QAD – “"Founders' syndrome" limits growth potential; arbitrary policies create fear and mistrust”

Pros

Lovely facilities on a beautiful bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, free lunch provided onsite daily, nice exercise room, mostly pleasant and intelligent co-workers. Interesting software and customers.

Cons

Top management has sense to hire smart people but then micro-manages them ("founders syndrome") and will not tolerate dissenting ideas. Subscribes to the Jack Welch (of GE) big company management theory that 10 percent of employees should arbitrarily be ranked as "under-performers" each review period (twice a year) resulting in lots of voluntary and involuntary turnover. Paranoia about job security leads to a "keep your head down and blame the other guy if something goes wrong" mentality. Promotion, review, and dismissal policies perceived to be completely random.

Advice to Senior Management

Change the "ten percent of our employees suck" review and dismissal policy. As the economy strengthens, you just give incentive to your workers who actually have the in-demand skills you need to grow the company to move to a place where risk-taking (and its attendant occasional failure) is not discouraged and they can make decisions based on their best professional judgment and not fear being arbitrarily dismissed because they said something the "top dog" didn't want to hear.