Dear Tom,
You have done a phenomenal job leading the company through turbulent times in the past. The recent key strategic acquisitions and new direction to develop competencies in electrification and electric powertrain technologies is proof enough of your grand vision and desire to take the company to new heights.
As you focus your efforts on growth of the company, I feel you are overlooking some serious culture and management issues, that a CEO should be paying attention to. It appears that the organization rewards trust, relationships and like mindedness rather than performance and delivery.
Several executives have blatantly missed their business numbers quite consistently, and yet they are rewarded with promotions. For me, who sat quite low in the organization, it appeard that it is a big happy close knit family at your staff level and few layers below. No matter what the business numbers are, nobody gets replaced by some new talent, to set some new direction. Never saw anybody hired externally as an officer of the company, which is fine, not many companies do that, but it just projects an optic that no matter how the business performs, the same leaders will be leading. Nobody ever gets held accountable for missing business numbers, at least that is how it appears. Whenever there is a down cycle, only the bottom and middle layers of the organization are churned , the top cadre still remains the same.
This culture sends a very wrong message downstream. A message of not holding leaders accountable on missing performance targets and instead rewarding relationships.
I wish you and Cummins success in the journey ahead.
Sincerely,
Ex-Cummins employee