The toxic culture at 3M has been growing over time. It’s particularly evident at QOR time and Strategic Planning time. Having spent most of my career working at the division level and BG level when those plans are put together I saw that leaders were not completely truthful when they would write these plans to satisfy too leadership’s expectations. If a company is that toxic at such a high level that even its leadership team can’t be truthful, then that toxicity rolls down. It also ruins a company. I once heard an EVP say when a person from his team asked if he was confident that the divisions were being truthful and he said he felt they had “their version of the truth.” This all precedes Mike Roman and Monish. This has been growing over time—over decades. But it has worsened recently. Maybe that’s why under Roman there isn’t even a Strategic Planning season? Leaders are managing up and could care less about employees below them. They care less about the truth.
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Amen.
GE is the poison of the american business culture
Mcnerney and his GE ilk basically brought in management by fear. Add his forced ranking and leaders felt they had no choice to overpromise and hope for the best. Blame others if you fail to meet the rosy expectations. Or better yet, move to a new role just before the cr-p hits the fan.
Unfortunately neither Buckley nor inge changed the underlying culture to overpromise. Mike is still lost trying to find his desk on the renovated 14th floor and blames the businesses for the cutbacks and underperformance.
Wall Street has figured out that 3m will lower expectations during the quarter and then voila best them by a penny or two after three or four downward renovations.
Hard to see anyone fix this. Only by spinning off into smaller companies maybe just maybe a leader will set realistic targets.
No wonder this company, which used to be on fortunes best places to work every year, has not even sniffed the list since the GE guys days.