https://geoexpro.com/escaping-the-relentless-cycle-of-re-orgs/
26 replies (most recent on top)
My advice…leave now and enjoy a re-org free life elsewhere. Everyone who stays has normalized an absurd business model destined to fail and cause undue stress on yourself in the process. Let 2026 be the year where this STOPS and enjoy watching the Hindenburg that is Shell burn down from the sidelines!
@m6 Wael set up a 3 year clock for stock buybacks in 2023.
This clock runs out in February 2026. So February will be the announcement of whether the buyback strategy worked (hint: it didn’t) if the stock price has not risen in 16 consecutive quarters, it’s not gonna do it in 30 days.
We will see what happens next
executive behavior is very easy to
explain. wael has given up on any future for the oil and gas industry and so he is wringing shell out a like a sponge for costs savings and dividends with no investments.
this is the same thing any other blackrock playbook davos bootlicking stooge would do. it’s not interesting or unique or mysterious in any way. if you treat business as black boxes where money comes in and more is supposed to come out with zero further strategy then you will do exactly what he is doing
@gc
There is definitely a gap in corporate governance rules that is being fully exploited by Shell's leadership. The role of leadership is to protect shareholders' interests and money, and to come up with strategies to improve company productivity and business performance. If not, what are they getting paid millions in compensation, hefty bonuses, and hundreds of PSP shares for? Instead, over the years, Shell's leadership has overseen billions of dollars in waste by allowing cost overruns on projects and then canceling them, permitting the underperformance of assets and then selling them, all while pocketing millions in compensation without any remorse. Corruption cannot be ruled out when this waste is being presented as inefficiency. Inefficiency serves as a perfect cover for corruption. It’s surprising that the SEC or equivalent organizations in Europe, or the board of directors, aren’t taking note of the waste and questioning the leadership. CEOs and the leadership below them must be held criminally accountable for billions of dollars in waste.
AI in the title can be fake. It really depends on whether or not the rest of it implies software engineering. The rest of those are dead giveaways though.
Emerging - we give BS powerpoints after getting vendor sales pitch decks and dont deliver anything ever
Transformation - never seen these people work, not sure anyone can even guess what they are are supposed to do
Innovation - clone of emerging
AI - lots of worthless middle managers here and some people who just send emails about excel sheets
A key thing to realize is that these teams are billable. And so they don’t cost the company anything as long as they are charging to projects. So if you’re worried about Waels wallet, fret not my dear. It’s safe.
These teams were cut to about 60% the size they were before the reorg in order to “right-size demand”. Do you propose to cut deeper into things that pay for themselves with some upside or did you just not know they are a free roll?
@p7
internal copilot
there’s one project in your rant and it’s already been ki-led and replaced by a new cloud service after lasting one year with 4 people on it.
not exactly an egregious waste
@qf sounds like my wife ‘you have to spend money to save money’
@mf
JG-As, JG-1s and their leadership from all over flew to Houston in first class, stayed in five star hotels, had lunches and dinners in a five star hotel, assembled in a meeting to finalize layoffs to save costs to the company.
@mh look at the job titles, they tell you if the job is real or just created to keep someone in a job.
Look for: emerging technologies/ai/innovation/transformation in the job title.
@mh The mostly not-working internal Copilot, AI video reviews, various optimisation tools for third parties. And more. In a not quite same space, the unceasing reliance on silly Menti interactions of little-to-no depth is worth calling out.
too many bloated IT AI projects? ok, can you name any examples? if you’re scared to name them, can you describe the concept?
@m0 amazing how us workers who actually added value weren’t allowed to visit our sites, but our LT could be traversing the globe staying in 4-5 star accommodations.
IT is still bloated doing AI projects. Stock is not going up. I am glad the guy from the article found a better 'home'. In fact Shell is so bad now any home is better.
Btw stocks are still not going up, so hope Weal has some more plans up hisnsleeve because whatever he done, ain't working.
@h5 Same here! I was denied a HOU to NOLA trip for legit F2F with SOI, while my LT went on international boondoggles.
