A word on IBM. This is MY OP-ED.

IBM announced yet more layoffs last month. I know a thing or two about what they're up to having been there and seen a lot out of their transformation. Here's my rub and see if this makes any sense and then ask yourself- Why isn't this being covered on the news and in the news? This is news.


This is a nasty game I see IBM playing.


IBM has invented a new public relations word: "Rebalancing". It's too clever by half. It's accurate, but it's pure shit.  They are laying off let's just say '5,000 American Workers'- which is par for their course. Every year, look at the numbers.
Just ask for them and they'll be shared. It's still a dangerous thing you know. Talking about this taboo subject is not easy at all, which is why IBM'ers inside and out don't talk about it. Risks are everywhere for individuals, especially employees but I'll put myself out there.

Using this unconfirmed but real '5,000 workers in America' number (because they won't announce the exact number of people impacted), what does this mean in the scope of 'rebalancing'? That they have used the reduction in force to justify an additional- quantifiable multiplier of additional global headcount to its workforce. (What?! and Huh?)


Let's just say for example sake:
One IBM-US job reduced equals 4 Chinese workers.
One IBM-US job reduced equals 2 Indian workers
One IBM-US job reduced equals 5 Bulgaria workers.
One IBM-US job reduced equals 3 South Africans.
etc. etc. etc.


You get the idea. Watson is at work on a very special and predictable equation here... check it out.


5,000 American jobs lost is a net gain of employment to their headcount by 20,000 jobs globally. The math may or may not be far off, but the concept is inescapable: what have they just done?
It works backwards too. Hire 20,000 abroad and just reduce 5,000 in the US to cover the cost... (Prefering of course that you train your replacements).


They've stimulated the economy globally without spending or investing really one extra dime of profits. Not bad at all!


At the cost of America and Americans though. Whoops- that part, we're not going to really stand for at all. Thanks IBM and Sorry IBM.


That's awesome of you. Stimulating the globe at the expense of your American workforce.
Nice new Analytic- Rebalanced American Employees.


Congratulations on such an innovative concept. Truly smart. Possibly nefarious, but smart.


There is a very real 2015 roadmap and there is a very real number of jobs that are going to be lost in the United States because of this company's executive policies- some say the number is as large as 75,000 American IBM'ers will be out of work by the end of 2015. Rebalancing is an aweful, aweful way of explaining your gross overreach of trust and confidence with your employees. They are begging to be properly managed and directed to discover a value proposition that can finally be returned to its own workforce.


IBM is full of the strangest contradictions. It's full of employees who are underutilized and yet tragically overworked. It is full of Talent desperate to be tapped on the shoulder and asked to be included in innovation. It is a top down management culture of command and control-- Draw your own analogy, but Win Win and mutual prosperity requires a generous source code and it is not in existence at IBM any longer. The worker can not win, unless Win means to be ground to dust professionally and spat out of the organization to be replaced by another warm body from around the globe.


These 'rejects' are some of the smartest and most productive people in the company- by IBM's own admission. And if that's the case, then why are they being let go? How is it that with all your profits and stock value, you can't make enough money to create a market opportunity and value proposition for these employees? You can't find a 'smarter way to manage your workforce' or is this the best you can come up with: Profit to the max at the expense of the employee, in a system that rewards staff canibalism'


They take the money and don't reinvest it in the domestic workforce. Period.


Some are loyal to a fault and have a desperate need to prove their worth again. Some are not as lucky to survive the IBM culture.


You've burned them out, but you haven't worn them down completely. They take with them their experiences of not only how to do their job, but they take with them the strongest desire to work in a better corporation and to make their next company better than the one they just left. They take with them All of their experiences- good and bad. I don't know many IBM employees who are also fans of the company. The disconnect has to be by design, otherwise it is a sign of incompetence and we certainly can't call IBM executives Incompetent, Can We?


To further degrade the value proposition of the IBM'er this company (IBM) is the most expensive Stock on the Dow. It consumes or Buys Back its own shares to increase its own value in a closed circuit. The value proposition for any and all who invest in this company is that they are in part or whole, supporting the deportation of not only American Jobs, but American Intellectual Property and an unbalanced employment/employer relationship that is not living up to the standard of fairness by most all employee standards. (Executives Exlcuded) They buy their own shares to drive the price up, perpetually. They borrow against cheap money and then buy back their stock. It is a financial markets play and it is not innovation and I do not support it as it does no good for society.


This is quite possibly grounds for Treason, but that's the move of a radical, and I am not.


Sam Palmesano made it clear- the Enterprise is more valuable than the Individual. The pensions are gone.
But so too are the office supplies, the fringe benefits and even Thank You awards-gone.  The sense of belonging and wonder- gone. The cafeteria is as empty as the parking lot. The real estate is empty. The buildings are crumbling. The Leadership is in denial. The Managers are in a can't win situation and the workforce is co-dependant and largely dysfunctional by any standard of psychological measure. (Happy to be wrong by the way)


I just wonder if there may be an expiration date for every IBM employee in America.


If that were the case, then is it fair to request that information from the employer? Is there a plan to eliminate 299,000 jobs from IBM??? If I worked there or if I were thinking about working there, I would want to know that up front and right now- What is the 2015 roadmap for American jobs?

If I were an American Citizen who is sending his tax dollars to DC so that IBM can win our government's contracts, I'd like to know why they are turning over so many Americans and making plans to reduce drastically further? Wait- I am an American Citizen and do want to know. This is important to all of us.


To borrow IBM's call for Smarter Planet- I beg them to find a smarter Talent Management Policy. How is it that no one is asking the right questions to the right people? When the a company valued at $230b (BILLION) can't find the means to discover a sustainable value proposition for its workforce, and when a company sitting on a mountain of cash tauts innovation, chooses not to find a way to create a means of prolonging and investing those massive profits in its own workforce in its own home country, there is something very unmistakably wrong. Who would work for a company like that? The transaction is dishonest.


There is so much to grieve about the loss of this American icon, but more importantly, if you're paying attention, it's the model of what's to come if no one puts a stop to it. I for one, see problems and I also see solutions.


I've got a good idea what to do.

Cheers to a great future everyone. Keep your chin up IBM (there are obvious answers) and to the IBM'er and Former IBM'er, there is help on the way.


You'll here from me again soon.