We could hire a B-Movie actor or some smart-as-a-whip college intern who could follow the same uninspired cookie-cutter strategy for 95% less. I don’t think anyone sees Charlie as a Disrupter, an Innovator, a Team-Builder, or even a socially-adept leader.
- Laying off employees: More visionary minds say this should be a last resort. Certainly not the first and only. (I can get us a guy who could do this for $250K/year)
- Paying Billions of Dollars per year for a consulting firm: To guide innovation, technology, build a productive workforce, improve performance etc: Isn’t that the CEO’s job?
- Offshoring: Loss of quality and control, language barriers, short-sighted, exposing confidential financial data to a third-world country, destroying our own country (Same guy in #1 would throw this brainless service in for the $250K/year.)
- Plotting a course towards mediocrity: Why are we paying a luxury price for a CEO who’s “efficiencies” and cost-cutting have reduced us to barely adequate,* when we should be seeking every opportunity to excel?
- Spending Billions of $ per year on Company Stock Buy-Backs: A form of stock-market manipulation designed purely to make corporate executives rich. Such self-dealing is responsible for wage stagnation, corporate underinvestment, and sluggish economic growth.
- Shameless deception: Beautifully written PR statements which obscure and embellish the truth with misleading and ambiguous information. Anyone read Charlie’s letter in the Annual Report? I would like to work for THAT mythical leader, the earnest hard-working CEO portrayed in the letter who is dedicated to making us the most trusted financial institution in the country. Unfortunately, I work for Charlie Scharf.
When every company is following the same strategy, it can't possibly create a competitive advantage for anyone. Why are we paying top dollar for a CEO who can’t figure out a better way to produce a profit than by reducing Wells Fargo to a lesser version of our competitors?