Pros
• Nice central location but this is due to change • There are some very nice, friendly people. • There’s a very finite amount of real talent who are great at what they do. • The development board (a group of workers/employees) try to do some good things to improve the culture such as wellness week. • You can find yourself in a role with more responsibility and a broader remit than other larger firms. • Free breakfast • It’s a place worth joining if you: a) Don’t have other employment options b) Don’t mind working in an environment that accepts mediocrity & perpetuates ambiguity but where pressure is limited. c) Don’t really need a role model, mentor or anyone to learn from / you’ve trained already. d) Have limited to no ambition or you’re cool with putting your career on hold to dawdle along like some kind of archaic tortoise • This being said, you can learn a lot here… unfortunately all of your lessons will be in how not to lead a company & run a business but they are lessons nevertheless.
Cons
Where to start… • CEO exhibits weak leadership and has delivered sub-par business performance. Her pay packet is disappointing as so many good people here are underpaid. • The above & the CEO’s seemingly infallible position with the board has created a blame (& brown nose) culture. It has resulted in a toxic layer of ego centric leaders across the business who are not genuine or sincere. Many of these specialise in spin, do not practice what they preach and then create complete strategic & operational misalignment. This misalignment is one of the reasons why your experience here can vary so greatly manager to manager / department to department. • Several management/leadership members are/were proof to a CEO that a) It’s mistake to hire your mates or b) that the old guard (who are just looking to pick up a pay check/pension) are killing innovation and entrepreneurial-ism in your business. • The structure of the business and leadership team has also created this insane amount of distance between those who think they run the place and those who actually do the heavy lifting. • Leadership is so far removed that when you also consider their combined low levels of EQ + common courtesy/respect, their superiority complexes/egos, certain people’s ageist attitude toward more junior staff and general lack of actual domain/market/customer knowledge… 75% of them lose any form or credibility… even those who claim to have met every CMO going (because guess what?… almost every CMO is completely removed from what is actually going on at their own business too) • Leadership inadequacies have induced a bully-like culture in middle mgmt. where common sense does not prevail, where people don’t lead by example and where they become yes men or women for people higher up. There’s also a ton of people who are managers simply because they stuck around and who are clinging onto their jobs out of convenience or to stay in their comfort zone. This has created lots of selfish jobsworths which isn’t a whole load of fun. • What’s actually quite funny is that those who think they run the place, in reality, don’t. The company is finance-led. A function that has some talented people in it but also a bunch of people with no business or customer acumen. • Unfortunately, finance have had to induce insane levels of bureaucracy due business performance, their complete lack of trust in the commercial teams and in clients. This hasn’t created a great atmosphere, it is also killing any form of speed & agility, a typical strength of a small business. • The now incredibly tight commercial finance controls are really ironic as I’ve never worked anywhere that has wasted and misspent so much. From awful acquisitions, bad tech/tech that is so poorly implemented (that it has no business benefit) through to some awful, pointless new branding or spend on products that the market doesn’t want/need – this place is a textbook case of doing things on a budget and a textbook case of whoever shouts loudest and whoever needs to busy themselves the most, unfortunately wins on the budget front. • A final thing I’d say is, whatever you do, don’t openly challenge the business or individuals on any of the above. Don’t even try to engage anyone in some healthy debate, this company isn’t interested and doing this will get you managed out (something this company hasn’t done very well either), not listened to or you’ll just be flagged as someone difficult who needs to be reminded of their place which if you work in sales, content or delivery/support (and not management) is one of the subservient children on the playground that should aim to please the SLT. • Centaur isn’t ready to confront the facts or ready to be run in an objective way. Like many of its staff, it simply wants to coast in mediocrity not matter what story the SLT spin.