Pros
Everyone is friendly, welcoming and enjoys each others' company. It is clear that the company aspires to succeed given such massive change. There is a lot of institutional knowledge of legacy processes, systems and decisions which helps manage through this latest integration of Conagra's Private Brands organization. The C-Suite has, for the most part, changed in the last year, bringing in a lot of strong talent with a desire to win.
Cons
Top Heavy: No one is empowered to make decisions, whether it's as simple as product pricing or as personal and long-lasting as hiring and layoffs. No Clear Decision Rights: Who makes the call for critical decisions? The CEO? The GM? The Presidents? Finance? Sales? It seems to depend on the situation, and if something goes wrong, the blame is scattered like a buckshot across the rest of the organization. No Clear or Consistent Talent Management Process: The company is playing one giant game of Risk without stronger HR processes. The lack of consistency in promotions, laterals and hiring could set TreeHouse up for a lawsuit without strong documentation. Part of this inconsistency has to do with the lack of decision-rights: the CEO still makes HR decisions, often putting his favorites in assignments that they are ill-suited for. Cliques! If you aren't in the "club" then you aren't considered as valuable. A senior leader once said that TreeHouse values relationships over business performance, and that seems to be very true. Mismatched talent to roles: After the acquisition of the Conagra business, TreeHouse favored putting anyone in any open seat rather than looking at best person & best skill for the open roles. Now we have increased confusion, poor leader feedback, and no consistent approach to any kind of execution. No consistent leadership direction: It depends on the Division - it still feels like multiple companies with multiple cultures. Some use the newly created Centers of Excellence, some do not. As a result, some decisions are made without communication to the people or teams that are affected. We end up rehashing old decisions to fix bad execution instead of starting with a collaborative and open dialogue. It slows us down.
