when to make changes in d&c. They hide folks in other organizations when layoffs happen.
• Planning.
• Communicating with each other, not AT each other.
• Working in silos.
• Nepotism.
• Overpaying folks that don’t deserve it.
• OE Culture
• LEARNING from the past!

We only follow our own policies and procedures when convenient.

You actually want some benchmarking data to understand our competitive performance? What a novel idea. Sir, this is a Wendy’s. We only use the buzzwords, not the data and insights.

We're very one dimensional when working with others. We're like small children who say "mine mine mine" but don't encourage groups to reach out to other layers of the org or other functions of the business. And that plays out in ways that cause duplicate efforts and rework, instead of working together cross-functionally from the beginning. I understand hierarchy, but it is strange that we put so much stock in this notion that you shouldn't contact someone at a certain level or that we can't ask someone questions. Not sure how that came about, but other companies don't function that way. Everyone doesn't need to send the CEO emails, but why is there so much bottle-necking in communications within the ranks and org layers? Not sure why they hire any external talent if decades of experience don't count for anything at Chevron. It's deflating that someone when someone with less than 5 yrs experience total, all at Chevron, is the person calling shots when you have others with 10 - 20 yrs of experience at the table (it isn't all Chevron experience, so it just doesn't count). We have some weird corporate culture things within Chevron.

Perhaps easier to ask - what are we good at?

Taking risk and being bold, not being afraid of failure, we hate to lose but we do not try anything measurable to win either, we try to be follower [fast], however, we had been dead last in all metrics because we pass on the opportunities and focus on catchy stuff. Yes dD&I and other initiatives has a place but top priority should be adding reserves, growing production and innovating to reduce cost [no laying off people or pinching penny].

Rewarding results and promoting people who have a track history of getting things done versus saying the right things. Too many younger people were promoted way beyond their experience and capability while we let people in the perfect experience range and walk out the door - Think Permian 2020

Would agree with id--ts out of college, don’t forget the id--ts that come over from all these acquisitions. There is zero accountability anymore; especially in the younger group.

Seriously,.... the next time one of you comes up with this creative critiquing of everyone else but yourselves, look in the mirror and tell yourself the exact same criticism, so at least the right person will hear it. People, in case you haven't noticed or acknowledged,
YOU ARE CHEVRON !!!!! you are what you make it. It's not all someone else's fault or responsibility. It's You!!!! Get over yourselves. There's only so much that you can pass the buck on and it pretty much stops here. This is getting a bit absurd, the blame shifting.

We have lost key competencies across the enterprise such that now we have lost the fundamental basis for “communities of practice”. There was a time when a younger specialist on an individual asset team could turn to more sr. practitioners anywhere in the corporation to get feed back on best practices and informal peer review. Now a growing rank of inexperienced middle managers drive projects forward focusing just on execution speed with little ability to judge work quality or true assessments of uncertainty and risk. The result is a huge number of projects driving aimlessly across the tundra unable to find the road ahead.

Oil companies are make and break on only two variables

1. Geography / geology: did we get the right basins in the portfolio at the right times.
2. M&A. Did we buy the right companies at the right time?

On 1. We missed Guyana but we had Asia. ABU and gas has proven way more challenging.
On 2. We should have bought anadarko then swallowed Oxy. The bigger company should never get beaten out.

The people in general have nothing to do with success. One or two decision makers make or break it.

Critical thinking, creativity, and problem solving? That's what you guys posting on the layoffs boards think that OTHER employees are not good at but not you here who troll the layoffs site? You literally cannot make this stuff up if you tried!
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!!!!!!

Our project capex/bbl is terrible because our MCPs run over budget and schedule by vast margins. Our projects are also often disappointing because we are dealing with marginal discoveries. We have very few billion barrel fields compared to others - we simply haven't discovered much. We do okay in the Permian due to large position and fee land but are constantly surprised by things that others predicted years in advance (frac interference, etc). We don't know when to quit on bad proejcts/regions (all of Latin America, parts of Africa, Bako, Canada, etc) and hang around a decade after smarter companies bail out. Management is horribly risk averse, hates bad news, and causes cover-ups and generally makes things worse. Our biggest problem is complete lack of accountability. Nobody ever gets fired even for collosal mistakes.

We are bad at A LOT of things.

1. We don’t hold anyone accountable to their “deliverables.” From the field all the way to upper level management. Instead let’s use this woke feel-good bandaid called Human Performance and say it’s the system because be don’t want to upset anyone.

2. Our workforce is filled with mediocrity. It’s evident with new hires to promotions. It doesn’t matter if you’re good at your job, but if you sound like a Chevron poster or are in the right cliche you will do well.

3. Which brings me to my next issue. The PDC is a joke. You have PDC Reps that hand pic other like minded or close friends at work to pick their top choice candidates in the PDC and those groups are not openly made public to hide it.

4. We are hiring id--ts out of college. The bar for the selection process is extremely low.

5. The wells/D&C organizations have the most incidents.

6. We are stuck with more mediocrity in MCBU because getting people to live in West Texas and New Mexico is challenging. Every setback that has happened and still occurring today is due to the continual progression of mediocrity promoting to higher positions and still making the same poor choices. Most people with talent are not staying in the Permian Basin for long if at all.

7. We bleed money. We are paying top dollar for low performing engineers to work as project managers only for them to spend individually in a year, literally hundreds of thousands of dollars for firms to do engineering work they could be doing. Our cost tracking system is also a joke. Millions of dollars are getting approved without anyway to truely look at the validity of the request.

Too much focus on processes-to-no-where. The tail is wagging the dog

CNE...so much bloat with no profit. It's a party on their floor like there is no tomorrow !

Would agree that critical thinking is at an all time low. It’s tougher with all the acquisitions too. Got all the NBL folks who don’t seem to be all bad but they aren’t great either, now XOM playing us like a fiddle while HES gets destroyed. Most of the younger folks don’t have the ability to think through serious problems; or offer solutions that can help with F&D or really impact profit…the Permian won’t carry CVX forever.

We are bad at critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving. If there is anything I have observed across disciplines in the teams in which I’ve worked, it is this.