There is an alarming lack of leadership maturity. Empathy, coaching for performance, and talent development practices are all foreign concepts to leadership.
There aren't well-defined or communicated strategies, most "leaders" only plan for 12 months and react to the latest firedrill. True roadmaps and visions do not exist. Leadership courage does not exist either. Have an original idea? Forget it...you'll be told that it's not the "Danaher way". Past successes have encouraged an inflated sense of ego.
The business model (Danaher flywheel) is based on acquisition, driving cost optimization and then divestitures so there is a severe lack of creativity, innovation or product development. The DBS toolkit is centered around incremental optimization and doesn't include playbooks for disruptive or large-scale change so don't expect true transformation programs and support/funding for innovative ideas.
Danaher headquarters has operated as a holding company with the business units acting as autonomous entities. The culture of OpCo-centricity is prevalent, so there is almost no collaboration, communication, or talent sharing, which stifles career progression, cross-business partnerships, or scalable operations.
The culture is extremely risk-averse. Rather than leadership agreeing to a strategy and persevering to achieve outcomes, there is a "wait and see" mentality where all questions, issues, and risks must be solved before attempting to execute. This approach often means that technology, processes, and talent are archaic.
The stock price has been stagnant for years. With the internal struggles to figure out how to grow and scale, I don't see that changing any time soon. Danaher's own worst enemy is themselves. The leadership needs a shake-up with some fresh, external perspectives who will drive big changes and won't be hamstrung by small, incremental, DBS-style improvements. Past success has conditioned leadership to believe they are unicorns.
