I've worked at 3M for over a decade. The past few years have made me incredibly disappointed with the company. Every technical employee that I have talked to is terrified that we will be kicked to the curb at any moment for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with our own performance. Every year for the past 4 or 5 years, 3M has fired hundreds to thousands of people due to perceived company performance. Terms like “Restructuring”, “Realignment”, “Reorganization” are used to make it seems as though there is a plan behind all of this, but there is never any information regarding how things are going to be fixed. The resulting assumption from our side is that there will continue to be firings until something changes. We are working at this very moment with a guillotine above our heads and we are terrified. In addition, the piece that I’m sure management doesn’t understand is that those of us who have avoided being fired thus far feel awful. We have watched intelligent, hard working, trustworthy friends and colleagues be cut down due to no fault of their own. It feels terrible.
Why is 3M faltering? Why is 3M not providing a return on investment? It’s because the technical employees (the ones who make 3M a leader in any market) are too scared to take risks. We’re too scared to work on anything other than the most immediately valuable project. And even then, if we work on what our managers prioritize, get a satisfactory rating in our annual review, we’ll probably be fired in the next annual January Restructuring. There is no trust.
People in my network constantly ask me for connections within 3M so that they can try to get a job here. I tell them to look elsewhere, because this company is not a good place for smart, hard working people. We don't seem to be appreciated, we don't seem to be valued, and we certainly aren’t listened to.
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The obsession with COGS predates tireman, but he has emphasized this on steroids. No chance that any long-term investment will ever be done here again. Mike knows he is a short timer. Monish is going to get the plum job running the HC company. Tireman is 62 years old so he's just filling up his bank vault until he's completed his mission to bulldoze 3Ms remaining understaffed and ill maintained facilities.
Very sad ending to an American legendary company.
I could have written this. Also at 10+ years. While I hear the people saying "own your life and career and leave," I'm sorry but it's hard to see a place that has such a rich history and that used to actually be inspiring go down the tubes. I'm sure there's some "frog in a boiling pot" action going on, but the answer to every problem can't just be "walk away from it."
It's hard to know where there's hope for some kind of course correction and when there's not. The tragic part to me is we have the technology, the amazing people, the customer problems to solve, and a mission (at face value how it's written) to enable great things. It's just that what we say we do (innovate) isn't what we do (monkey with cost levers to save quarterly earnings).
I wish they'd let all these amazing people just do their jobs. The stock would take care of itself if they'd let us invent vs rearranging groups, obsessong over COGS, outsourcing core products, etc. It's sad to watch.
Manage your career. 3M is a sinking ship. I know it is hard but hard times make resilient people. I respect if you want to stay comfortable staying but own that choice. Afterall we live in a place where we have choices, unlike other places
The notion that 3M has a "plan" or rather playbook as Mike and Monish would has us believe is a farce. These guys are good at looking at the income and costs and figuring out what the company will earn next quarter but not anything beyond that. Then they plant seeds on wall street and set out lowball earnings estimates, cut a fee more people to reduce costs a bit more, and then they get credit for beating the estimate!
This way of doing "business" goes back about 20 years. It's only now that people see that the company simply wasted bit by bit some great profit margins and product lines. Much like an heir wastes a Bill Gates sized fortune over a long period of time, only to finally have to borrow money to pay bills.
The lawsuits are only making things worse, but this place was on a descent ever since McNerney came aboard and changed 3M from being an innovative technology company to being a wall street beech, crooning for praise from analysts. Hopefully the health care business can survive. It represents what was once the norm across 3M businesses.
Sad story indeed. 3M will be another one of those Kodak type stories in B School in another 10 years
My two cents:
First things first, 3M’s top management is not brilliant by any means , but definitely not worse than others. I look at other major companies (Microsoft, Twitter, Amazon…) and it feels really good that at least our guys are still trying not to be too brutal, at least in the surface.
What amazes me is how they want to communicate, or better said, not to communicate this “adjustment” to the public in a clear way. To them it has to be key not to openly say the real NUMBER of people that will be affected across the entire organization. It feels like a well kept secret.
They are trying to be real low key in public and news. This thing is taking months to be cleared.
Either they are afraid of the share price consequences that would come off of that, or maybe they took all this time to figure out how many will be gone, and I’m totally wrong and the sh-t will hit the fan in a few more weeks.
Who knows. 😅
Here is another problem : 3M has degenerated into an unethical, toxic company. An SVP has son-in-law in his group (ethics, principles, morals : Who cares? It is easy to hide behind different last names ). With all the restructuring, you can bet your money that the beloved one will not be impacted. Grandkids are important. God save 3M.
"For now, give 3M your all from 8 to 5 but stop doing email offhours and weekends. Start making connections outside of 3M. Sooner or later your number will be called."
This is very true. I left a couple years ago, but just recently noticed a former colleague with 20+ years at 3M with an "open to work" picture on LinkedIn. Not sure if they were let go/bought out or what happened, but this was a ride-or-die 3M lifer who never understood why people would ever leave 3M. This is a very talented individual who will eventually land on their feet somewhere where they will be appreciated.
Thirty plus year employee. Worked through the 90's and felt a change but couldn't quite put my finger on it. I started to feel bad about about my conclusions. After all, 3M was everything to me. It provided for my family, made great friends, etc. Sorry for the harsh comparison, but going to work started to feel like a clown show. I couldn't believe 3M made money this way. The saying was "we made money despite ourselves." Stupid things included week long kaizen events that had results that lasted a few months. Managers who were in their positions for 20+ years not willing to relocate and not allowing others to advance. Their only skill was to look busy, use buzzwords, and tell others to "action the failure mode." D-mb hoppering sessions that had predetermined priority rankings. Painting the plant walls and putting new floor tape down for executive visits. The poster talks on plant tours were phoney. Then you have 4-blockers, 6 blockers, Bowlers, A3's, GPS entries, COPQ calculations, OEE, yield - all fake. Metrics were awful to collect and were never accurate. I couldn't believe it. I'd drive home and I'd see construction workers working their @ss off in the heat or cold thinking "now there's some real hard workers." I get home and would be asked, "what do you do today at work?" I couldn't say.
Well said. Thanks for this remarkable insight. I think the problem started when 3M became QUARTERLY focused in beating earnings estimates handed to them by Wall Street. Mcnerney started down that dark and dead end road over 20 years ago.
Problem is wall street NEVER cares about 3 to 5 years or more out, when 3Ms once great research were developing the next thinsulate, sticky notes, etc. The 15 percent rule that allowed people to try ideas and even fail from time to time was effectively neutered back then, never to return.
What you say about research is very true. People will not take risks when they perceive their next failure will be their last. McKnight must be rolling over in his grave to see what happened to a one of a kind culture that made this company soar to great heights from late 1940s through end of 1990s.
It's too late to fix mother mining. Maybe one or two of the spins can survive as long as more GE and Starbucks management isn't brought in.
For now, give 3M your all from 8 to 5 but stop doing email offhours and weekends. Start making connections outside of 3M. Sooner or later your number will be called.