Is one of the requirements to become a manager at 3M to be an utterly horrible human being? Most of the people who've been promoted lately are nothing but bullies who don't know how to do anything but excel at yelling at their direct reports and creating a toxic work environment. Please, help me understand how they are the ones who are advancing when so many hard-working, talented people are stuck in their positions?
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Terrible managers.
Management at 3M is all of the above. The yes people, the people creating hostile, discriminatory work place. It is getting worse. I’ve had great managers and they have left. Ethics reports filed and nothing done in over 6 months. Retribution rampant from some managers. Terrible that I want a different job only because of management!
I retired after 27 years. The people I worked with always said " failed engineers do worse at managing". Maybe because they are insecure of their failings and try to over compensate by being aggressive. They fail at managing also and take down the department with them.
Main requirements these days to be a manager is to be a good spychophant. Just make sure you say a big YES to everything your boss says and be a part of the brown nosed brigade. Spend all day in meetings, emails, mind mapping, making pretty slides, and doing horsework for upper management.
These days it seems 80 % or so of the new managers are rather mediocre in terms of their technical skills. The reason they have gone into management is because they could not succeed in their technical careers and hence sought out management roles to get the quick and easy promotions.
These are the future " leaders" of Mother Mining. You know an industrial company is doomed to fail when majority of it's technical people have zero to little respect for their reporting managers.
In my time at 3M, I've seen some really great managers, and utter trash managers. It really is hit and miss.
In the last few years, the I'd say the humanity of 3M's leadership - especially VP+ ranks - has fallen fast. The better people leaders inside the company are either leaving or being sidelined. The pandemic has revealed just how much of an as----e some of these people really are.