Anybody else noticed that most of the people who've been hired in the past ten years fall into the "do what I'm told, and nothing more" category? Raising questions, throwing out ideas, showing initiative is out of the question, and this used to be what propelled Intel ahead of others. No wonder we are failing as a company if this is the kind of people we are hiring...
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Sadly, it's far too often that people just agree with whatever they think their bosses want to hear, even when they know that it's a boondoggle.
How many doomed projects are green-lighted (and promising ones not even considered) because no one will speak up? Much safer just to nod approval and parrot the party line than to provide an honest, well-supported opinion.
Witnessed a guy once who came to his boss’s office several times a week. Didn‘t even ask „Do you have some time?“ or anything like that, but just sat next to his boss and started blabbing about everything that is wrong with Intel. Of course, whenever his boss tried to actually give him an action point to help fix something, he refused. And most of the stuff he whined about was anyway outside his bosses sphere of influence.
It‘s people like that who create inefficency by wasting people‘s time with complaining. People who know exactly what the problems are, but have no interest in becoming part of the solution. And if they are let go, they complain that they are not allowed to speak their mind. But the team‘s productivity increases without people like that.
I have never seen anyone being fired for speaking their minds. But I have seen people who were let go for spending 50% of their work time with pointless whining and complaining. And then they come here and whine and complain.
It's not that they aren't asking questions. Intel has just stopped hiring obnoxious a-holes without soft skills who think that seeing a problem in everything is in any way adding value to the company.
Thinking you are smarter than everyone else and going on and on about the same old nonsense is not the same as constructive criticism. You are not being singled out at Focal for being a "free thinker" but for being an unbearable a-hole who is creating a toxic atmosphere in your team.
As the posters below clearly exemplify, the problem is Intel's broken culture that squashes innovation. Those RCGs with initiative and skills quickly leave or are pushed out by the brutality of the system. Those that stay get their initiative beaten out of them for the sake of a good Focal result and become one more drone in the legion of brown nosers and a$$ kissers.
I have not met one VP, PE or SLM that listens and was rewarded.
WTF would the new blood speak up and offering any innovation, you will be singled out at focal if you do!
"Raising questions, throwing out ideas, showing initiative"
hmm.. sounds like a good way to get exited these days.
Intel use to ask the worker bees for improvements in the process knowing that the people in the front lines would have ideas for improvements. The past 10 years Intel has their PHD book worms to solve problems from their cubes instead of the foot soldiers. Then management shoves it down the throats of employees without any input. They wonder why they are screwed?