I feel that leadership will continue cutting personnel in OKC and slowly give each BU more autonomy because there won’t be enough OKC staff to perform the job when the cuts are done. I generally agree with a de-centralized command model but not if it is derived out of necessity due to poor management and a poor staffing theory. Anyone have thoughts or insight?
7 replies (most recent on top)
Couldn’t agree with you more! In my opinion the next thing to go is our fine materials folks including the third party group DNOW. The field barely uses them now. Always goes around them to get material!!
"Good Point", you are correct. Devon management is weak on articulating clear lines of authority and establishing strict accountability, in effect, many times promoting people they like and trusting them to figure out the job and do what what's right. Well, more than a few employees would rather attend meetings, build fiefdoms, write bureaucratic rules, spend long lunches at The Well, or simply leave early. Not most, but many. Simply poor middle and upper leadership, IMO.
Agreed. Devon s---s
Good point, 50 years Devon. Yes, just look at the decision to build Devon tower. Talk about a clear, definitive message: lets centralize 1000 employees in this glass cathedral. Why??? Just so the field people could conference call-in and listen in as advisors jawbone around the table.
Isn't it pathetic that after almost 50 years Devon employees don't understand which of its operational functions are centralized or decentralized? Having worked there until recently, I was always amazed how it varied depended on which VP you spoke with, or that they had no clear understanding themselves. Sometimes it depended on the strength of a particular leader (BTW, it shouldn't). Yet, when Devon built a nearly billion-dollar office building, you would think was to centralize most functions and realize some economies of scale, but maybe the pendulum's swung back to mostly-autonomous BUs' I can't wait to see what next week's strategy will be.
This company throws away goo psople, legacy knowledge, just because an individual hits that magic age. Except of course if you are a VP. VP of anything.
Good luck on each BU negotiating a decent price on, for example, shooting seismic. With each unit out there on its' own like 3, 4 different Lone Rangers, no telling how much each one will leave on the table. They won't have the advantage of a single entity with quantity.