Why Bayer’s DSO transformation deserves its own series

BOTTOM LINE When writing Thriving in Turbulence, I had to make difficult cuts. Some material was redundant. Some was tangential. But some was too current, too unfolding, too significant to compress into a paragraph—yet too valuable to discard. Bayer’s Dynamic Shared Ownership experiment fell into the third category. This series is that material, structured like the book but focused on a single, extraordinary case.

Why This Didn’t Make the Book

Thriving in Turbulence needed to be timeless. The CIRCA-CLEAR framework had to work whether you’re reading in 2025 or 2030. Case studies in the book illustrate patterns that have stabilised—transformations where the outcome is known and the lessons are clear.

Bayer’s DSO is different. It’s happening now. The largest self-management experiment in Western corporate history, unfolding in real time. Harvard Business School is already writing the case study. The outcome remains genuinely uncertain.

That uncertainty made it wrong for the book. But it makes it perfect for this series.

Why I Couldn’t Let It Go

Three reasons:

First, scale. Bayer is attempting self-management with 90,000 employees. Zappos tried with 1,500 and retreated. Haier succeeded but took two decades. DSO compresses that timeline to two years. Whatever happens will inform organisational design for a generation.

Second, diagnostic clarity. Bayer illustrates CIRCA-CLEAR’s core insight with unusual precision: they’re applying Agility interventions to Insecure and Contradictory conditions. The framework predicts specific failure modes. We’re watching to see if they materialise.

Third, personal observation. I’ve watched Bayer’s evolution for over 15 years. My wife spent 17 years there—a President’s Award winner who demonstrated genuine agility before DSO existed. She was made redundant in the restructuring. That proximity provides perspective that analyst reports can’t capture.

A NOTE ON PERSPECTIVE I’m not neutral about Bayer. I’ve seen the human cost of the restructuring close up. But CIRCA-CLEAR isn’t about rooting for outcomes—it’s about diagnostic precision. The framework doesn’t care whether DSO succeeds or fails. It predicts which patterns will emerge based on which conditions are present. That’s what this series examines.

What You’ll Recognise from the Book

If you’ve read Thriving in Turbulence, you’ll find the same structure:

• Bottom-line-up-front boxes — so you know within 30 seconds whether to keep reading
• “What to Observe” sections — the signals that indicate which conditions are present
• “NOT THIS” boxes — disambiguation so you don’t confuse this pattern with similar-looking problems
• EXECUTIVE INSIGHT and PRACTITIONER MOVE callouts — layered depth for different readers
• Guardrail pairs — speed metrics paired with quality metrics, so optimisation doesn’t create new problems
• Evidence-based positioning — quantified outcomes with honest ranges, not inflated claims

If you haven’t read the book, the series still works. Each post is self-contained. But you’ll get more from the diagnostic framework if you understand the conditions (Complex, Insecure, Rapid, Contradictory, Anxious) and levers (Clarity, Learning, Empathy, Agility, Resilience) that CIRCA-CLEAR provides.

The Series Structure

Three parts, each building on the last:

Part 1: “The Diagnostic Question Bayer Isn’t Asking”

Why DSO might be the right destination reached by the wrong path. The five layered conditions Bayer faces simultaneously. The core diagnostic concern: applying Agility to Insecurity. What Bill Anderson’s Roche experience tells us about the stakes.

Part 2: “What Zappos Learned That Bayer Hasn’t—Yet”

The cautionary parallel. Zappos’s failure patterns mapped to CIRCA conditions. Why scale changes everything. The early wins Bayer is producing—and the warning signals underneath them. The Haier comparison and why it requires caveats.

Part 3: “The Human Pulse Signals Published Metrics Can’t Capture”

Ground-level observations from 15 years of watching Bayer’s evolution. The talent paradox: who’s being retained and who’s being removed. The capability-building gap. Three scenarios with probability assessments. The ultimate test.

What This Series Isn’t

This isn’t a hit piece. DSO contains sound principles. Bill Anderson isn’t naive—he led comparable transformation at Roche. The documented early wins are real: a billion-dollar drug to market a year faster, €500 million in savings, 60% process compression in some areas.

This also isn’t a prediction of failure. CIRCA-CLEAR doesn’t predict outcomes—it identifies patterns. The framework says: if you apply Agility to Insecurity without addressing trust first, then specific failure modes become more likely. Whether Bayer avoids those patterns remains to be seen.

What this series is: a diagnostic examination of the largest self-management experiment in corporate history, using the same framework the book provides, with ground-level perspective that published sources can’t offer.

WHY NOW Bayer’s company-wide DSO implementation deadline is end of 2025. We’re watching the critical period. The patterns that emerge in the next 12 months will determine whether this becomes a reference case for successful transformation or a cautionary tale about compressed timelines. Either way, the diagnostic lessons are valuable.

Start Here

Part 1 publishes tomorrow. If you want the foundation first, Thriving in Turbulence is available on Amazon. But the series works standalone—I’ve designed each post to provide the diagnostic context you need.

Some material is too good for the cutting room floor. This is that material.

Neil A. Walker is the author of Thriving in Turbulence: The CIRCA-CLEAR Framework for Navigating Organisational Change, available today on Leanpub and on Amazon on Thanksgiving Day. He has spent 30 years recovering failing transformation projects across financial services, government, and many other sectors.