Pros
There are a some staff who genuinely care about the mission of education as an authentic primary driver, however many of them have left recently or are waking up to the reality of the company in its current state, or are overcome with the political toxicity of the company's current culture. There is a relative overall wealth stability in SAGE/Corwin as an entity, however beyond the executive's generous privileges, there is not a corresponding generosity mindset when it comes to staff salary, commissions or especially investment in the development of staff. There are some small team pockets that are/were fun to work in, however the very highly political culture is always right under the surface, so there is a pervasive lack of trust between colleagues.
Cons
The outward facing executive culture, stemming directly from the CEO, is one of painting a picture that everything is perpetually great and that the company is very open, progressive and on a positive track. A main mode of this communication is in the company-wide meeting every month. It is common for a situation to have unfolded throughout a month, and for that situation to then be entirely misrepresented during the company meeting broadcast, in favor of the company and executive. The reality of the culture is that the current executive globally, led by the CEO, are overpoweringly invested in protecting and promoting their own images at all costs and regularly craft narratives and stories that demote the contributions of others, undermine loyal team members and the truth of situations in order to protect their self-images. Outright lies have been frequently evidenced and yet overpowered with executive re-packaging. The current executive are a case study in deeply defective leadership and certainly do not differentiate from the pillars of common corporate dysfunction. The current executive culture is one of ego over mission, manipulation over authenticity, clique-mentality over fairness or rising together and painting a narrative that suits these prerogatives over the top of anything that might compromise them. Those with independent and viable new ideas, or leadership qualities based on team development and inclusiveness, who are also in a position of some influence, are marginalized or pushed out altogether over time if they do not conform to the above listed values/behaviors of the uppermost clique. There were a lot of promotions this year but too much has happened recently that has shown or started to show the reality of the executive culture, which has caused a significant rumbling of discontent reflected in the spike in staff leaving the company this past year, including senior, top and promoted talent. Annual performance reviews are as good as redundant except for the personally ambitious who self direct them, with much follow up, for the purposes of promotion, or unless you have a very rare manager who actually values and prioritizes development of their team, though fewer and fewer of those remain and executive certainly do not actively place importance on, let alone action, staff development, at all. There is a hierarchical and workhorse culture, with no recent signs of modernizing or prioritizing a shift in these areas.
