Thread regarding Enbridge Inc. layoffs

@15h So well said. What don't get said enough — the people who had what it took to fix this, they're gone. Left on their own once they got tired of ba----g their head on it, or got pushed out quiet for asking hard questions in front of the wrong people. That ain't bad luck. That's a filter, and it's finished the job.

I had one of them leaders myself — best I ever worked under, the kind that took the bullets and blazed the trail so the team knew which way to go. Gone now too. Once you've seen the real thing, you don't mistake what's sitting in its place for the genuine article.

What's left when a filter runs that long is a layer that's excellent at nodding and lousy at everything this place actually needs. Don't get promoted here for fixing things — you get promoted for making the fella above you comfortable. Do that long enough, it ain't strategy no more. It's just who a man is.

Everybody left learned the lesson early — speak up, get labeled difficult. Stay quiet, keep your seat. Don't take a genius to do that math twice.

So the silence ain't laziness. It's people being smart, given what they watched happen to the ones who weren't. That's the real rot — not the org chart. A company that trained its best people to shut up, and now that it needs the truth, can't nobody remember how to say it.

If you’re waiting on actual results from this “event”, you might as well pull up a chair and get comfortable. If this EMT and SMT have shown us anything, it’s that TIS isn't ever going to make any real headway within. Everyone’s just putting out fires or playing CYA, jumping to the most urgent item rather than focusing on (or creating) meaningful goals, roadmaps, and deeply aligned priorities so we’re all rowing in the same direction. For a tech group, we’re running on the oldest tools and most backward processes in the whole company.

PM really needs to look at actually investing in TIS instead of stripping us down to the studs when we're already running on fumes. Carving out just 1% of that massive TIS budget to fix our own house would pay out in spades. Instead, every dime goes to LP and GTM pet projects, and running complex, custom systems the business swore they needed, but nobody ever holds their feet to the fire when they don't deliver the value they promised.

Don't get me wrong, there’s definitely dead weight in TIS we could trim, but it only works if we actually fix the org structure and inner ways or working. You can't have every VP trying to run their own little kingdom of Business Partners, Delivery, and operations - each with a different structure, methods, and processes. If that’s the case, just put these functions back into the business and perform only the most basic enterprise IT services.

And honestly, we just need to scrap EAIA. It’s a total mess. All they did was mash the "Lab" and D&A together and print new business cards. The folks sitting in those seats aren't the right fit, and worse, they don't even know what they're supposed to be driving. It's a complete trainwreck, even just among themselves.

Praying for an optimized org structure that has a plan to go with it. But I might as well get my chair out as well, it’s unlikely to happen.

Anyone get any feedback about this event from their director or VP about what was accomplished? What was the value they achieved?

@tr it’s well known in HR circles. That’s why it took so long to fill the role. We had an external ringer lined up but that fell thru.

@rz if this is true, this is shocking! How do you know this? You must work in hr or have a connection there.

@rz this is what we pay executives so much money for? To play kindergarten maturity level games and politics rather than solve problems.

If these are the leaders in our society - we are doomed.

@m9 Good point, and worth acknowledging there was awareness of this going in, leadership ultimately settled on this outcome. Initially, the organization did try to bring in external talent for the role. The strongest candidates were seeking compensation beyond what Pat was prepared to offer. An offer was eventually extended to an outside candidate, but that individual declined after receiving a competing offer. Pat had already ruled out going with any of the TIS VPs internally but he gave them some token interviews, so he relied on nominations put forward by the EVPs instead. Scott was a ways down on the depth chart initially but he was viewed as the safer option once the preferred candidates didn't materialize, and Pat likely saw him as a way to keep certain stakeholders from pushing back too hard.

@hp you are not going to ask Michele anything! While you’re at it, ask how much that jet costs to fly. Cut 1 deadweight from TIS and the whole trip is paid for.

@kz yeah, typo, sooorry

@m9 in the roll for a year now and can’t play the “new guy card” anymore. Well that’s Enbridge code for time to move them to a different role so they can play the new guy card again without accomplishing a damn thing and leave their mess for someone else to try (but once again fail) to clean up their mess! It’s the Enbridge way… constant musical chairs that they call “development”. Can’t put lipstick on the pigs forever!

@m3 long shot. You don’t get to these positions by having technical chops. You get to these positions by being good at accounting. Leaders in corporations are not savvy on any discipline except for what is taught on MBA. Their job is to make many for shareholders and proivde exponential growth to said shareholders at ALL costs. They are just faking it in their respective positions / disciplines to serve shareholders. Customers, employees and other stakeholders like the public and safe operation are secondary.

Expecting any executive to have chops in the discipline the my lead is nonsense. It’s all bout the money, money, money …. The more in their and shareholders and the less in yours the better.

@m5 - New CIO has been in role for a year now. At what point can he no longer play the "new guy" card? By now he should be understanding things and making the tough calls.

Any other person in TIS would (or should) be fired if they weren't executing within 12 months of getting the job.

@m3 you need to be patient. Scott is still new and doesn’t understand much. Hopefully he catches on before too much longer. Careful though, that operational excellence committee was his idea/baby so don’t criticise it too loudly - it’s his main priority for this year and where he thinks he can make his mark.

@ky - I think the big problem here is that there's a whole lot of talking but zero action. Not one meaningful thing came out of last year's retreat in Blue Mountain. Just a BS operational excellence committee - which is hilarious we've had more outages this year than last year.

What we need is just a few of these Directors and VPs to actually have some technical chops - not just non-technical figureheads that can't manage their way out of a wet paper bag.

@hp no need to be pussed off about it just cause you weren’t invited.

@hp I don’t think it’s a party. More like a retreat. An annual gathering to talk amongst the leaders about priorities and problems and make some headway. These kinds of things happen across the company all the time in almost every area. Sometimes just VP and up. Sometimes Directors included.

Could someone post some clear details describing the party? I’d like to ask Michelle about it during a town hall, this pusses me off.

@e5 that’s smart on SA’s part. Having Pat there insulates him from the boondoggle criticism.

Sounds very similar to my organization. It’s disgusting that this is allowed to continue.

@b8 - our CFO was also in attendance.

Who was the second SVP besides SA?

The concerning part isn’t the $400K, it’s your valid point that it likely didn’t result in any meaningful outcomes other than Director+ networking. While we’re all expecting org changes / announcements shortly, those decisions definitely were not decided during this Margaritaville party. Will cross our fingers that this ain’t the case and y’all Directors actually had productive sessions towards aligned strategy, roadmaps, priorities, ways of working.