Thread regarding Chevron Corp. layoffs

RE AI replacing the executives, it may have already. They all spout the same corporate buzzwords and use the same hand gestures when delivering prepared remarks. Notice the bouncing clenched fist with the thumb tucked inside. They’re trained bots without original thought or humanity.

@m8 flavor of the month that’s been going on for a couple years

Couldn’t agree more. AI is the flavor of the month and just another way for MW to make it look like things are fresh when nothing could be further from the truth.

AI will have limited impact in ABU. The still in place fat middle management's regular meetings can't be replicated by AI. Without these meetings there might be a genuine efficient org structure and that's not for the ABU. For the plebs, the future is Indian.

It can definitely replace McKinsey. A bunch of turds who cost millions for answers that you can get from copilot.

@dz maybe AI can’t do those things, but you know what it actually may be able to do? Replace executives! Think about what they actually do. Really, they just give speeches and unveil layoffs, which come from McKinsey anyway. AI can literally scour our corporate structure, compare to the outside world, and recommend changes. These execs may just be eliminated or at least downsized in the future

Maybe instead of complaining, go ahead and find another job outside of Chevron. Ge-z

The MW Chevron is all about the narrative, the compelling story. It is the pitch for the external investors. A well rehearsed spiel (authored by Mckinsey’s production group). Backed up with execution of resources as display of legitimacy of actual action. See Kodak did not respond to the technology change at the time but we do, see .. look … we are embracing it.
It is theatrics for market, at the expense of the company, the workers. It serves the ego of one, and as a threat to the rank and file. A twisted comedy, that the managers laugh and applause on cue and in beat for fear of their own security and status. The stage production will run for a bit, but a new play is already in the works, ‘cause entertainment does not entertain for long.

Can AI pack a well? Can it install a BOP? Can it weld a joint of pipe to another joint of pipe? Same answer for all three. Can it help someone understand why they should be following start work checks to keep their family safe?

@bh most of our challenges map back to this fact. Generic leaders struggle to command a technical team or business.

If they fixed our leader development model to value relevant technical/business experience, the business would improve naturally.

@bp where are all these external hires? Most of the EAI time are old hands.

@an the CNE IT manager going to run the AI team in CNE? Or who’s reporting to JG?

One other thing this tells me is that LC’s days are numbered. How do you lose this team to another organization where the message doesn’t even make sense. LMAO.

Can AI replace the management?

@bp that sounds great but how do you explain these digital scholars who did not go to MIT to learn AI, but yet are now on this AI team to do AI. Another hilarious fail by MKW.

@bh and that’s why there are just a few groups within Chevron IT, in particular this team moving to CNE, built from the ground up hiring externally and recruiting specific talent, whilst their managers and team leads all advanced in their careers in the same space, or how this space has evolved. None of them hopped around to random IT jobs. I recall some PDRs being critical of the group for not taking on people who only aspired to do the role but didn’t have any of the skills to do it.

CNE is where they have the massage room and the free coffee lady right? And the board games too

@av Not just tech roles, but Chevron's belief that people can move into roles they have no formal background in via the PDC as "growth opportunities" is actively hurting the company.

Over the past six years, I have had one supervisor that had some tangential experience in the field they were leading. The rest were all moved into it via PDC or as a consequence of re-orgs from different areas, and the results were about as good as you can imagine. Having a supervisor who is supposedly setting the work direction and strategy for the team, who has no experience in that area? Great idea, Chevron.

This is why you get so many middle managers who are obsessed with following the rules and following process - they don't know how to do anything differently, because they are being setup to fail.

@ay actually she was the chief learning and talent officer or whatever. She was not a head of AI until she was already on the way out with no role in the prior reorg.

With a buffoon in charge of CNE with a track record of consistent value erosion…expect buffoon results….

RM created a Head of AI for HR. Canned shortly after she was fired.

Chevron's long-time failure mode is thinking you can re-invent current employees as trendy high-tech gurus (the whole MIT debacle, for example). Alternatively, hire college grads and expect them to be instantaneous Nobel prize winners. You gotta lay out the big bucks and hire an acknowledged expert (or two, or three) in the field to be successful.

@an I think he/she is talking about not CNE IT, but the AI team that’s joining you in CNE..

@af are you high LOL the CNE IT folks don’t do anything except sit around and talk a big game after getting wined n’ dined by consultants and vendors

Actually it’s the only team in IT that has some pretty good folks. A lot of doers providing pretty quick value for us. So it made sense to get that team out of IT.

It's a club the Petrotechs arent in... You're the new dinosaurs

@a1 JG, just another useless move to keep the same people in power.

What is moving the AI team to CNE supposed to do? I assume it’s just the result of a power play by the guy at the head of CNE - forgot his name already since reading the email.