Please post some carrot and stick examples that ExxonMobil Management uses in motivating employees.
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Carrot and Stick approach -
Doesn’t matter if my idea make sense or not. The important thing is that you make my idea look good. Then we can both be out of here.
Nobody cares about you. You just execute what I say or I’ll make sure you never work in this field again.
@zrh here.
Was very true.
I did not resign immediately. Actually like my job and did not realize how bad that was. Not like they put me at the bottom, just put me under the chosen people in my group.
No matter what EM says, the top ranked are not the top performers. The sponsored people get the best jobs and get the best technical people to cover for them. IF anything starts going wrong, a sponsored person is transferred before any wrongness can stick to them. Sometimes when a project is high profile and going great, a high profile is moved into a position to take credit for the success. The system is completely slanted to move chosen people upward so fast that they seem like a blur to us real doers.
For us at the bottom of the food chain, inserting a carrot and inserting a stick feel very similar.
@zrh Somebody actually said that to you?
I would have dropped my badge on the floor and walked out right then and there.
I've got a HUGE carrot; so, where do you want me to stick it?!
When I told them I was retiring they offered to replace my manager without me even telling them how mental she was. I told them it was too late. They moved her anyway I think in order to see if I was bluffing and would retract my papers. I didn’t stay and she’s still terrorizing her new group.
Who’s that GP vp who cries remembering his military brother to gain audience sympathy.
Yes it makes the small brained insecure men that run the company seem powerful by calling it command and control…
The previous poster is correct that in a true military organisation there is good team work and delegation of tactics
Take a AncestryDNA test so that you can claim that you are a minority based on DNA science. It worked for some employees so that they could keep their jobs.
Stick: "if you don't complete all your Webcat training modules on time, I'll take it into consideration at ranking."
Nothing about your actual engineering skill or work, just whether you complete the same or training modules for the 10th time.
I think that there is so much stick and forced ranking that people are eager to claim my ideas as their own.
I really would like to see the PDS of a few people that I work with just to see how much of my work and ideas they claim credit for.
The comment on race is unwarranted. In the country I am, there is less than 1 % minority. The country itself is pretty diverse. It’s good the system is recognising systemic issues with any form of diverse thought or visible diversity.
However there are still glass barriers and dare I use the words - isms.
In my 25 year career, all I have seen are sticks after one gets to a certain CL level. The blame culture is prevalent.
It’s become worse post the redundancies.
Managers don’t know how to manage. There is no growth culture. Everything is top down.
Everyone is afraid of their own shadows.
All bred by this ‘final salary’ and padp system where people are stuck and can’t leave a bad job or bad manager as financially staying is better than a pay cut…
The final salary also means people just hang on to the job rather than rock the boat stopping any innovation.
I’m not from the military, but doesn’t true military Command and Control:
Delegate tactics to the people in the field
Recognize that the training, skill and teamwork of the Troops is pivotal
Saying ExxonMobil is a ‘Command and Control’ culture plays nicely plays into someone’s ego of believing they are a General in grand war games. It is a much more glorious term than saying ‘Management likes to call all the shots and micromanage the results.’
Being a minority seems to be working as a carrot, judging by the epidemic of forced diversity first time supervisors that have been promoted recently. Change the color of your skin or your gender, or fake an accent, that could get you a promotion.
command and control isn't just a large Corp thing, I think it's more of a hangover from the way the early businesses started, and how they worked best, what current corporates can't do is unlearn that culture, and can't consider changing to an intrinsic reward model, better suited to how office workers are actually motivated.
It's why the best people are turned off by ExxonMobil's management 'philosophy'
Our corporation is so large that we adopted the military "command and control" structure to manage.
Orders come from the general at the top and are rapidly cascaded down to the platoons at the bottom of the food chain. In a military hierarchy, questioning the orders from senior generals can be a career limiting move.
Studies show that 10% enjoy the stick.
Not that there is anything wrong with that.
i have only seen stick and bigger stick in my career....
The whole forced ranking / PIP system is a stick.
A stick the use for shoving, not striking.
Add the politics, favoritism, and sponsorship and anyone not chosen gets the stick.
Carrots are healthy and nutritious.
There are no carrots in the EM system.
Just big sticks.
Fear! Fear! Fear! Sm--k down! I have complete sadness for manager that are true, honest and caring because they will have the cr-p beat out of them emotionally because they cannot satisfy the expectations of DO NOT HAVE ANY HUMAN EMOTIONS! JUST COMPETE AND BREAK THEM DOWN!
The Stick Approach
The President of Exxon Refining & Supply and ExxonMobil Chemical used to routinely tell his/her refinery and petrochemical plant managers at their annual worldwide meeting, "If you do not meet your site metrics for the year, I will have you replaced by someone that will meet the site metrics."
The most non motivating statement ever was when I asked my department manager how I could improve my ranking in the next cycle. He said “Even if you are the top performer again next year, you will get the same poor ranking because the same chosen people will still need to be placed above you”
Really inspired me to try harder.