Pros
Reasonably big player across a number of segments: education, research and professional development. A very different mix from other publishers who specialize in only one or two of segments. Traditionally run as separate businesses but will be a powerful combination if the company manages to get these businesses to work together. The potential for something great is there. Wiley family still active in the company. It’s clear that the recently retired chairman, Peter Wiley, cares about the benefit the company brings to the world. Members of the family are also very approachable and know what must be thousands of employees by their first name. Very different style from your typical media dynasty. Management is well-intentioned, or at least appears to be so. They hit the right notes, anyway. New CEO is a much better communicator than the last one. He has created a more compelling vision. He has a record for making tough choices -- in other words recognizing trade-offs are a key part of good strategy. The previous regime failed to acknowledge what wasn’t working, was poor at picking executive talent, was horribly indecisive, and defunded critical activities to fund (well, underfund) new initiatives. But at least they were aware of the external challenges facing the company. The regime before that had their head in the sand and wouldn’t react to a changing environment. So the new CEO that combines and awareness of the external environment, acknowledgement of our own problems, and a more compelling vision, is a welcome change. Very good at generating revenue in a challenging market. I have no idea how the sales team does it with an ever thinning product line and constant organizational change. And the new leadership is much better at setting targets that are realistic in the current environment. International and high-impact. For a multinational of its small size – only 5,000 – it touches the lives of a lot of people and has an active presence in many countries If you are an investor, over the short term Wiley is a great place to be. In addition to generating revenue, the company has been cutting costs and spending heavily on stock buybacks and spitting out larger dividends. This isn’t without serious long term affects, though, as covered under the cons. It’s a great place to learn how *not* to manage change. I’m not saying this to be sarcastic or mean. As you grow the course of your career into higher levels of management – whether in Wiley or somewhere else – examples of bad leadership and management can be just as instructive as good ones. I feel I’ve learned a lot about what *not* to do, be it communication, strategy, restructuring, setting accountability, talent management, etc.
Cons
While life at Wiley has the potential to get better, this is how it feels now: Low morale: Following numerous lay-offs, many of those who stayed yearn to get severance. I’ve encountered people throughout all levels of the company, most highly competent, that long to be let go, and envy those that have moved on to roles outside Wiley. This is a definite change from the past. You get the sense that nobody wants to be here (with the exception of higher-level executives). But people keep going through the motions, either out of habit or until something better comes along. Overwhelming sense of inertia: There is a growing feeling that Wiley can’t do anything right when it comes to technology. Despite ambitious executive recruitment and heavy spending, major client-facing platforms are mid-2000s level at best, while much of the company’s infrastructure is 90s or even earlier. You learn to ignore any pronouncements about future improvements, because we’ve seen deadlines missed repeatedly – not by months, but years while the final deliverable is always a pale reflection of the original vision. This failed investment in technology has had ripple effects, hiring freezes chief among them. Imagine being asked to deliver something new, that customers will love, with no technology or manpower investment. Or being asked to out-compete and build market share against very aggressive competitors with limp content acquisition plans. Or being asked to secure new business with a thinning product line sitting on outdated, crumbling platforms. And you know this situation won’t change for years to come. Some days I just sit at my desk, stare into the middle distance, and sigh. No room to grow: This has been discussed repeatedly in other reviews on this site. I see the problem less as “no room to move up” as “no room to learn new things.” Throughout the company there are people with over a decade of experience doing entry-level work because the company has been so tight-fisted in hiring support staff. Instead of working out in the field, talking to customers, people are fiddling with paperwork. People hesitate to take on new projects that might stretch their abilities, because they are already working overtime to keep up with a growing admin workload. Lack of meritocracy: While favoritism was always an issue at Wiley, recent restructurings have exacerbated the problem. Not a month goes by without a surprise termination of someone widely respected and the promotion of someone widely seen as a poor choice. Even more surprising given the failure of the previous leadership, groomed for years for reasons unobvious to the rest of the company. You really begin to question to judgment of top executives and the board. Another facet of this a certain “class” system that is becoming more evident. If you are at a high enough level, misbehavior and poor judgment that would get lower level people fired are tolerated and excused. Bad change management – Wiley can’t seem to get the speed of change right. Either it drags on, causing major disruption, or they move too quickly without considering possible pitfalls. I’m willing to chalk this up to organization learning to change, but often the way it’s handled creates unnecessary anxiety. Plans are characterized by “managed transparency,” where the leadership proclaims “there will be change, but we don’t know what it is. We are being transparent by letting you know we don’t know what it is. But whatever we decide, we will treat everybody with dignity and respect. ” Repeat that statement for the next six months. Then add whispers about a forthcoming announcement at the end of the month. Watch as the announcement deadline and more restated announcement deadlines pass by over the course of another three months. When the big announcement comes, it will almost certainly raise more questions than it answers, typically because it will only list the top line management, and the names of their newly formed silos. Then watch as the newly installed management team breaths a collective sigh of relief. If they are in a good-enough mood, they might even make a video! Skeptical of internal talent -- with the exception of a select anointed few, leadership at Wiley often demonstrates skepticism of the abilities of internal hires and tends to go with external candidates. I suspect a number of reasons for this. First is the bad track record the company has had with grooming Peter-principle successors who have flamed out. Second, as mentioned above, it is difficult for people to grow or learn new skills if they are burdened with busy-work. Third, management is likely aware of the poor job the company is doing at training and growing new talent. They make of show of hiring learning and development people in HR, and doing the occasional class, but development needs to happen at the coal-face between managers and employees or with new projects, yet many people having trouble just trying not to get sunk by their existing workloads. Forth, the past few restructurings have seen the forced departure of incredible talent. Either the company has no faith in ability of existing Wiley employees to grow, or doubts the company’s own ability to help them develop into new roles. Amid all this, it’s hard to ignore the irony of a self-proclaimed “ learning organization” not bothering to support colleagues’ learning and growth. This skepticism manifest in a number of other ways. For example, heavy reliance on consultants to tell management what people in the organization already know. Another, starving market-facing functions like editorial and sales of resources, while funding desk-based market research groups to “understand the voice of the customer.” Of course nothing can be done with the research they produce since the company isn’t willing to invest, and can’t invest effectively. And only recently have they started rolling out a CRM so that client-facing roles can feed back important information. This is after discussing the idea for over a decade and rolling out in fairly limited fashion due to costs. Double-speak – so the above is one example: a learning organization, with plenty of learning solutions and tools, not bothering to eat its own dogfood and grow employees’ careers. There are others. Talk about breaking down silos while creating new ones in certain businesses or geographies. Approving strategic plans, but then not funding those plans with headcounts or other investment (the CEO recently acknowledged this is a problem, which was good to see). Questions about the future: the company is trying to change its trajectory but in the process they have depleted the content pipeline and generated little return on their technology investment. Management appears to go through successive restructurings to simply buy time – a slight-of-hand shell game where different strategic solutions are proposed to solve Wiley’s problems, when it’s really always been execution that is Wiley’s weakness.