Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses

Re:Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses by Vaslo on Saturday April 20, 2024 @11:13PM (#40102889)

The WSJ article mentions that the CEO mapped out his plan at a cafe with a McKinsey consultant.

No matter how badly this goes, sounds like McKinsey will make out again…

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses by candiddevmike on Sunday April 21, 2024 @12:10AM (#40103119)

What under if McKinsey will start pushing this at other orgs?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses by refurb on Sunday April 21, 2024 @01:09AM (#40103313)

It's basically what tech has been doing for a while. Or at least a derivation of it. Agile, self-managed team, "retrospectives", "scrums".

At least that's how it was sold to my employer when they had the same change not long ago.

"This is what Google does and they are innovative. Don't you want to be innovative like Google?"

Checks all the boxes a CEO wants to hear.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses by al_borland on Sunday April 21, 2024 @02:39AM (#40103631)

My company just called the managers, “product owners”, and the project managers, “scrum masters”, and said we were now Agile and doing Scrum. Nothing about it was self-managed. We haven’t had a retrospective in 3 years, despite my insistence that we desperately need them.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses by refurb on Sunday April 21, 2024 @09:24AM (#40105597)

Huh, my company pushed the Agile/scrum/retrospective thing at the same time as talking about "fit for purpose" teams that would be formed based on need/skills, not the old structure (this team works on this only). Since specific teams were now gone, less need for managers.

The idea was agile/scrum/retros was a way to manage the "fluidity".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses by MForster on Sunday April 21, 2024 @02:03AM (#40103486)

This is not at all what Google does, though.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses by Voultapher on Sunday April 21, 2024 @05:44PM (#40109500)

One could also argue that Google by and large doesn't innovate, they mostly acquire the innovative stuff.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses by CalChris on Sunday April 21, 2024 @10:54PM (#40111083)

It is, however, what Google tried.

https://medium.com/illumination/google-once-fired-all-manage...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses by roughly on Saturday April 20, 2024 @11:37PM (#40103000)

Ah yes, McKinsey, notable experts in decentralized organization and anarchist decision-making practices - although I suppose they make it up as they go along with everything else, so why not this, too.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses by bbarnett on Sunday April 21, 2024 @12:04AM (#40103107)

although I suppose they make it up as they go along

Well, that sort of fits with a lack of organization.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses by al_borland on Sunday April 21, 2024 @02:36AM (#40103622)

McKinsey had to pay a settlement for their role in the opioid crisis. It’s very possible this will lead to some kind of tragedy related to Bayer medications which will also find McKinsey at fault for their horrible advice.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses by HDThoreaun on Sunday April 21, 2024 @08:20PM (#40110411)

Theres nothing criminal about bad advice. McKinsey's problem with the opioid crisis was that they were advising Purdue to commit crimes.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses by ekianjo on Sunday April 21, 2024 @04:42AM (#40104111)

McKinsey is just a group that will rationalize any decision you want to make in the first place. It's management decision laundering, by consultants.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses by joezydeco on Sunday April 21, 2024 @08:46AM (#40105324)

I wonder if it's the same consultant he hired into the company as the organizational coach for this shuffle.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Pharmaceutical giant Bayer is getting rid of bosses by [deleted] on Sunday April 21, 2024 @03:20PM (#40108403)

[ Parent | on HN ]