This company is actually run by magicians and its all smoke and mirrors! The CEO primary trick was to inflate the stock price through stock-buy instead of investing in innovation while the CFO specialized in accounting tricks she learned at GM. This all made the company look much better then it actually is, until recently. Investors are starting to see through this and its no surprise that the CFO recently retired or cashed out. Surely these execs made a lot of money for themselves through those tricks, but its the company and employees that now have to pay the price for that.
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The goal is to have authority, without accountability. Redundant layers are intended to reduce the accountability of VPs.
Agree with you there.
Cisco should just move to a flat tier. Remove fat from 1st level manager to EVP. All theses layers only agrees, do CYA, collect their bonuses.
Why do people only talk about Innovation and ELT? What about first level people managers to VPs? For a change, Cisco should clean up the bottom managers first. Not that they are best but replacing SVP and above has been tried, tested and failed. Other than services needed to keep engines running, there is no need of any one else. Their work is worth exactly zero.
Kelly makes David Copperfield look like an amateur
Cisco and IBM are in the same boat. They can't innovate and instead buy innovative companies. Those people get their just rewards and leave for brighter pastures. A friend rode the easy train when IBM bought Red Hat. He became a multimillionaire, decided to take full advantage of "work from home", and when did pretty much nothing. When they started asking him about productivity and being an IBM employee again, he quit. Retired on the beach now at 49.
You can't buy innovation and hope it works. You need to invest in it. Something Cisco has failed and will crumble like IBM.
The real trick is acquiring startups with short-term revenue growth while hiding the debt to acquire the company. That is how you get paid the big bucks.
GE was amazing at this. Although the hidden debt finally caught up with them.