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Fortune
Fortune
Diane Brady

Bayer's CEO cut manager ranks by 70%. Now comes the hard part

Bayer Bill Anderson Fortune
(Credit: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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Good morning. After you’ve streamlined and transformed and flattened your company, how do you get it to grow again? I recently asked that question to Bayer CEO Bill Anderson, who’s done all of the above at the 163-year-old health science giant. He’s reduced the number of managers from about 16,000 to 4,500 (in a company of 88,000) and replaced hierarchy and annual budgets with 5,000 small teams working on 90-day cycles. So what’s next?

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