Pros
The people at DR Horton are an amazing group of individuals who strive each and every day to work in a team-oriented environment. These highly intelligent individuals do not walk into the office each day to execute "their" tasks and then clock out for the day. They come into work each day, they efficiently execute their core responsibilities... and even more importantly, they have the drive to look further past their own cubicle or desk, past their own department and take in what the entire team is doing around them. While each department has a set of core responsibilities that they are held accountable for, it is not a strange thing to see individuals from differing departments meeting together in an effort to share their knowledge of their respective departments in order to see if there is any overlap in duties and if a process could be tweaked to equally benefit both departments, as well as the organization as a whole. These are some of the most able individuals I have ever had the opportunity to work with and I can't express enough how nice it was to be able to seek advice on an issue interdepartmentally.
Cons
While many of the individuals referenced in the above question are working hard (VERY hard) each and every day, their progress is almost always stifled at the point where their ideas are to be presented to management. This is the biggest roadblock to this organization's success. All high-impact decisions are made by a group of 5 people behind closed doors. Those five individuals do not even represent each of the company's departments. So they've got 5 managers in one office every Tuesday that are making decisions that will greatly impact the day-to-day work life for every department within the company, and yet, they have no one in those meetings to provide valuable input from the Closing Department, the Title Company, or the Mortgage Company. It's a rat race. They come out of these meetings every Tuesday afternoon with the "new" game plan and the "new" way of doing things; which presents two problems: 1. We were not a part of the meeting, so there was no one available to let management know what tactics ARE working and what things AREN'T working. 2. The teams are unable to feel a sense of accomplishment because the "game plan" changes every week. The biggest con for this company overall has to do with the fact that two of the top managers in the division left, leaving two of the most important roles within the company vacant. To remedy this problem, a split second decision was made to just push two other individuals into those two extremely important roles even with the understanding that one of the replacements had absolutely no experience in the home building industry whatsoever, and neither of the replacements had the level of managerial experience necessary to take on those two incredibly important roles. I can say that one of them has stepped up and proven themselves as highly capable in their new role... During my time with the company I personally watched this individual flourish right in front of my eyes... he/she is definitely going places. As for the other individual... I really wish them the best and I hope that the next few months will bring him/her a wealth of newfound knowledge on items such as, Emotional Intelligence, Social Awareness, Loan Program Guidelines and an overall bootcamp in what it means to work with a home builder.
