What really killed a very good P&G Pharma?

These issues are not exclusive to pharma, this is a corporate wide inplementation. P&G is just fine with these in place. It's not diversity that that killed pharma. It was repeatedly poor decisions by the pharma divisions management. They shot pharma on the foot time after time. I will agree that many managers put in place were not qualified. Maybe some of these were diversity placements, but the women's meetings and luncheons were not the problem.

 

Wow. All this talk about diversity as the downfall of PGP... and I thought it was the fact that PGP had products facing generics/Managed Care issues; going off patent; and an R&D pipeline that had withered and died. Hmm...

 

The women and minorities conspired to create coalitions and groups to alienate white males. PGP died and now we are all unemployed. Hmm......!

 

As someone who worked in the field and in the puzzle palace in mason, I think the diversity discussion is interesting merely from a morale perspective. There is obviously some resentment about minority clubs and events and frankly I can understand that. Although, not a huge fan of the regular planning meetings it helped foster being a part of something since the field is lonely. But, Losing team members to "no whites allowed" or "no men allowed" special meetings where their egos and careers got stroked was hurtful to me personally.

But the only diversity hire who really negatively impacted this company was Karen Silvis. If anyone has any idea how this woman was tasked with running anything please let me know. I was in many meetings with her and her only management technique was to pretend to know something that couldn't be discussed and ask tangential questions that may or may not be relevant. She was pleasant enough but wow really unimpressive.

Another mystery was Nora Zorich. This is one person who personally fought sales/mkting leadership about speeding up the OAM launch. Stating that OAM wouldn't fly inthe market. And even after we jettisoned R&D this moron still had a job. R&D was a joke constantly trying their hand at managing the FDA process instead of bringing in a consulting company (that does regulatory every day!) and their results showed in their lack of success.

Rich may have been a lot of things but he was a pure pharma guy. And a lot of the crap that came down from his office was just passing through from higher up.

I was generally impressed with the quality of people I met throughout my 10 years with P&G. Yes some made tough decisions and pissed people off but I generally thought they were competent and fair. (And Beth R could freeze the air in the room).

I guess where the diversity discussion bother me most is when I think of great people, like Chuck Mingo and Kim from hotlanta, and some who didn't know them might think they were in those positions because of the color of their skin. 1 min in their presence and you knew different but that is the problem with promoting "visual diversity" it is based on how bands of light reflect off of the skin and has nothing to do with the man or woman.

I say put the blame on Mel, Karen, Nora, whoever moved Rick J., (Quick side note on Rick love this guy what a dynamite leader. Rumors aside that he was handsy his punishment should have been to return pharma to an independent company and run it as the CEO)

All of this is my opinion on the facts as I saw them. If you have other insight please let me know. Especially regarding the Karen mystery. This will haunt me.

 

Yes and how many executives men or women can be 150lbs over weight, come to every meeting with their hair wet, and be leading a "Health and Wellness" organizationi. Maybe the ugly troll should go back to Beauty Care and get a makeover. She sure needs one.

 

Karen Silvis, as one who worked with her we all knew we were in trouble. She wanted to micro manage every one down to reps. Same thing happening with PG ProForce. They have started losing reps due to all the micro managing and no Trust. Everyone thought it was Rich S., but he only carried out Karen's marching orders.

 

It's amazing with all these posts doing post mortems on P&GP, no one takes into account the FDA shooting down 5 major drug initiatives. I believe it became an issue of dollars and sense. It made sense to end it after wasting $4-5 billion in start-up costs and having nothing to show for it.

 

Amen! What an excellent post!!!Dita Ledbetter was a complete loser, dumb as a box of rocks and did nothing but receive a free paycheck. She NEVER worked for the business or her team. She's put on that, "I so freakin' happy I could just shit myself" face. She's was lucky to have a job. She knew NOTHING about the products.... She knows NOTHING about people or about managing a territory. She was the stupidest manager I have ever encountered in my 30+ years of working. She tore apart the Arkansas team, proceeded to bring her bitchiness to Florida and ruin as many lives as she could. Now, P&G sold to WC and she was offered a sales rep role in Orlando, FL. I guess WC had taken a long, hard look at her personnel file from P&G HR and saw the constant complaints and blatant proverbial finger she gave to everyone who reprimanded her, and is very underhanded, dirty, nasty and thinks her mean ways make her a better manager. Hell, other managers hated her guts! Now... I hope she's struggling her ass off to find a job, hope the bank is knocking on that $500,000 home she bought for just ONE person. Hey Dita... your last name isn't Jones so give up. You got all, and please... look for more, you had coming to you. Karma is a bitch now and you hre just the poor POS in hopefully the worse possible place ever in your life. You thought your house burning down in Arkansas would have made you kinder, gentler, and lucky to be alive. Nope, it turned you into a crispy, burnt up, nasty person just like the remains of your house! Bitter looks good on you... you always have a sour puss face on anyway! I truly hope life sucks for you the way you made it suck for me the entire time you were my manager.

