Thread regarding BD (Becton Dickinson & Co.) layoffs

@1x5 Bottom line: BD does not value expertise. The company places people in senior roles despite limited relevant experience, thinking those leaders will form team by hiring knowledgeable employees later. But they overlook a basic reality: evaluating and leading skilled professionals requires real subject-matter expertise. For example, IT promoted someone to Senior Director despite having no meaningful master-data experience, largely because of her long tenure—more than 35 years with the company. Without any surprise, her team did not produce any meaningful value to business. Outside meetings, most business leaders are frustrated with that team. After that Sr. Director retired, the role was filled by another person referred by someone above. This pattern makes it difficult to build a high-performing organization.
If the company does not begin to value skills, competence, and practical experience, the situation is unlikely to improve. A genuine shift toward merit-based leadership would likely require significant changes, as many current leaders may not meet the standards expected of their roles.
The new CIO has strong academic credentials, which offers some reason for optimism. Hopefully, he will prioritize expertise and capability when building and evaluating leadership teams but only time will show whether that translates into meaningful change.

@1vw yes - all true. What remains is a management staff who only know how to schedule follow up meetings whose sole purpose is to berate those who have been carrying the real load into meeting timelines that the workers have already told them cannot be met. Beat the messengers. Over time the messengers go quiet, stop doing the right things to ensure the systems will function, abdicate accountability (because why would you continue to stand up for what management does not value) and stop giving a flying fu-k. Those that continue to raise issues that affect the precious timelines (which were ill advised to begin with and basically whipped out of someones a--hole) are black listed, laughed at and very often publicly humiliated. Raised issues are "taken offline", squelched and ignored. Names added to lists. Frankly, I don't know how the place still functions at all. Can't wait for the disaster stories about APM big bang global go live (whose brilliant fu--ing idea was that) .....my popcorn and champagne are ready.......

@1rm Many organizations use technology and outsourcing strategically to their advantage. But in BD, that did not happen. Here’s how I’m reading the situation

a) Many leaders do not understand business or technology beyond buzzwords. Ask them to explain those terms in simple language, and in 99% wud come up with vague answer.

b) Too many people with little real capability have been hired ( e.g. Coty gang ) or promoted into senior positions. Once there, they begin to overestimate their own abilities and make poor decisions. Shrewd folks working under them often do not challenge those decisions because doing so could hurt their careers.

c) Vendor managers quickly realized that they did not need to provide high-quality talent or services; offering kickbacks was often enough to win business.

d) Some of these leaders also brought in friends and family members and handed them titles or positions. People who receive authority without earning it through skill or experience are unlikely to value competence in others.

e) BD laid off or sidelined many of the people who had the work ethic and capability to drive meaningful change.

What we see today is the compounded result of all these problems.

@1m1 this all gets back to BD trying to prep everything for outsourcing - i.e. disconnect the employee from the system, derive protocols that mimic templates that 3rd party consultants use to "understand" requirements and try to make everything a rinse and repeat cycle. If we are honest, the business SHOULD be able to articulate and SHOULD have a good idea of what system changes will bring them in terms of cost/benefit - can't argue with that - but the business is INCAPABLE of driving that because they do not understand how all of the interconnected systems rely on each other. The origin story is ERP - the baseline was not built for flexibility at a business specific level - the goal was to centralize and standardize. Add to that the constant motion of change in strategy and purchase of businesses/offloading of businesses, ZERO dedicated specialists with system knowledge and the constant pressure to reduce cost and "simplify" - well, you see why it doesn't work. The business partners were invented to bridge the gap but sadly positions have been filled with nepo babies and more people with minimal system knowledge. When management thinks knowing buzzwords about process 1 must make you a system expert well, sadly, you get the wrong people in roles who are then given "stretch goals" to take on areas they have even less understanding of - in some cases have never even heard of. Sigh. Its not gonna change.

@1m1 c'mon now, you know they use chatgpt to write their emails....and take meeting notes......its a sh-t show

@1kz All the geniuses in leadership got rid of the people who had the business process knowledge so now we’re left with a bunch of clueless paper-pushers who do a lot of pretending and can’t believe how lucky they are to have found a company stupid enough to pay them bonuses for writing emails and sitting in useless meetings all day. In TDS/TGS, just having a meeting is considered an accomplishment. Whether or not the meeting actually accomplished anything is not even considered. In the rare instance where something is really achieved (like a decision is made), people are astonished and call it out saying “this was a really good meeting!”. LOL. This place is hysterical. I’ve seen a lot, but nothing compares to this clown show.

@1bh "data expert" - please, you have to understand where the data is generated and the processes behind it in order to properly classify it for use. How will any "expert" help if there is no one in the organization they manage that can speak to the fu--ing data???? It's not fixable. It's too far gone.

@1fr trying my luck at prophecy here - despite the illustrious credential, the new CIO is unlikely to accomplish much. Nothing will change unless the overpaid, underqualified leaders are shown the door and since that would mean replacing all the current VPs, BD’s IT is probably beyond fixing at this point. So, keep the expectation low to avoid disappointment later.

