Culture, Management, and Business Environment are a Toxic Mix
Pros
Half day Fridays and you get to work with very smart people.
Cons
Culture and Values - The relationship based culture is talked about internally as a great competitive advantage and differentiator to new hires. The truth is this results in decision making being overly-political and moves at a snails pace. It’s not about doing the right thing; it’s about what is in that person’s career interest. There is no balance of risk-taking vs. accountability to results. Therefore decision making become very risk-averse. Similarly smart employees do not take on challenging roles; instead opting for roles that offer the most exposure, e.g. check-in meetings and coffee chats. Processes and Change - Company thinking is dominated by internal thinking and processes largely established in the 90s. External viewpoints and challenging the status quo are seen as negatives and are summarily dismissed. Change Management across board is the most common issue in the organization with many talented people and ideas wasted. The challenge of transitioning to act as more Global organization is exhibit #1. Offshoring of work while necessary to compete is not always thought through. For example complex work is not rationalized or worse yet given to non-qualified individuals often resulting in shadow work by US counterparts. Management – For the most part management and keys SMEs are dominated by people who have only worked at General Mills. That being said there are great leaders but they are minority and typically come from outside and struggle to bring positive change forward. Overall Managers are passive-aggressive, manage upwards/coddled, and are not receptive to critical feedback. For being a relationship-based organization, actual employee struggles are disregarded and employees are astrocized and subject to Midwestern-style reprisal by management and HR for speaking up. Organization launched a Great Manager initiative which is only window dressing on the underlying problem. Performance – The Organization due to the culture, size, and lock-in processes is unable to move fast enough to respond to the changing business environment. 90% of innovation the last few years has occurred via acquisition and in many cases we have overpaid per Wall Street. The organization will sustain itself through the strength of its historical brands and balance sheet but will continue to fade and struggle for growth. Work/Life Balance in certain roles can be atrocious especially with Mumbai-facing roles. To that end quality of work is not valued as much as who has or doesn’t have your back.
