Watch Your Back - Vice President, Strategy Huge Employee Review

I asked a friend who is still at Huge how things were going: "You know that scene in the movie Airplane! where the flight attendant gets on the PA and says, 'I don't mean to alarm anyone, but does anyone onboard know how to fly a plane?' That's what working at Huge is like these days." So things haven't changed much, despite the 3 re-orgs in 1 year. - Leadership is political, cliquey and capricious: People are hired and fired at the whim of leadership, sometimes without even telling members of the team or even their managers. People just disappear. Yes, it's a sink or swim environment. But the problem is -- what if you think you're swimming but management thinks you're sinking? You won't be coached or told, you'll just be shoved out. If you're not in the right cliques, you're on the outside. The waaaaaay outside. - Questionable ethics: Simultaneously working on 2 or 3 competitor brands (but telling clients otherwise); being pressured into overbilling to reach targets; misleading interviewees about the state of the business; massively overselling solutions to vulnerable clients. - HR is a joke: Rude and arrogant to interviewees; bait & switch about jobs; inability to do basic HR functions; zero follow-through on issues or complaints, especially if they concern the male-dominated company leadership; glitzy new employees are hired despite past histories of sexual harassment. - They've lost their way: While the brand is still strong, this former product company lead by designers is now just an ad agency lead by account people. It has lost its distinctiveness, and much of the work looks pretty much the same. They haven't evolved much from the "user-centered design" philosphy that is now ubiquitous. I've once heard the CEO ask "Why can't we execute anything reliably?" Good question. Maybe ask the CE... oh... Survival tips: The recipe is simple -- sell like you've never sold before, and worm your way into the cliques that surround the CEO. Favorites gets paid and promoted at Huge, the rest are left to fight for scraps. Or as a former leader in the London office once told me: "Aaron thinks he's the Steve Jobs of marketing. Your job is to do everything possible to feed that thinking. Whatever you do -- do not challenge it!" Huge has earned a reputation for its toxic environment, that it burns and churns through its people, as it stumbles around in the dark, trying to figure out who it is. Unfortunately the cost of this dramatic lack of leadership and vision will not be paid by Huge's management or the IPG owners -- it will be paid by you and your career.