to the once mighty company 3M?
Just curious to know !
Do they feel any remorse, guilt or sadness about their decision that have let go of tens of thousands of hard working loyal people over the last five years. Do they reflect on their actions after they implement it. They must be reading social media posts, newspaper comments etc.
Do they undergo any therapy to get on with this process repeatedly. Do they go their places of worship and confess?
Are they human with normal human emotions ???
I have had many direct interactions with several members of COC and a great many more members of the executive/leadership conference.
Most of them really do think they are doing the best they can. Hard to believe, but it is true. There are a few definite sociopaths in the bunch as well, but a small minority.
The sad root problem is that they that they have no context of just WTF they are doing. They take budgets/targets/objectives as though they came from heaven on stone tablets. They have been trained over many years not to challenge leadership in any meaningful way, and definitely not to take the proper initiative for their ranks. They think about how to meet 'targets', not what is best for 3M.
To the person who hired in 22 years ago, you are exactly right.
Real smart and GOOD people when they hire in somehow get absorbed into a passive aggressive ugly style of leadership.
I was around almost 35 years and it wasn't this way in the 80s and 90s. When GE flunkie mcnerney came in, he completely changed the culture (for the worse) and turned HR from an employee centered team to a kiss the bosses arses group.
Bosses were to scrutinize every little expense and find employees who wouldn't conform to the new world order and have them purged.
I saw people who were once friends seem to go full Darth Vader to the dark side once they got to LG15. No more stopping to talk with people on a nice day on campus. Instead, it became like donald Sutherlands character in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
These people have become zombies of the worst sort and are so numb to realize it.
Please bring in Jack Kovorkian to out the rest of this company to sleep
You have to have a high degree of narcissism and sociopathy to make it to the executive ranks anywhere, especially at a company like 3M. They don't care as long as they get theirs.
In my experience most of what people normally define as being fair-minded and humane doesn't exist in these people's mindset. They'll take care of their own if there's any crumbs left over you might get one. Their ego's require your sacrifice for them to succeed.
There's an old saying that each wo/man is ultimately responsible for their own lives on battlefield. Pay attention.
Full disclaimer : I have not interacted with any of our executive team on a personal basis and hence I don't know about their thought process. However I have interacted personally with quite a few mid managers and I can tell you about their thought process, and perhaps ....just perhaps one can extrapolate their behavior to the psychology of the people at the top.
So some of the people that started out with me about 22 years ago are now in management. They decided early in their career that they did not want to get their hands dirty by working in the lab but were inherently destined for greater glory....hence a management track was their choice.
With the predictable career track progressions in 3M, many of them are now VPs, Lab Directors, lab managers etc. and doing quite well career wise.
What I found quite disconcerting when they changed over to the dark side is after a few years, their personalities had undergone a drastic change. Arrogance, aggressive nature, narcissism, extreme greed and selfishness was quite evident and they never quite tried to hide it.
Once they moved over to the M track their persona completely changed. Always very confident in their approach, whether correct or incorrect, zero self introspection or regrets and always full faith in upper management decisions.
Looked to me like they were indoctrinated in the Management cult. No criticism was tolerated and there was always an air of superiority as if they were children of a Higher God!
While not everyone is like the way I described, there are quite a few and that has been my observation.
Only Kearney and McKinsey should have been NOT those two leaching companies. But the smaller consultants who ran their own small outfits had some good ideas.
Sorry for the confusion
I have talked with a few management consultants (good honorable ones, only Kearney and McKinsey) who decided to go into consulting for the joy of working with companies that want to drive excellence, not drive efficiency (there is a difference between the two Es).
I asked them about interactions with CEOs when the company was going through a 10 percent or more haircut.
Their response? The leaders actually believe that they are:
So to answer your question, 3M leaders believe all of the above and probably sleep soundly every night.
Wee Pete needs some scotch to wash down any potential guilt, but I bet Mike is going to be guest speaker at symposiums later telling how he had compassionate courage!