This place truly feels stuck in the past. There's zero room for creative ideas or trying new approaches. It’s all about sticking to the same old routine, leaving little space for individual input. How can anybody think that this is the way to be successful in this field?
10 replies (most recent on top)
After years of working to breakdown silos, we are once again structured in silos. Moving forward when in silos is not viable… no one considers the ripple effect when deeming something needs to change…? Sadly it’s as if the air gets thinner for those at the top, it’s as tho critical thinking goes out the window.
Let’s hope inge thug-Lin is ok in Florida.
Ask the CTO! He is likable person but has nothing to do with SCIENCE
This: "Leadership team I work on constantly discusses how things have not been working and we need to empower our employees. "
The person that posted this statement above is typical of the feckless individual placed in a "leadership" role. What is even worse, in turn, the so called next level "leader" that placed the dysfunctional person in a leadership role has no management savvy. Sadly, there has to be yet another upper layer of management that approved the feckless person for a leadership role. 3M management is absolutely clueless in valuing its contributors. No wonder the company is broken and employees complain. It is incredibly depressing to have a fool in an authoritative position over you. I cringe at knowing this "leader" probably does employee performance reviews and has approval authority to judge if an employee can even buy a customer a cup of coffee. A minimum requirement for so called "leaders" at 3M is to know how to make money for the company via its contributors rather than act the part of the self-indulgent, impish emperor to control its plebeians.
"Leadership team I work on constantly discusses how things have not been working and we need to empower our employees."
Very simple question for you: What have you and your leadership team actually done* to make things better?
*"Done" here is defined as a completed meaningful action that has actually had a significant impact. Conversations don't count. Surveys don't count.
You don't have to answer me. I dare you to honestly and candidly answer yourself in the mirror.
A strong contributing factor to me leaving 3M was lack of authority commensurate with my rank and position to actually make changes that would improve the company. Too much discussion, far too little meaningful action and no authority to actually take action.
This: "Leadership team I work on constantly discusses how things have not been working and we need to empower our employees. "
This statement should receive the "Most Naive Comment" of the week. Holding discussions is such an empty antidote to empower employees. I'd like to see how your "discussions" lead to a strategy with the necessary tactical steps to achieve goals. The evidence of what is wrong with 3M is abundant and no further discussions are actually necessary. A suggestion of what needs to be done is for the executives to stop focusing monotonically on cost and controlling actions of individuals! That is what GE did and now they are a shell of what they used to be. Empowerment of employees starts in the boardroom not the little conference room down the hall. What exactly do you expect employees to do when they are not given the freedom to pursue what they believe is needed? There are so many rules/shackles/changes that employees are burdened with that there is no latitude for the employees to make their own decisions. Employees can't hire who they want, can't buy what they need, need layers of approval to purchase anything, have to call someone by their preferred pronoun, can't explore a new idea without a manager's approval, live every day with thought of getting guillotined at the next round of layoffs, having emails and messaged patrolled by HR, constantly dealing with reorgs, getting new managers as often as changes of moon phases, getting assigned a manager that is not qualified to be in a leadership position, technical employees can't get promoted unless they stay in a division and if they change divisions they have to start all over again to prove themselves . . . this list goes on. It's quite clear that the caretakers control the masses.
Huge headcount investments in the lab? Lemme guess, a bunch of fresh-faced new graduates to replace all the expertise that's been downsized out of the company? That's been the M.O. for the last 2 decades.
Stuck in the past? Have you not seen how they remodeled to make everyone share one big office space? /s
OMG can you imagine?? Creating that safety will go such a long way! Every one of us personally knows someone who has broken so many rules of the code of conduct and is still a VP!!!!
Ethics complaints are absolute BS at 3M - it's about protecting the company so we can fake our way into the trusted companies list....who did we have to bribe to get on that??
Completely agree about being stuck in the past, including ignoring ethics violations by old white men. Just walking down the center you can run into at least one OWM on any given day who has publicly harassed and abused women while collecting $500K a year. If BB wants lay offs, lay off the ones who have repeated ethics complaints against them, you'll see innovation pick up when you make people feel safe.