S.S. said:
Layoffs are a symptom of a system that has lost its heart, not a strategy, and great bosses don't lay people off.
No great bosses here. Just overpaid C-suite listening to consulting firms who use spreadsheets to chop people and perks.
7 replies (most recent on top)
Only good leadership is Indian
I heard Eliot is taking care of your mom. Just sayin …
there are only 4 types of CEOs
1-Entrepenurial- Growth oriented, often founders. Think PHK. They make aggressive moves, go shopping for M&A and take bold risks.
2-Caretaker- A board favorite during inclement times, it is a role tasked with paring, slashing and dieting an organization to health. Heads-down, the caretaker CEO zealously guards the firm’s precious cash while going line by line to root out unnecessary costs. The major deliverable is to keep the business solvent until the clouds begin to dissipate. This is EH.
3- Product- Innovation/brand obsessed CEOs, often from engineering or design backgrounds. They are obsessed with quality and brand positioning. Very consumer focused. MP was this
4-Cost- These focus on efficiency, operational control, and maximizing shareholder value by reducing expenses and selling off non-core assets. This archetype prioritizes profitability, often in times of stagnation or for companies that need to streamline operations. A key distinction is between cost leadership, which seeks long-term competitive advantage through low costs, and a more reactive cost-cutting approach, which is often temporary and reactive. This is JD.
You can have multiple traits in a single CEO like Entrepenurial / Product combo of Steve Jobs but it is rare.
EH is a caretaker CEO who would have never been offered the job if the company was in a healty state
@OP Poor leadership with no morals. They don’t even know how to self manage let alone lead and drive work that matters. They claim the fame that belongs to others. They play favorites which equates to keeping teams around that add zero real value when they are creating extra work. You know who you are! It’s like the elephant in the room and your ego is so big that you can’t see it. Let’s actually do the right thing and get rid of the fake work and the people that are generating it. Nike needs to focus on real work.
Layoff can be a sign of bad planning or too much short term focus. In Nike's case, I think it's both. Let me explain:
Bad planning: not prepared for headwinds, no resilience . So to hit the numbers, send some people home (aka layoff).
Short term focus: instead of building for when the market improves, layoff people so the numbers look good for now.
People are already interviewing less with Nike because of these constant shifts. Nike needs to have a resilient plan that doesn't whiplash everyone every semester.
And if your operating expense is higher than what it should be, I would love to see how great leaders fix that without layoffs. Every company whose growth is shunted like ours is laying off people. If you don’t care about the stock price, sure don’t lay off people. But in the real world, every C-suite member is incentivized to think about stock price and shareholder value.
Wow you are a real genius. Teach us your ways.