3M reviews

Volatile environment and frequent layoffs. 3M changed from being a place where people worked forever to a place where people frequenly leave. It is probably no different from most corporations today, but it is certainly a huge culture shift for this corporation. Also, there are lots of systems for everything which impede the progress of projects unnecessarily.

When I worked for 3m they had just got done going through a lot of changes (guided by Jim McNerney and Six Sigma) that cut a lot of the innovative side of the business out of 3M. The effect that this had (in my opinion) is that a lot of the "value" was stripped out of 3M's product offerings. What customers have come to expect from 3M is that they offer new and innovative approaches to everyday problems that customers face when manufacturing products, or performing everyday tasks necessary to keep a business running. The new CEO, George Buckley, has been playing catch-up the past few years now in order to supplant the lack of innovation by acquiring other companies. Whether this approach has worked, and or will work, remains to be seen.