There are several poor managers at all levels of the organization including the top local leadership. There is a lot of talk about improving culture and becoming a premier place to work. However, when under pressure, there is a tendency to revert to an old school command and control style where you just do what your manager directs you to do and don't dare ask any questions. It is also easy to see favoritism among many of the managers. If the top managers view someone positively, it doesn't really matter how much they contribute. However,if the top management develops a negative viewpoint of a person, there isn't much that can be done to change that.
If you are lucky enough to have a good boss, then it can be a decent place to work. If you are unlucky and have a boss that is working on their next promotion while grinding their team into the ground, it's not such a nice place to work and I have had both types of bosses.
The company has also made a practice of going outside of the organization to fill positions that in the past would be filled by promotion from within. I understand it's a good idea to bring in new thinking but more and more of the upper management know nothing about our products. It also takes way too long to fill some of these positions, especially in the HR department. I wonder just how far a person can go if they worked at Bridgestone all of their career since so many top jobs are going to people from the outside.
