A pattern and practice of actively promoting and hiring incompetent, ineffective managers and leaders.
Despite significant talk about nurturing talent and promoting from within, Moody's often hires from outside the company for managerial & leadership roles, bringing in new staff lacking core competencies and skillsets to do the actual job. The key thread between those hired externally to lead teams -- as well as those who are promoted from within to lead teams -- is the ability to effectively “manage up” to leadership/play politics. By extension, if you don’t play politics well and dare speak truth to power, your tenure at Moody’s will be short-lived. One’s actual ability to effectively lead teams and offer an honest assessment of the business environment is relegated to the bottom of the consideration set in terms of value to the firm.
So long as the company’s top brass are receiving sufficient buttering up, however, they fail to question how core departments & functions are breaking down; why morale is so low; the reasons behind wholesale departmental turnover; etc.
Often, these same department leaders are charged with developing and implementing new processes and protocols, even as they lack a fundamental understanding of the work flows & impact to other functions & internal stakeholders (processes are often dreamed up with zero input and insight from these same stakeholders). And when the new processes prove to be fatally flawed (often misaligned to current state of the business and/or do not allow for appropriate phasing or transition), the department leaders double down on the ineffective process, rather than allowing for failure and recalibration to give it a chance to succeed.
In response to the above critique, company leadership may well point to its annual employee survey as the method to gather these insights. However, I can attest that the results are often downplayed or messaged as the fault laying at the employee level (e.g. 'team is not coping well with change or department reorg’), and the teams that complete the surveys don’t get to see the full results. This lack of full transparency is disrespectful to employees who take the time to fill it out; it also ensures that there is no accountability from the managers/leaders creating the issues and thus no impetus to change direction.
There was a once a point where Moody’s was a well-run, thoughtful organization – but that time has passed, and suggest you consider other firms to launch or build your financial services career.
