3M has not developed a meaningful new product platform in nearly 10 years. Most of the large wins they claim; optical film, cubitron abrasives and their HIS Encompass system were built out of existing components and assets. They company has proven that their organic growth engine is broken and that they no longer have a model of turning a nearly $600M annual R&D budget into meaningful new products. They is no meaningful product development or product management function; R&D sees commercialization and product development as their exclusive domain. Customer and market demands are ignored or downplayed while pursuing ‘pure research’. The fundamentals are broken and there isn’t anyone in a senior leadership position who knows how to build and grow new products and new product platforms. R&D runs wild with now oversight. In the absence of organic growth Inge bled the company dry with financial engineering and Roman was handed a basket of snakes. The reorganization has been an utter failure, further centralizing decision making and reducing teams abilities to act and respond to a changing marketplace. The McKnight principles and culture and structure of innovation started dying off in the nineties and have been filled buried here in 2020. Will take an org change to de-consolidates the company, pushes back against mindless standardization, throws out Six Sigma, creates a milestone based VC style funding model (that 3M invented), creates a stronger cross functional product lease function and resets the streets expectations while implementing this plan. The culture is broken and the lack of growth is the result. Everything else is just arm waving to distract attention from the core problem.
3 replies (most recent on top)
How can productivity be higher under present culture of work and working conditions for technical folks ?? There is little incentive to do new innovative work since high risk work is not awarded. Credit can only be obtained for work that results in a commercial product and hence most people are ok with doing product development or line extension work.
Also less said about R&D management, the better. Very few are up to the task and are respected by their subordinates. In a culture like this how can new things happen ???
I work in investments and am a shareholder of 3M. I love hearing stories like this and would be interested in speaking with any employees (past or present) who would be willing to discuss further (anonymously of course). If you'd like to share your story, please reach out to me at shortavocadotoast[at]outlook.com
Very well written analysis.
The Advance 3M model is a joke. Creating more redundancy position.