Crossover is experiencing growing pains and doesn’t seem to be handling them very well. Some consistent problems I observed include:
- Disorganization: lack of oversight and communication, lack of coordination between departments. Teams, or leadership for that matter, often weren’t aware of what was going on outside their little bubble. My theory is that people were so used to doing their own thing in their own way (that scrappy startup mentality), that once the company got too big for that to work, they ended up with very little cohesion in direction and strategy among different areas of the company.
- Management Issues: track record of hiring managers who were inexperienced (or, in my personal experience, who didn't have good soft skills); supervisors overwhelmed with too much on their plate. Turnover was high for my particular team’s management. This makes me think the hiring/vetting process for higher-level team members needs some work.
- Poor Communication: For a company that emphasizes transparency, there was a serious lack of information-sharing, especially across different teams and departments, at Crossover. Not only that, but there were no established practices for much of anything, from resource management and accessibility to expectations around everyday collaboration and meetings.
