Pros
Many aspects of the culture are great - people generally have a good work-life balance, people very much value commitment to family and their children, and company has a rich legacy of creative innovative thinkers that have built an internationally recognized brand that spans across all ages. I am inspired by the company's endless ability to re-invent its brands, to breathe life into what could have been fad-based toys and really create icons out of them.
Cons
Mattel lacks an organizational structure that functions well enough for it to actually focus on its business and competitiveness in the marketplace. Constant re-orgs and shifts in reporting lines hamper the business' ability to actually focus on productivity and efficiency in its operations. These types of structural changes occur with such rapidity that HR (and headcount/bandwidth for that matter) can't keep up. This makes for great opportunities shifting from group to group for promotion and career advancement, but poor opportunities if you decide you like where you are and think about promoting within. And as referenced in my title...Mattel is confused. Confused about what it wants (which way should our brands be moving? How do we want them portrayed?) how best to get there (Should we add more levels to the matrix? Yes, that will certainly add additional clarity!) to the point at which you feel like the attention span of company (if portrayed metaphorically) might actually resemble the 5 year old attention span of the children who play with its toys.