3M and its unique culture - Essay Example

3M and its unique culture Attributes of 3M’s unique culture and the benefits to the company 3M Company is the largest manufacturer in Minnesota and is ranked as the 110th largest U.S. Company. Some of the attributes that contributed to its success are its ability to identify customer needs and provide pioneering innovative solutions to meet these needs. The company is consistently developing new products that is set up with inter-actions with customers and at the same time creating a culture that promotes employee pride and well-being, encourages integrity, and supporting social and environment development.

Systems established to institutionalize this culture among employees 3M has set aside a budget that exceeds $1 billion annually for research and development to support innovation. 3M allowed employees to do their work in their own way. The management believed that as their business expands, it becomes necessary to delegate responsibilities to workers and to encourage them to exercise their initiatives. To date, 3M has over 50,000 products that were developed through constant research and innovation.

Some well known products are the sandpaper, Scotch tape, Scotchguard fabric protector, Post-it Notes, O-CelO sponges, asthma inhalers, medical and dental adhesives, and plastic sheeting. Drawbacks on such culture. In allowing employees to experiment on their ideas, failures and mistakes cannot be avoided. But when this happens, 3M does not punish the employees because by doing so, initiatives of personnel are dampened; and they consider people with initiatives important in the organization in order to grow.

Drawbacks also consist of time and expense. R & D scientists believed on the “patient money philosophy and things that are worth working for requires technological patience that sometimes keep people working on it for as long as twenty years if needed. In order to slim the potentials of failure, 3M has created an Audit Team that looks on the probability of success of a product. The Audit Team has to provide a peer review, technical audit and the strength and weaknesses of the product development so that a project will receive the necessary funding it needs in the development.

Reference Hill, Charles W. Case 28. 3M in 2006. Section B. Corporate Level Cases. Domestic & Global. University of Washington