The Schizophrenia of "blue culture" (and why it creates monsters)

Vas, I know your intentions are good, but I have reasons to think you do not really see what happens...The current understanding and implementation of “blue culture” in Novartis is a failed strategy, not because its principle are wrong, they are actually right, but because you are trying to apply it on the wrong base and with the wrong leaders. Too many of the current "Leaders", specially in the most traditional parts of the company (TRD, Manufacturing...) grew and became what they are in a culture that was praising them for being weak, for being dependable followers of a "red" assertive boss, or for being hiding their real nature behind a polite facade. The red boss is gone, the followers remained, were promoted (because they were good followers) and were surrounded by a crowd of little sharks...hired by their red boss at the time where arrogance and a little manipulation skills were a virtue (but were eventually not promoted when the red boss fell out of grace). What happens is that weak and traditionalist "managers", worried about their position and status but unable to be a Leader, are kept "hostage" of a base of innovation-adverse, arrogant and mediocre co-workers, who dictate rules, prevent any change (in order to keep power in their mediocrity), and abuse with mobbing the new and more innovative and integer coworkers, being protected and justified by the weak "Leader" who does not want, one one side, being accused to be red (by his manipulative red people) and on the other side knows that if he wants to keep the privileges of his position (in his mediocrity), cannot empower too innovative people, or he will be the looser...this leads in best cases to a stagnant setting, lack of decision taking and proliferation of arrogant behaviors from people missing the big picture and pursuing personal and silos-defined goals (without linking them to a more holistic "Good"), in absence of strong and visionary leadership. Promoting people based on their ability for perfectly following the (in best case inadequate) processes, as it happens now still in many business units at Novartis, equals promoting people for their capacity of executing the wrong thing…this is creating "leaders" that lack not only the necessary personality but also fundamental knowledge and understanding of what is the right thing to do, how to take the best decision and what are the required actions to make it happen. On top of that, the gathering of such "mediocre and inadequate" leaders under the common "blue culture Hat" create an additional paradox: Either you are "with us" and show to be "collaborative" (...we love each other so much, we are a great community and we do the wrong thing all together...mobbing and getting rid of those that would do things differently, because we are great blue culture people!). On a mid-long term, such strategy leads to the decline of an organization. Again, only the right person with strong values, integrity, courage and vision in the right position can avoid such scenario, but not the current mediocre leaders, who are "praising" blue culture without understanding that they foster the opposite with their very same behavior. Vas, you need to change your weak and mediocre"leaders" first, even if they look "kind and blue" on paper (and have good review by their mediocre co-workers, who just want to keep safe...) because they will not be able to change the culture for the better, but are creating many arrogant monsters instead...and that's why the best people are still leaving...you need strong (integer, self-aware, visionary, with true kindness of heart) leaders to implement the right culture, but you don't have them, and you let the potential ones leaving, because they cannot grow in the current setting. This is also one of the reasons why I will leave.