Supportive staff, organizational changes - Anonymous employee American Medical Association Employee Review

Mission-driven work alongside colleagues who are smart, passionate, and thoughtful. Since Dr. Whyte’s arrival as CEO, there has been a noticeable increase in direct communication from senior leadership and a shift toward new, high-impact projects that would have been unlikely for the AMA a few years ago, making this an exciting time to be at the organization.

There’s been a lot of change across the organization recently, which has created some uncertainty. There are still silos across teams, which can make collaboration more difficult. Some processes remain overly complex.

Dedicated staff, formerly a pleasant environment

The CEO (Whyte, not Madara) has abruptly eliminated long-standing programs that benefited not only medical professionals and medical education around the country, but in turn, benefitted the AMA, strengthening its mission and reputation. Though when one looks for the value of such programs merely through data, they're deemed worthless: "The metrics didn't add up." Also not contained on spreadsheets: trust, value, reputation, integrity... The CEO demands that staff uproot their lives, by instilling a rigid and vapid RTO mandate, while he himself takes only 30-minute meetings. Turnover is of course skyrocketing, and morale is of course tanking, because the CEO governs by veneer (goes on and on about t-shirts) and fear ("I don't want to become a warden." - revealing, as Freud demonstrated, his very behavior). HR should do a cost analysis on the turnover, though the bulk of the true impact will be found less on any grid, than by word of mouth. The CEO's statements and actions prove him to be an image-driven, micro-managing, power-monger (what other CEO demands to approve the hiring of interns?). Shakespeare said it best: "There's daggers in men's smiles." And, "One may smile and smile and be a villain." In less than a year, the level of destruction is vast, sad, and very Trumpian.