The company is clearly focused on and centered around B2B. They do not understand consumer driven businesses and do not adopt their business models and practices accordingly. If you come from a consumer based company, you will be very disappointed. Marketing budgets are consistently the first area to be cut and the company spends at approximately 1/3 of what other traditional CPG companies spend on marketing. They very much adopt the mindset of 'if you build a better mousetrap'.
The company freely moves people in to roles where they have no experience or expertise. While I can appreciate the willingness to allow people to move freely within the company, they assign people to roles based on tenure, not experience or expertise. People with supply chain backgrounds run marketing, customer service backgrounds run sales departments and operations experts work in finance. Without a doubt, the core of this company is built around technical (R&D) and operations. They do not understand nor care about marketing, strategy or sales. While the company claims to be focused on 'growth', all internal indications and behaviors clearly demonstrate they are focused on their historical nature of being a 'dividend' company.
The company as a whole is terrible at prioritizing: every project, tactic and strategy is a priority. If you ask what is priority, the most common response will be 'all of them'. This lack of decisions making is consistent up and down leadership levels throughout the company. Very little, if any, decision making and prioritization is driven down in to the organization and employees are not empowered nor entrusted to make key decisions.
Because of the historical pension program, the motivation is low among more tenured employees. Many are due to retire in the near future, with those that are near retirement uninterested in new ideas, business strategies or breakthrough innovation. The overall goal is to get to retirement without any significant change. Those with longer tenures do not value outside experience. Their is an unspoken understanding that those with outside experience are known for having 'A3' and 'B3' experience (i.e A.D. and B.C.).
Only experience gained with 3M tends to be valued by other 3M'ers who have been with the company for most of their careers. The overall culture focuses on 'checking the box' and 'falling in line with your boss'. While titles appear to show a flat organization, make no mistake, decision making is very much hierarchical. The company needs a complete cultural reset to have a strong chance of succeeding in the future.
