For all the years I have been working here, I have had one manager who was great to the employees and who behaved very professionally. I believe that we had the most enthusiasm for work back then, both me and my colleagues. That manager, however, lasted a very short time. It was never clear to me why they got rid of him so quickly, but I guess Ford doesn't want good managers either? Perhaps they pose a problem to them?
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Ford does not reward or promote based on performance or unfortunately even worse, one’s ability to lead and built a team. Ford rewards for compliance with the system and the system consists of the handful of executives truly calling the shots, many who today are incompetent and were promoted to their roles for questionable reasons. There used to be a mantra at Ford, “debate, decide, deliver.” That culture is long gone.
The problem is the road upward is not based upon your true job performance and how you treat your subordinates and peers. I lost count of the number of times an LL5 instructed LL6 team to sabotage/sandbag a project to make his/her counterparts look bad- then they take over the project and magically save the day. I have also lost count of the number of times I was told to use devious/nefarious methods to get work done- for example verbally promise OT pay/ comptime off for weeks of 100 workdays by GSRs, and then forget the conversations and claim they have no OT/comptime.
I do remember every single time an LL5 allowed/encouraged true reward for merit - as those instances were so rare.
To work at Ford as an LL6, if you want to remain at Ford — you have to compartmentalize and rationalize treating others badly. There is no reward for being a good supervisor/manager at Ford. It eats away at the good humans daily, the rest just stomp on coworkers throats to get ahead. Eventually others return the favor.
I think this is common in any big corporation. I have had some very good managers and some very bad ones. The question you ask yourself sometimes is it worth it? Ford is pretty much a family run business. For an outsider that is a tough nut to crack. That is when you have a manger ask themselves is this worth it?
If you have been around for any period of time you would know there are numerous reasons for managers to move from position to position. It is not always based on getting along with their subordinates.