Microsoft Switzerland - Prehistoric managers still around. Customer understanding is poor, sellers do not work from the customer problem but purely focus on the next deal, evangelizing the next product without digging deep into the customers´ financial and resource capacity, requirements and priorities; without showing the right technological capabilities and respecting the long term strategy; the why gets lost. Politics rule. Higher management fails, focus is on revenue only, the magic spreadsheet that can be interpreted in many ways is the holy grale. Incapable, colleague-disabling sales and account managers with strong political skills will thrive even if no significant results were achieved by them nor their direct reports. Leaders lead industrial verticals without any experience in their assigned vertical, making the wrong choices of resources and priorities, even obstructing the folks who do know their industry in enabling their colleagues. Sales has the power but is limited in long term thinking, people management and own company model knowledge, delivery folks are without empowerment. There is too much fear and disrespect, fear of loosing the job, fear of being set out of an account even if no mistakes were made, fear is a very bad advisor and belongs to old-school management.
