Letters to Mr W. Baumann, CEO Bayer AG (7-10)
7. When a CEO confuses acting with manufacturing.
Dear Mr Baumann,
we stopped at Ernst Cassirer’s >>from nothing comes nothing<<. Well, I suppose that will be the motto for your doings, for your acting, just as >>the end justifies the means<<. This >>nothing comes from nothing<< seems to be valid for you, I suppose, in the ‘strategic’ and financial part, but somehow not at all in the communicative part of your business activities. These guiding ideas have probably inspired you to take a very high risk in order to turn 152 billion euros into 62 billion euros, at times even 52 billion euros (Monsanto acquisition). So a lot of investment for a lot of loss. Let’s go all the way.
8. Is the Monsanto story becoming a genius story?
Dear Mr Baumann,
up to now, you have hardly communicated effectively with many relevant groups about this almost ‘genius’ move (Monsanto takeover), i.e. – >>from nothing comes nothing<<, just on a communicative level. According to Hannah Arendt, your motives and goals are of no importance. It is just a question of “how” and what remains of this ‘how’ “story-tellable” beyond you? Some men dream of leaving at least a house and a tree, but some dream of leaving much more, just something extraordinary in just this ‘how’. This ‘how’ and thus a part of the possibilities of a valuable “being” – creation, for you personally as well as for the employees, has, at least until now, failed completely or got lost. What >> story-tellable << remains after you, is still open. According to Hannah Arendt, there is still a rescue, ‘a cure’.
9. The inner repression destroys enormous inner energies.
Dear Mr Baumann,
this ‘how’, on which you personally had and have such an enormous influence, but unfortunately have completely neglected, is probably making you smile, so I will try to explain why it is so important. ‘How’ is the level of communication, and for Hannah Arendt it is called ‘reference structure’. So if communication in a company like Bayer is almost worthless because it hardly seems ‘credible and worthy of opinion’, then the employees start to repress what disturbs them in the company. But repressing does not mean that the uncomfortable, the biting end disappears somewhere, disappears into thin air. It all ends up deeper in the head, biting the conscience in a hidden way, but by no means less intense. This secret inner process, however, absorbs enormous energies.
10. Shopping is neither management art nor innovation. What is the quickest way to destroy a 150-year-old reputation?
Dear Mr Baumann,
these enormous energies, which are required to suppress uncomfortable facts, are then lacking somewhere else, e.g. in engagement, creativity and innovation. You, and indeed you yourself, Mr. Baumann, are the best example of what a pronounced lack of the above can lead to. The takeover of Monsanto, unfortunately this example again, you can by no means consider it to be either true management art or innovation. You simply went shopping, with a lot of money. Almost anyone can do that. Some of them even negotiate a good price. You, dear Mr Baumann, did not even get that right. You bought a company with probably the worst reputation in the world, and what’s more, much too expensive, you took over a hot potato.
