Title: Is there a single person at this company who actually has a direct report?

ka · 2026-04-25T05:23:03.309Z

I’m currently sitting in my third “alignment sync” of the morning, watching two VPs argue over a project charter that’s already three months behind. This matrix structure isn't an "organization"—it’s a hostage situation. I report to a functional lead who doesn't know my workload, a project lead who has no actual authority to approve my travel, and a therapeutic area head who changes the KPIs every time they read an industry blog post. Nothing gets decided because everyone is terrified of stepping on the toes of some invisible stakeholder in a different silo. We’re supposed to be scaling to meet the GLP-1 demand, yet we’re paralyzed by a thousand cross-functional gatekeepers. I spend 70% of my week “socializing” ideas just to get a thumbs-up from someone who won’t even be in the room when the project crashes. If you wanted to build a system designed to kill innovation and reward the biggest office politician, you couldn’t have designed a better meat grinder. Stop the matrix nonsense. Just let us work.

Title: Is there a single person at this company who actually has a direct report? | Eli Lilly Discussions