I had an interview with Conoco some years ago. During the interviews with various groups I observed signs of competing and warring factions. Then in an interview with two technical folks who would be my peers if hired, one attacked me in such a way I had the impression anyone hired for the position would be up against this person daily. Plus the other person in the interview behaved very passively like he was scared of the other interviewer. Needless to say it was not a good match for me. I went on to work at another company where none of this employee rivalry is encouraged and everyone is very collaborative. We have hired a few folks from COP, all have shared their unhappy COP experiences and forced ranking systems, employees competing against each other, HR, etc is a dog eat dog employment situation. Just warning incoming Concho employees.
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at cop the forced ranking system is real and been ongoing for many years - only changes to it have been “do we have 3 rankings or 5 rankings?”. exec. mgmt. spent a lot of $$ w/ outside hr consultants figuring that one out - complete waste of time and money. remember, the annual budget for raises has to fit the expenditure for raises so you need to go back to the drawing board and get it right mr or miz supervisor !!
You just described the Peter principal. Basically, people in a large hierarchical organization tend to be promoted to their level of incompetence.
So, if you haven't been promoted in a while, you can take comfort in the possibility that you might still be competent.
large organizations always Always ALWAYS fail. And, a big part of this failure is due to the promotion of good people to positions that they just cannot handle. And, since more and more of the world is being managed by big organizations… the world will continue to be horribly horribly mismanaged.
This whole thread is BS and as believable as a Penthouse forum story - there have not been forced rankings for years, and the chances of someone who "interviewed" years ago wanted to take the time to write up such a detailed gripe.
And - there is no way this person would have any COP stock to sell.
Highpots definitely have skills. Manipulation, avoiding making decisions, ability to repackage existing work, identifying the right people to kiss up to, loudest to agree with the boss, skilled at repeating what smarter people say, but with twice as many words to sounds twice as smart, great gift givers (to the boss), you know...slightly more competent versions of Dwight Schrute. Management is enraptured by these “mini-me’s” and will push them through the ranks until they’re found out. That usually happens when they’re finally turned into managers and overspend, underperform, and generally screw up so badly that they can’t be saved any longer. Then they’re assigned to another group since it can’t possibly be their incompetence at fault. Equally likely is that they’ll leave the company because their egos tell them they’re waaayyyy better than everyone else and the fact that they’re not being promoted fast enough convinced them they’re better off at a “better” company. Except right now that’s a problem. So expect them to stick around, shielded from any consequences or accountability, continuing to make bad decisions, waste money, and make other employees’ lives even more stressful during the next few months.
By the way, where is the outrage against promotions based on special interests? At least high pots must have done something to earn at least some recognition. Ok, I can think of a few handsome exceptions but you get the point.
The author of this original post missed the mark on a few things about Conoco but he or she is right about one thing - there are some very unhappy people - think that is at all levels.
Highpot unfairness or not, there are a lot of entitled cry babies who resort to cancel culture and vindictive behavior when they don’t get their way, band together with whatever special interest group of the day who will join them in their sabotage and besmirching vendettas, etc There is something foul in the water
Hi-pots are treated like Fabergé eggs. Not only do they receive the best ratings, but their careers are partially managed by the company. They rarely spend any significant time in a given position before moving on to something else. Also, these positions are usually the more desirable and/or interesting available at the time.
Ironically, they are the people most likely to quit when they think their career is either stalling or not progressing fast enough. It's not hard to imagine the ego this coddling engenders.
See if you can identify the hi-pots in your group. They know who they are. Do you?
Is there a ceremony after you join the hi-pot club?
Seriously, how do they know they know they are part of it?
I sold off all my COP stock after that interview. I was just so demoralized by what I thought was a good company, the way I was treated and how I detected the warfare going on, it was painful. But the ex COP employees we have hired very thankfully didn't bring that c-ap into our company. They were very thankful to get out of COP.
Conoco s—s. Glad i sold off my stock once i realized their true colors with their employees and ranking system, i am so very happy elsewhere. And so are the Conoco employees we hired. I was concerned but once I saw their sincerity and having them onboard they have loved not having to be in a horrible competitive ranking situation.
Call it what you want, nothing has changed much over the years. We had three ratings at one time, then it changed to 5. Forced ranking or not, you are limited within each rating. 10%, 25% and then 65% split into the 3,4 and 5 ratings. So think about our average group size and tell me that the group isn’t ranked top to bottom. If they aren’t, the supervisor is either incompetent, lazy or just doesn’t care. Often, they have given up after being told the outcome by their manager. The company is a soulless shadow of its former components. And it will get worse. Cancel culture is winning. Get out if you can.
Leaders, leadership, hi-pots, blah blah blah. The myopic emphasis on leaders and leadership at CoP ignores the fact that technical skills and workers are essential to getting anything done. Leaders with nobody to lead wind up being expensive and impotent.
Although it's true there's no forced ranking system, there are hard quotas on the better performance ratings, and the hi-pots are usually given those ratings regardless of their actual contributions.
IMHO, the hi-pot system is the root cause of everything that's wrong with the culture of ConocoPhillips. Although it's certainly important for a company to identify a TEMPORARY pool of POTENTIAL future leaders, it's a horrible idea to inform these individuals they are in that pool. Human behavior being what it is, these people will become both incredibly arrogant and lazy, and expect more from the company than they contribute to it.
Finally, being a hi-pot should never be a tenured position. At some point, the company needs to either give them a management role or remove the hi-pot label forever. And that first management role should be critically evaluated to make sure they are true, inspiring leaders and not just self-serving authoritarians. We have too many of the latter now.
I wouldn’t recommend Conocophillips as a place to work unless you are related to someone near the top of the organization. Those individuals do very well without ever having to learn a position. Also , new hires from college do much better than experienced hires.
Little to no advancement opportunities for experienced hires.
Pay in Bartlesville is much better than surrounding areas as the company has to pay a premium to get people to drive in from the Tulsa area. Benefits continue to decline as the company focuses on costs.
Don’t be surprised if Bartlesville jobs are outsourced sooner than later. Only thing stopping them now is the knowledge that a lot of management jobs will be outsourced as well.
Good luck to everyone!
Forced rankings went away a few years ago...
Reminds me of this person in IT 5 or 6 years ago who blew through millions of Capital $$$ and spending it on expenses. Didn't know the difference.
that forced ranking was all Mulva c-ap, along with splitting up the company at the worst possible time,
Just one incompetent accounting driven decision after another,
Glad you're happy where you're at!