* Breathtaking lack of strategic ability leads to recurring firefighting.
* Poor communication internally of strategy or progression against it. This year, the company missed reporting it's required quarterly financial results to Wall Street, and the internal messaging was "don't worry about, just keep doing your job".
* No cascaded (or even reviewed) objectives results in a non-performance based incentive system - on a 5 point scale, if you get a 2 or a 5, there is no systematic linkage to your compensation. Bonuses are discretionary (read: not paid out) while senior executives have a compensation structure that Wall Street itself has identified as obscene for an organization of this size/performance. Meanwhile, the CEO has his brand new sports car delivered to him in front of the company offices literally the day he informed the company that due to financial pressures, no bonuses were forthcoming. Classy.
* Nepotism runs amok; senior levels can be fantastically disconnected with how modern business operates as a result (or even how their portion of the business runs).
* Management by yelling prevails. If you're not confident in your competencies, be loud, turn red, and pound the table? Very 1950's-esque forceful style.
* Company grows by acquisition, but isn't able to integrate systems and has chosen to not fund process improvements for those companies it's already acquired.
* Cross functional planning and execution simply does not exist. Each team can 'opt out' of corporate projects, which creates an immense amount of churn and waste.
* 401k match, while it exists, is pretty low (2% or something small). No pension. High insurance employee contribution.
* "Just ship it" mentality - get it out! is the mantra, disproportionately small focus on quality.
* CEO is an utterly fantastic train wreck. I don't know how else to say it. Really quite remarkable.
