Pros
The company allows for the independent development of career, career changes, and even for lateral movement with no associated stigma. If you are a performer you can write your own career path. Rapid advancement is possible in certain parts of the organization as long as you learn how to demonstrate the value you create. The retail side of the business (Angel Soft, Dixie, Brawny, etc) is great for high performers, workaholics, and for people who need 'rules' to live and guide their decisions. What the company lacks in compensation, they try to remedy with freedom of career development. GP is chock full of talented people who seek to treat each other with high levels of respect and courtesy. Overall, people tend to work well together - at least on the surface. It is a very 'polite' organization. Senior management (President -FG, CMO- DB, CFO) are open and very approachable. They are also GREAT coaches. If you perform, demonstrate the value you create, ensure that senior management knows who you are, know the value you create, and seek to develop those relationships by being humble and accepting coaching, you can climb quickly. Also, in my opinion, GP has fantastic values system and daily use of it in the retail organization.
Cons
Extremely insular, bureaucratic, paranoid of lawsuits, stringent, sometimes cheap, too bogged down in focus on MBM jargon and frameworks, and seriously old school. If you need to work for a company that seeks to be in the #1 market position, this company is not for you. In my opinion, executive management (CEO, COO) is simply unwilling to spend the marketing dollars necessary to be #1 in any of their lines of business or to aggressively attack new businesses in some cases. As long as they make a certain level of profit, they are satisfied with the #2, #3 or even #4 position in the market. So, if moving fast and beating the competition is important, go to a different company. To be fair, there are many incredibly talented change agents (such as the CMO of the Retail organization) working VERY HARD to make a difference but the bureaucratic, old school machine slows everything down during a time when they need to be more nimble. The challenge culture can be misused and abused to slow things down and basic must-dos of marketing are constantly challenged. In my view, this is unnecessary and tiresome. One can do everything the market knows to be sound and someone with no expertise will challenge you to explain -- basically teach them -- every inch of a concept you and other successful companies employ on a daily basis in the real world.
