Hewitt did a study years ago on why people leave a company and seek opportunities elsewhere. Money wasn't in the top 3 reasons. People leave because they no longer believe that their boss or leadership has confidence in them. And they also leave because they lack confidence in their leader. Leadership is an art form that must be developed and shaped over years of experience in leading people. Giving a person the title of Sr. VP doesn't necessarily guarantee that decision making will results in good outcomes. In fact- empowering stupid people guarantees stupid outcomes. Follett is in need of solid and proven leadership and unfortunately such leadership is needed immediately. I have left Follett many years ago and every day of my career I was proud to carry the label of being an employee of that great organization. Therefore my heart bleeds for those who under this current weak leadership that is only consistent in their hiring of old friends and buddies from years past. My message to the Follett Board is simple--wake up and act like a Board Member and begin to ask the tough questions and only accept answers that are honest or---act like the so many Board positions who stick their head in the sand and have no desire to voice opinions. Here's my prediction--unless a new CEO takes over in the next 12-18 months, Follett will no longer exist in 2020. So sad.
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Do you think this will help? IT was the board that approved Mary Lee.
Brian Kibby, president of McGraw-Hill Higher Education, declared traditional textbooks "dead" at EDUCAUSE 2014. Amazon's platform Kindle Direct Publishing allows authors to earn royalties of up to 70 percent and retain the rights to the works they create. This is going to be nice for professors.
A poor job with a great boss is better than a great job with a poor boss.
According to my calculations (uh...input from customers), the spirit shops won't make it long either without a BIG re-do. They're already behind the curve on what the customer wants. Good luck, suckers!
unfortunately I totally agree with the 2020 prediction for two reasons. The rent model makes absolutely no sense and current leadership isn't smart or experienced enough to reengineer the business and to gravitate toward new profit centers and alternative line markets. It doesn't take a genius to cut overheads- just a pencil and a few phone calls. No one talks about ROROF since our rate of growth is only going in one direction. According to my numbers-- for every new school we get, Barnes gets 3 and for every school Barnes loses, we lose 3. Now that math alone spells disaster so 2020 makes sense.
Follett will be a spirit shop operator at the schools with a fraction of the employees at the home office and field.
Most consider 2020 optimistic
Follett will exist in 2020, it'll be different though