For six or seven years, since the start of the SteinAwful administration, Target has been focused on all of the wrong things. Multi-billion dollars blunders, from Project Everest to Canada to outsourcing a huge portion of TTS to the horrible execution of the supply chain. Messes that are so bad that they only last a year or so, before being COMPLETELY reverse-engineered because they never worked right in the first place.
At the same time, layer up on layer upon layer of so-called "leaders" emerged - in large swaths not because of merit, but due to opportunistic power plays and endless coffee "status" politicking that essentially represented nothing more than running your own election campaign for either 1) more power, 2) more team members reporting to you, or 3) promotion.
Thusly, you could be a part of something that was internally a catastrophically broken process or function, then use it as an opportunity to build out a staff because the most "power savvy" way to address a problem at Target HQ is to throw people at the problem rather than actually fix the underlying root cause of the problem - and then, with the extra people now reporting to you - you're far better positioned to "status" yourself into favorability.
And when it comes to the #^@%!#$^# idiotic "talent discussions" - when these so-called "leaders" within your department render their judgment and opinions of everyone beneath them - regardless of whether or not they actually have ANYTHING to do with these folks - it's always those who are most closely involved in their election campaigns and spending their time managing upwards instead of actually delivering meaningful value of any kind, ever.
At Target HQ, there's MUCH to be said for the value of prolonging a problem for as long as possible because the "quick wins" are so trivial, pointless and generally free of meaningful substance. Probably the biggest irony here is this whole perception of being attached to "high profile, high visibility" projects as a way to garner favoritism with the so-called department "leaders" in the so-called "talent discussions."
I'd say Target Canada and Project Everest (Target.com) and Target Security (pre data breach) were pretty high profile projects, wouldn't you?
The shameful thing here is that a LOT of really good people will be so badly affected by the deeply misguided philosophies and operating models that have been instituted along the way. We're all going to pay a price for the horrible HQ approach of 2008-2014. Brian Cornell's dismantling is much needed - it's too bad that it's going to sink a lot of hard work and the dedication of good people. Hopefully, it will also sink a lot of the losers responsible for getting us here.
As to who will sink the Board of Directors - not ONE of whom has been held responsible for the billions of dollars down the drain - I think that's a battle that should be fought as well.