Filling out endless Excel sheets and making PowerPoint presentations more or less anyone could do. We have too many managers, but this company lacks people with vision, leaders. Those who will recognize that the success of the company rests primarily on talented workers, who would finally create a new and unique product.
Just look at our products and consider how long it's been since anything new has come out of here.
When I take a closer look at the whole situation, it is surprising that there are no more layoffs.
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You have to realize how layoffs work. Once, the financial impact of a layofff is decided at the highest levels, VP's and directors get an estimate of nos. that need be culled. Personnel who will be canned are decided by them in their respective groups.
Realize how layoffs work these days .
Middle managers, are hand picked people by the director. Why would they even be canned ?? The whole purpose of the middle manager is to "toe the line" and follow higher level orders pretty much. Hence in every layoffs, technical people are shown the door in large nos....not the vast army of low and middle ranking managers who basically add no value to the company in most cases.
In many divisions, there aren't enough technical / lab people to do the work that will lead to the next product. This is a classic case of "death spiral" for the company. Not enough people to do the actual work, and no wonder organic growth is non existent for the last 4, 5 years.
Part of the problem with new products is skill sets, not necessarily technical, but probably more so on the marketing and business side. It’s very difficult to execute truly new products well to generate meaningful sales revenue. A much bigger part of the problem is that very few leaders at 3M have the courage to go big or make big bets on new product platforms. They are too busy managing quarter to quarter to appease their boss and the Street. The company really isn’t in a great place - investing in systems that don’t get the efficiency they were expecting, cutting headcount to manage to a number which will likely stifle growth, and no market tailwinds to help fuel organic growth. Lack of leadership starts at the top. If Roman isn’t on standing on thin ice with the board then something is wrong.