I worked for a VP that had dozens of people involved in building a new strategy. Those folks interviewed 100s of people over 8 months.
We worked with an external consultant to develop a communication package to roll out the findings from the comprehensive package that the 8 month study represented and paid the contracted company an individual’s salary to build the communication package. I month later a new VP came in and she sc-apped the whole thing to start her own, new strategy.
Ad naseum.
Strategy studies are to keep you busy during slow times while helping management figure out who is good enough to keep. The people generating CRAZY IDEAS get fired. People with GOOD and EXECUTABLE and PROFITABLE ideas keep their job and advance. If you are NOT on a strategy team and ranked in bottom 2 quintiles...Bye.Bye..your future may already be decided.
Strategy studies are activities that we do to either prolong or take the place of making a decision.
I can confidently say that no one in the entire corporation including DW cares about profiting the corporation in a pure fashion. All of us only care about our career and our greedy deep pockets. Whatever falls as an aftermath and ends up also helping the company is ok for us but not at the cost of personal benefit.
VPs are some of the worst examples of what kind of people to not hire, recruit and promote to low level management.
Who cares.. she is wise to sc-ap the entire thing and do it her way. Else she is just a follower and will be NSI next! She needs to show that she is capable.. lol.. seriously do you think they are concern about the health and profitability of the company.. NOT!
Similar to BM and many others.. they will say the right thing but their actions speaks for itself. Like selling away their Exxon stock and telling us how great the company is.. And “retire” when things are bad..
management hires external consultants when they are forced to a dead end. Laughable, creating jobs outside to eliminate jobs within.
It explains a lot of how VPs waste 100s of human resources trying to get themselves promoted.
A single VP might be in the span of control over 500 people.
Those 500 get set on a NEW mission simply because of meritocracy. Not for the well being of the company, but the perceived new thing that the VP did in that 1 year time in their position. Leaving 500 ppl behind scratching their heads as to what just happened.
That’s what senior management has been trained to believe as value add!
Ridiculous. If Exxon recruits “best and brightest” then why do our leaders need to hire consultants to tell them how to lead? We obviously hired the wrong consultants this year.