@h4 I think the board is very aware of what he’s doing. Heck I even dare say this is why Wael was brought on. But they’re willing to see the other way as long as institutional investors are kept happy.
Once the well runs dry, that’s when things will change. And it will set off a blame/point fingers and you-let-him statements.
Wael, unlike the CEO of Exxon, doesn’t truly believe oil and gas will be around for long. To him it’s a dying industry and they are cashing out while they can. He is not building a company that’ll be around in 2050. This is a slow-motion liquidation strategy. Gotta love Wall Street
this didn’t change except line managers were cut out of the fun for a few years but now they’re doing it again too
@h4 I recall in 2021/2022 that I had to justify a business trip to actually visit one of the sites I supported in a regional role, yet all of my LT were always traveling around the world and staying in posh hotels. Like my travel was Pennie’s compared to what they were spending for all of their leadership meetings.
Don’t lay this downward spiral solely on the Executive Committee. There’s a Board of Directors that’s suppose to oversee the quality of leadership. Appears they’re not asking the hard questions and holding the EC accountable for missteps.
A bunch of glad-handers smiling, meeting up periodically at posh locales, looking like titans of business over luxury dinners. What poor stewards of Shell’s good name.
Hope they read this while glancing in the mirror.
YL will be gone within a year and things will never go back to how they were
How quickly you can destroy a reputation is incredible
@dy this is all true.
There was always a level of sycophancy for sure and political games at the top. Nonetheless, Shell was still a safe company. They had good benefits, you could build a lifelong career, and you felt somewhat valued. The values of the company held true throughout the oil and gas cycles, I saw it first hand in my last 20 years there.
And as of the last few years (2023 onwards) something radically changed. The company has become much more vicious. Everyone is out for themselves. The sycophantic attitudes started spreading like a plague and the company started bleeding talent, profits and identity profusely.
They started making up stuff to give you bad marks, and as we can see, it will continue into 2026 with RTO. They are setting up the groundwork for absolute decimation of whatever integrity Shell has left.
In 3 years Wael destroyed a 100+ year old company and finished running it into the ground.
The article is right, it is an unrecognizable company but it’s not because of the pandemic. It’s from terrible leaders at the very top prioritizing themselves and their pockets.
100% true. you’re likelier to be sidelined as a threat and to get shanked by credit thrives than to get promoted off of a good idea
If people in exploration at Shell are actually working hard as the article claims, then where the he-l are our new assets?
@an
"Shell also puts people in management roles who don’t ..."
Hundred percent accurate statement. Wrong people are leading the businesses, leading to failures, as @c8 stated, no new production, lower profits and consequent huge layoffs. A leader of a business has no clue on what is going on down below because they came to that role due to sycophancy not competence.
Despite contrary speeches, Shell leadership values sycophancy, incompetence and failure as they themselves went up the ladder that way. A leader of a business that has failed still gets to go up the ladder with lots of excuses for failure. Shell leadership does not care even when billions are wasted as their own compensation is not affected, since they themselves have no accountability and the loss incurred due to wastage is not their personal money. A real abdication of fiduciary duty by Shell leadership taking advantage of loopholes in corporate governance.
@OP At the end of his article he discusses how understaffed the oil companies are. The companies have LOTS of people, but maybe at Shell too many are working on unproductive jobs and not enough are technical jobs finding resources are building projects to produce the resources found.
@an you hit the nail of the head. Shell’s biggest problem is that they believe anyone can do any job, so they don’t value those that have technical expertise as they think anyone can eventually get there. Honestly shocking that they can make money with this line of thought.
Shell isn’t necessarily understaffed, but is wrongly staffed. Shell values the wrong things when it does its reorgs. It allows decisions to be made based on who managers want to help/keep rather than on what skills are most needed and will most benefit the goals of the organization. It would help to have a well thought out strategy that is clear so that the managers know what skills are needed and what those goals are. Shell also puts people in management roles who don’t know what the people under them actually do and what they really need people to do. They make decisions to benefit their own careers and please the people above them who also have no clue. Shell lets experienced people go, with the thinking that new people can just learn and do all thethings if they are smart. It’s a ridiculous way to run an enterprise.