The announcement that there would be no more LTIP for anyone below the T6/Director level, delivered shortly after Roman’s retirement, was admirably clear: if you’re a worker bee, don’t bother dreaming about LTIP. That nectar is now reserved for the management hive only. Why? Well, let’s consult the sacred tablets of hard data.
Over the past 15 years or so, promotion velocity in management has been running at roughly 1.5 to 2 times the speed of the bench. You know, the people actually doing the messy little work of inventing the technology and shaping the product ideas ! Meanwhile, every Tom, Di-k, and Susan who somehow managed to ditch the bench ( mostly utter failures as technical folks) , then climb into management after hitting T4 or T4.5, can apparently fast-track their way to Director in 12 to 15 years with astonishing efficiency. A kind of corporate alchemy, really.
By contrast, if you remain in a nonleadership role ; 3M’s charming euphemism for “the people still making things happen”, then after 15 to 20 years, your reward may be a T5, if the stars align and the universe feels generous. And for the tiny fraction, perhaps 2 to 3 percent, there is the distant and glittering possibility of reaching T6 or above, where the LTIP finally appears like a mythical prize at the end of an especially uneven race.
Unless this issue, among several others, is addressed, morale will continue its slow and consistent descent. It would hardly be surprising if Q2, Q3 2027 brings a lively exodus from the T4.5 to T5 ranks. Perhaps a little alarming attrition will finally send a message to the highest levels..... much like during Covid, when a wave of technical talent left 3M and, quite sensibly, never came back. To its credit, 3M eventually did learn something from that episode and made promotions a bit easier from T3 to T4 and T4 to T4.5. A touching example of institutional memory, however briefly it may last.
@15y+1m5adfe2d said it perfectly.