For those that work at Gartner they know that if you are put on a plan for success then that means you are being quietly being shown the door. It’s impossible to complete that formal program under the current economic environment. There is a push from leadership to meet metrics, but how can anyone do that when Gartner consulting has a terrible pipeline at the moment and an even worse one going into 2026. Things will get better but they will get much worse before that. Leadership is sitting on their thrones making impossible demands of staff whilst taking no accountability and providing no support to the people who have dedicated themselves to providing exceptional client work. I wish Gartner would stop pretending that things are great and be transparent and let people know that there are more layoffs to come. So disappointed at the company. They are ruthless.
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@OP When management is solely interested in maintaining their ecosystem of like-minded individuals who they recruit, coach/mould and promote, what the company will get over time is bureaucracy. With the years, the same management does everything to ensure this bureaucracy survives and serves them.
This bureaucracy often thrives and goes unnoticed and rarely needs change because the core business remains solid and the self-praise, coercive social engineering and recycled ideas can continue.
However, when there is a shock in the market leading to potentially an existential crisis to the company, the same Yes people who have been managing their "brands" upwards are now pointing their fingers to their reports. This happens in cycles because clearly it is not the first time that Gartner is going through layoffs.
So what happens in such an environment is that associates start coming into to the office every day thinking about how to serve the bureaucracy to get ahead rather than their clients, products, tasks etc so that the company, albeit slowly, gets better.
People, globally, are tired of being treated like cogs. When will the market and companies finally grow tired of bureaucrats disguised as managers, directors, VPs etc?
I can assure you, this happens in Services EMEA too, not only Sales.
Whoever you are, if you are on this Plan and end up failing it, trust me, it's not you. You probably are amazing and any business would love to have you.
They have a terrible pipeline because their solutions to client problems, leadership and delivery quality is poor.