Internal View of Navistar Product Development
Pros
Working at Navistar Product Development in the year 2012 is an incredible wealth of experience. You can learn something from anyone, whether for good or bad. I find it hard to believe that a person could witness poor management on a grander scale, or as rapidly, as we can at Navistar today. There are so many ways to fail, demotivate people, and concentrate on short term internal victories rather than any kind of long term strategy. This can be an excellent learning experience, which can only lead to success in future roles at other companies.
Cons
Working at Navistar Product Development in the year 2012 is not something most of us are doing as part of a long term career anymore. There are so many stories of various diferent leaders who see their employees as nothing more than a number on a paper. They predicted in 2009 that they'd have 20% retention when they moved PD to Lisle, IL from Fort Wayne, IN. In reality it isn't anywhere near 20%. Navistar went out and hired some talented and completely inexperienced people and replaced their truck PD workforce almost wholesale. They did not, of course, acknowledge this in the Plan. As such they planned to continue full-speed ahead on numerous projects, most of which hit the wall this past summer due to lack of trained staff and lack of functional validation facilities. However the culture does not permit acknowledging issues or mistakes, so we continue on, and we blame those below us for these failures. See also Navistar's emissions strategy, any Google search should help make the issue clear here. If they pull through this enormous challenge they're in the middle of, they may again become great. They are not great now and won't be anytime soon.
