I hear from long-time Follett employees, who are now gone, talk about how it was a great company years ago. What exactly was the turning point or person(s) that made the company turn into such a poorly-run, morale-defeating company? I'm not trying to be a smart-#ss, really want to know.
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Way back when I was hired the family was heavily embedded and involved in company operations. They were book people and in some cases like Chuck, software people, who brought along their passion in powering education to the next level. The offices emptied during busy times and for inventory when everyone was expected to sign up and participate. I travelled around the country to participate in buybacks and worked side by side with the CFO performing a book inventory. The executives knew you, your capabilities and desires and individual growth while not promised was possible with hard work and a can-do attitude. The company president could be found in our company break room every day with a box of doughnuts and his coffee, available to anyone who had a question or concern. He drove a Ford Ranger pickup. He knew you, your spouse's name, and was delighted when he met your children. He shared in your joys and mourned with you your losses. I lost 90% of my hearing overnight while I worked at Follett. The CEO visited me once a week for months, just to see how I was doing. The leadership really cared about us. With each generation there seemed to be less of the family participating in the business. When that happened the culture changed, but the long timers like me remembered the lessons of their values. My career excelled at first when the culture changed, much due to the fact my boss, arguably a network rock star, held those same values. I don't think I sugar coated this too much and hope this helps when folks lament the good old days - they were really pretty good.
Great post @4qed+16W3RiH3. Follett never understood this and still doesn't. They believe they can control the stock price independent of the business results. 2012/2013 was the year the family focused on stock price versus making customers happy. Competing in the marketplace.
Do you think Bezos worries about stock price, or how to make the customers happy? How to enter new markets and provide lower costs to consumers. How to innovate and lead through technological change. How to run the business more efficiently. Follett's idea of efficiency=layoffs.
The great text manager purge and then our regional manager not long after. It was the nail in the coffin and things were never the same. Long live the eliminated region 23!
And AOH smiled.
And some in the audience understood what was being said.
My heart broke that day.
Death spiral.
Bill Gates, I make MicroSoft stock worth more by dreaming of really cool software.
If I do that, the stocks price take care of itself.
(you do your job and don't worry about stock value)
For those of us at the home office, it was the day that MLS stood up in front of us and said the most important Follett Value was Shareholder Value.
Moved on.
Revisionist history has to be corrected. It was relevant to the topic, too. JD’s terrible reign coincided with follett turning on its employees. What he was allowed to do left deep divisions and lifelong scars.
Lol this board used to be credible. Instead people are complaining about a store director (lol with no power over anything) who left many years ago. Move on
Echo when they brought on folks from failing old retail chains like Sears and Office Max who did not understand or appreciate how the education market is significantly different than general retail. Family started to look at an exit strategy instead of the family business it used to be. They also disengaged from collaboration with the rest of the college store community isolating themselves and shifted away from supporting independent stores. Acquisitions of Nebraska stores and Baker and Taylor did not help either.
Woosh
JD turned nothing around. The year before he "joined" stanford, the existing store leadership crew met sales goals. They accomplished this without a director (the director was being treated for cancer. He did not survive). The leadership team didn't survive JD. He never hit an objective.
JD was an abusive monster. He targeted women who had been with the company for 15+ years and abused them out of their careers. He was vicious. He reassigned work gave no leadership on goals or how to accomplish goals and then issued scathing "coaching" sessions. Sometimes he threw things and physically intimidated employees.
The turning point was when follett turned on the people who helped build the business. They systematically fired, abused out or laid off older employees who were not interested in moving to other stores. They lashed out at employees when "leadership" couldn't solve for the evolution of the book business.
Losing JD after he turned around the Cal and Stanford stores was a huge loss. His departure was a big morale crush to all those who appreciated his service to the company.
But Follett Family members will be given prestigious board positions at other companies because they're just that good.
So there is hope!
MLS, RM, CW and the other sears executives joining Follett. They arrived with an attitude that Follett was mismanaged and didn't know what we were doing. They immediately hired many SVP's and VP's from their previous organizations. They lasted a couple of years when RG came in and cleaned house.
by then it was too late. Wholesale was destroyed and sold and Follett compounded the issue by buying several marginal businesses such as advanced online, Baker and Taylor, Valore and Woody's marketplace. And let's not forget the great Dominican Replublic fiasco where Follett invested millions only to the close the stores later. And how about that Fall Rush fiasco. Opened and closed in two years. What is amazing is the leadership that made these great decisions is still around and in charge. There is no hope for any future at Follett. I imagine there will be another eFollett upgrade in the next few years and talk of how great it was only to see double digit sales declines year over year.
The first round of layoffs in 2013, definitely. Then the second round where they laid off my mentor. If there was ANYONE who lived and breathed Follett Values, it was her. I was too deep in to leave then, but yes, every surprise conference call was agony. The GVP did make a big difference too, as did RMs. But seriously, letting go of EVERYONE who had any industry knowledge was the worst move they ever made.
For me, the culture changed when the company starting to operate as a typical retail organization. Daily directives, executives know best, team members are a liability not an asset, it’s our way or the highway...this shift in thinking is what’s k–ling this company. As a leader in our industry we had a chance to truly define this industry. Not so much anymore. We are to reactive with really no one at the helm that can innovate.
God bless all of us who are left.
I second the first comment. The rounds of layoffs and the upper management changes around that time drastically changed our culture. So many lost their jobs. Others have endured pay cuts, threats of pay cuts, more layoffs and furloughs ever since. We watched new upper management come in from failing companies and (surprise!) not succeed.
At a store level I would add that our culture seems to change drastically by GVP. Some lead, others lead by fear. I have never seen so much cultural change as when our GVPs change. If you get a good one the atmosphere is not nearly as toxic as others, though we still have the perpetual fear of restructuring that has been around since 2013 that shapes our perspective. The looming threat in light of how poor fall rush went certainly amplifies it - as evidenced by the renewed activity on this board
Speaking from my own perspective , Follett culture changed tremendously during the first round of layoffs in 2013. Those layoffs resulted from the 2008 economic crash finally catching up, and competitors gaining market share.From that point on, everyone feared for their jobs or (as an SM) for the jobs of their staff. EVERY unexpected conference call I would think, “oh c-ap, what kind of “restructuring” are we doing now”. After that, labor dollars kept decreasing, workloads increased for everyone else, and, seemingly, opportunities to promote staff vanished. Managers were no longer sent to home office for training. I went to HO for training twice and that contributed significantly to my commitment to the company and feeling like we were connected to other stores/managers. I’m no longer with Follett and glad I am gone.