I hope this new CIO cleans house before he gets infected with the BD virus. IT can be reduced even further since most of the full time roles don’t do anything .. they don’t deliver a single thing to the business all they do is ask u to fill out business cases that they then run through dozens of boards only to come back and say we need u to pay half a million dollars for this.. no one wants to work with IT .. we rather work straight with vendors and get the technology we need on our own and only involve IT when needed .. i really really hope he brooms out all the useless business partners

@1bh do we have any shortage of data and ai expert? But still TDS cannot delivery anything that adds value, total wastage.

He seems to be a data expert as well. I think this will end up being a great hire. Hoping he moves the needle in making real, impactful change and pushing out some of the ineffective.

@19c quite a few from Talent Deficiency Syndrome aka TDS are like that.

@18t Some leaders seem to feel important when they toss around those AI buzzwords, but they don’t realize how foolish they sound when they speak confidently about things they’ve never understood in reality, sad story of poor culture!

@18s sorry but this new guy sounds like another investment in AI as the solution - for fu-k sake the cart is so far before the horse its unbelievable. there is no way AI is going to work when no one understands the existing data

@OP academic profile of new CIO is impressive, but he still needs to work with below average IQ, corrupt VPs. Will he be able to make any difference?

@13d BD will break them soon enough

@13d it will be pefect match with our IT team then - two sets of useless calling each other useless. I need some popcorn.

@n2 hate to break it to you - but he-l IS the Edwards/APM people - entitled, bullies, princesses and je-ks - no system/data knowledge - just want what they always had even though they can't define it. It's a joke that isn't funny.

@pf you will find out soon enough

@gf who is the new cio?

@OP
BD is a funny place, honestly. Leadership would hire or promote their friends & family, and favorite people with little to no relevant experience, and then six months later everyone would be scratching their heads wondering why nothing was working.

During my short stint there, I quickly realized there was no point trying to make sense of it all. I just treated it as free entertainment, grab some beer, sit back, and enjoy the circus.

***I was not an employee

@jp u right-the Edward’s employees have no idea what h@ll awaits them. My sympathies to all APM workers

@jp what happened with bard?

@OP never seen a $20B company with a culture like this. BD leaders seem to have a special talent for taking anything good and finding a way to ruin it. What happened with BARD is going to happen with Edwards. Edwards employees are already feeling it.

@gf but his team will be full of same bogus and corrupt folks, can he just kick them out??

@gf who is it?

@ee new CIO looks very impressive

@dq bro you are optimistic that the incoming CIO is doing his/her due dilligence 😂

If anyone talented looking to join BD at all, Tom and his minions may see that as threat. And if the CIO is genuinely as sharp as being rumored, he may need a lot of pills and possibly a pair of stress ba--s when he meets his super talented team 🤣.

My guess is that this question is from an incoming executive - so before you dismiss the answers you receive here, try to listen to the common denominators. The culture poisoning has been decades in the making. The points already made about centralizing and outsourcing are the foundation of BD's demise - too many good people who were the backbone of the transactional systems have been sent packing. There is literally no one left who has the ability to explain what's wrong - because they never learned the basics and have no incentive to. Everyone believes everything basic is someone else's job. No amount of RACI review can fix it - because you can't be responsible or accountable if you have never been trained. Marketing and pricing schemes are understood by no one. Systems are dependent on specific requirements - no one can give them. People are hired and believe their job is about running meetings and publishing status updates - not about understanding how things work. Until you return to dedicated employees who are respected for their knowledge and support them with qualified technical support people who are BD employees and own the tech stack - you're wasting your time. I think it's just too far gone. Toxicity is 20 out of 10. It really is worse than you think.

@OP even if we get an outstanding leader as CIO, with those corrupt, below average IQ VPs, BD can’t do anything meaningful.

You can teach skill to someone willing, but can’t impart ethics. Unethical outsourcing to bs companies will continue while they will keep laying off employees. Pathetic!!

@bz outsource the contracts dept - disaster. Outsource the credit collection dept- disaster. Outsource customer care -disaster outsource outsource outsource and what’s the common factor??!! all in name of $$$ and our customers have paid the price

BD has a lack of accountability because our businesses were broken apart and centralized. Central customer service that then gets outsourced. Marketing teams assigned to servicing customer accounts. Then lay them off. Centralize complaint intake, then outsource that function. Manufacturing plants that remove inspection steps, drive work to poor quality suppliers in a never ending effort to reduce cost. Do more with less, when you were already overwhelmed is not sustainable. It has all undermined the foundation of the organization.

@OP 10/10. My “manager” was a complete joke. only concerned with traveling to keep away from his family and collect points and hoping to get promoted. if you provide any pushback, you pay dearly. A vindictive POS who’s quick to feel threatened if he realizes you know more than he. The sad part is, he’s one of many. And agree with @bb regarding the kickback culture that thrives at BD.

@OP if you are referring to new incoming CIO, I don’t think he/she will be any different from the last one. The last one was from Boeing, but you all know what quality she brought in. BD leadership will make sure they don’t select any qualified candidate as that could make their life difficult and stop their kickback business.

Toxicity 11/10.
Nothing will bring back glorious days.

Incoming CXOs will be as bad as the people recruiting them. People at that level do their own research, so highly unlikely for a good candidate to accept the offer.

Not pessimistic, but I have seen how an awesome organization was ruined bad hires, so my expectations are practical to be honest.

Sorry to disappoint those hoping for a turnaround.