The root cause of the revenue loss started under mcnerney when he slashed research. However, 3M had a lot of solid products in the labs before mcnerney could really damage the R and D. Buckley tried to refocus and reinvest but by then the board was mostly Jimmy's cronies and refused to invest because it lived off of quarterly earnings goals. Inge's biggest damage was not fixing up the mission of innovation and borrowing billions for buybacks when he could have invested it in the labs. Buckley saw the problem earlier and was able to acquire some assets, but alas he bought the infamous aearo.
Mike is a peter principle posterchild. Probably shouldn't have even made the level below his but Inge saw something in him that wasn't there and now WS knows the goose is cooked.
The organic growth sans acquisitions has been abysmal for over 10 years. At least Desi knew not to ki-l off research spending to placate WS obsession with meeting quarterly earnings estimates.
The same thing happened at dupont to the point they had to merge with dow and realign the businesses. People need to tell WS if you want long-term growth than stay with the old 3M model that worked for 100 years.
Sadly, I don't see a McKnight either inside or outside of the company to save what's left.