When coworkers would joke “yes, we’re L3Harris - but the L3 is silent”, they weren’t kidding! Most of those laid off today were either legacy L3 or hired after the merger. Hardly any Harris legacy; especially at the director and GM levels. Legacy Harris were put in the merged seats and the legacy L3 were left without a chair when the music stopped today…
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I agree with the "L3 is silent" feeling after the merger; as an L3 employee it certainly seemed that way to me and people I knew at other L3 divisions! Although the semi-independent division structure of L3 probably wasn't the most efficient way to do things, I believe it led to a much more entrepreneurial spirit among employees and kept senior management responsibility at the division level, rather than having decisions handed down from several levels up the food chain.
I'm sure that legacy Harris folks got caught up in this latest RIF along with legacy L3, but since I'm no longer there I don't know for sure -- I was "encouraged" to leave within a year after the merger, the last legacy L3 employee remaining in my department. It was about a year before I intended to retire, but at least my pension was fine and I could stretch the severance I received after 20+ years of service. Leaving was better than putting up with things the way they were, as the job just wasn't enjoyable anymore.
"So, GMs became glorified PMs and easily able to deflect issues to the functions that do not report to him/her."
Perhaps this is more of a problem with the people put in the GM positions than it is with the business structure. If a GM is hired who is looking to deflect issues they will find a way regardless of the business structure. Over the years I have seen some great GMs who had little direct authority and horrible GMs who micromanaged everyone.
The ONE SIZE FITS ALL approach is a backbreaker, and the silos are more like chimneys belching smoke. This has to be the one of the worst management teams. They are making decisions without even understanding the business applications in use. The cost of the changes will put some of our sites under.
I know that converting to SAP has sunk many businesses some even ending in multi-million dollar lawsuits.
Implementation of S/4 HANA is an overwhelming process and has failed miserably in poorly thought out and managed attempts. (One size fits all, and reporting to a remote manager who doesn't even know what you do, or what the problems are.)
They are still trying to impose a ONE SIZE FITS ALL approach to this vast & diverse enterprise comprising numerous disparate divisions and global locations.
It's the beginning of the end for the false promise of a great 'merger'. Whereas the different products & technologies between L3 and Harris were very complimentary and a perfect fit, where the leadership went horribly wrong is assuming they can create a monolithic culture at L3Harris that is largely based on legacy-Harris culture. The Harris culture was well suited to Harris but not the huge diversity inherited from L3.
The real issue was/is the forced imposition of the Harris culture (based on large monolithic businesses) on the legacy L3 businesses which were standalone independent businesses in highly diversified small niches. This ki-led the autonomy of the L3 divisions which ki-led entrepreneurial spirit which made them successful.
Then they rolled out "functionalization" which split apart the local leadership teams to create large and tall vertical functional silos going all the way up to Segment. No one reports to the local P&L leader (except the PMs)!! Finance, HR, engineering, contracts, quality, etc. do not report to the local GM - so how can he/she be accountable? What used to be a cohesive team locally (where all the business and financials happen) was systematically taken apart. So, GMs became glorified PMs and easily able to deflect issues to the functions that do not report to him/her.
All the divisions and Sectors in the Segment are working in different domains and niches with different specialized engineering and other requirements. How can they all be managed as one monolithic team spread out all over the world. This does not even account for the different languages, cultures, traditions, etc. But differences are dismissed and everyone everywhere is supposed to behave the same.
Legacy Harris was hit hard too
this is fake news. RIFs happened across the board. Harris folks with 30-40 years service were rounded up and shown the door. Legacy Harris, L3 and Aerojet all affected.