- Signed, a member of your old Florida team! (Don't worry; it will or should be easy to figure out.... we ALL hated you!)

 

Whatever.... shut up! You were never a slave, nor your mother, nor your grandmother.... go back a few 100 years and cry please! Stop pulling the "Ace of Spades" card! Good God man... I'm black..... waaaaa!!!!! STFU!

 

Then please explain the brilliant move to promote Melissa Boyd right on up the management broken chain? She was incompetent and paid no attention to her team when she was a manager. Hell, my car rides consisted of what's for lunch and her typing away answering emails on her laptop. Wow... now that's mean management skills!

 

Yes... true! I am an American Indian and I'm still pissed about the "pale face" stealing our land! I think I will cry about it for a few more 100 years! Oh wait... I don't have all these loud mouth preachers crying out for me.... shit! We need a American Indian Jessie Jackson... he'll get nothing done while making a big stink of things!

 

Karen Silvis and Dita Ledbetter are muff divers!

 

Karen Silvis and Dita Ledbetter are muff divers!

 

Wow, I have to say I haven't felt this hopeful about a post in a long time. First of all I'm so sorry that this complete waste of a "human" (I use the term loosely) was pushed on to your team and that she was allowed to ruin the careers/lives of other good employees, as she did here in AR. I never did anything, but work my butt off for P&G and she had me terminated w/o cause. I'm will never know why, but I don't really care. All I know is that she is a petty, vile, witch. I have come out okay, because I am the type of person that prevails. However, hearing this news is a victory. Karma really is a bitch and I thank you for your post confirming that.

 

She took a package. I hope it takes her just as long, if not longer, to find a decent job as it has the folks she screwed over. Yes, you are correct... she is a vile, retched person that is stealing someone else's oxygen. I was taught differently, to turn the other cheek. However, if Dita and I were in middle school together, I'd have stolen her lunch money every morning and beaten her ass daily after school. I wonder if she was the bully or the ugly, red-headed geek that was shoved in lockers? She puts a whole new spin on stupid, mean, vile and petty!

 

Silvis has been conditioned to please senior management in the immediate term. And it continues to be reinforced with promotions. I worked on the inside. You think she was disconnected from reality in the Field? Well, she rarely met with her inside team. In fact, the OTC group had to push her to have meetings. The only time she engaged was when she needed data to look good or make her case to cut. Not an original thinker, and not innovative.

And think about what she did. It was all about cutting costs. The thing with cutting is that you see the cost savings (read profits) immediately, while share erosion lags. Once that -- share erosion -- started to happen, she went into the second phase of cuts. So, what do you blame share losses on when they happen -- First, Sales leadership then marketing, then lack of claims .... Really, she had almost zero respect from people on the inside.

Worse than that was the continuing half-truths that she dealt to the Field in her speeches. Always smiling while she built her career on the backs of the balance of the organization. She lacks guts, she lacks inspiration, she lacks in vision. One of the worst leaders I have ever worked for ... and I did very well in her organization.

 

It's my understanding that Dita Ledbetter has returned to P&G as a District Manager. How THIS happened I'll never know. I thought for sure that Hell would have swallowed this horrible woman up and finished her off like it failed to do during the home fire of her Arkansas house. She's now living in Orlando and actively claims she is once again a District Manager for P&G (OTC brand.) All I can think about are the poor people that have to work under such an incompetent, mean, hateful, self-centered, soul sucking, motivational killer and serious bitch! Last rumor spread around was she was having an affair with Jeffrey Hardy from the St. Petersburg, FL team. He was a serious ass kisser and "yes" man so I could see him cheating on his wife with Dita. Whatever it took to get him into a position in Cincy he was willing to "go the extra mile" to fake his way into a position. He's barely a man and apparently Dita only likes wimpy folks she can step and walk all over.

 

Why do people always blame management for screwups? It is a team effort when things go right but every man for himself when things go wrong. Stop blaming people and take responsibility for your own lives.

 

The push for DIVERSITY and all the worthless organizations associated with it is what KILLED P&G Pharma. People too busy attending meetings to go in the field and WORK, combined with severely incompetent "Diversity Leadership" is what sunk this ship. I was forced to go to a few of the women's meetings only to be ridiculed for being "WHITE". God forbid. All of us with talent left. We liked the idea of making a bonus. The "others" stayed behind to the bitter end...and attended their meetings...worthless group!

 

Back in the days ... I was amazed to see (young) employees who happened to be female, or Asian, or Hispanic, or African-American get put on the fast track to promotions and management while in some cases more qualified (older) white men be stalled and slowed trying for the same positions.

And I was totally put off by the "members only" meetings and get togethers so often seen at regional or national meetings.

I always thought wanting equality was a good thing, I never thought "let's have our own private affair where you ARE NOT invited" was counter productive and increased separation, and did not value inclusion.

Promoting someone because they were a certain sex or ethnicity (with little productivity) was a bad way to run a company.

Management were rated on how well they promoted diverse candidates and this in fact caused for some stupid choices.

The results speak for themselves.