I’ve been around long enough to have seen some very popular and famous companies come and go, be on the way out, or be a shadow of what they once were. Today there is a growing cemetery of organizations that were once the envy of their competitors and where many wanted to work. The following highlights where we’ve come from organizationally, how some continue to repeat mistakes of the past, and how today’s workforce has different expectations. Repeating past behaviors and expecting different results has been described as insanity.

Once Upon a Time

The following are some organizations that were great once and have either disappeared or are a shadow of themselves today.

1. One I consider the father of Walmart and perhaps grandfather of Amazon is Sears. At one time, Sears had over 3500 stores nationwide, today they stand at 8. There was a time when families would receive by mail the big and hefty Sears catalog. I remember when I read that they were cancelling this going forward that this was the beginning of the end of Sears as I knew it.

2. Blockbuster, who seemed to have a video store on every corner and had over 9000 stores nationwide, today has one in Oregon, which I guess serves as a museum. This business was the precursor to Netflix. As the story goes, there was talk of Blockbuster purchasing Netflix, but that was not deemed as plausible or smart. So they passed on it and as the saying goes, the rest is history.

3. In the early 2000s, there was a book that hit the shelves titled “Good to Great”. This book highlighted backed by research the best companies in the world that others should consider modeling after. The research consisted of reviewing over 1400 companies and their performance over 40 years. The eleven selected were considered by the author and researchers to be the ones to watch. One of those companies was Circuit City. The present state of Circuit City is that it declared bankruptcy and no longer exists. Two of the other companies on the list, Fannie Mae and Pitney Bowes have been in serious decline for some time.

4. Last is General Electric or GE. Jack Welch was a popular CEO at the time, who had numerous books written on him with the context and background of great leadership. Back then GE was known to be one of the largest in the world with a very positive reputation. However, like everything, not all is what it seems.

Jack Welch was also labeled “Neutron Jack” because he’d go into small towns where there were underperforming GE manufacturing facilities and shut them down. In turn, many workers and their family’s lives were turned upside down and impacted by now being unemployed. In addition, Jack Welch and GE were credited with Rank and Stack. In other words, managers would assess their workers and rank them from top to worst performer and push 10% of their workers out the door. Not exactly a model citizen for creating a psychologically safe environment and healthy organizational culture.

This is probably why a book Mr. Welch would not have approved of was recently written “The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America – and How to Undue his Legacy”. GE did very well under Welch and obviously so did he well financially. But unfortunately with all the money he made, he did not take any with him when he passed away.

This just summarizes some of the highlights of what some corporations have taken their workforce through and what the baby boomers worked through and tried to survive while providing for their families.

State of Work Today-History Repeats Itself

Today’s big and popular organizations include companies such as Walmart, Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Meta, and others. But are some of these are repeating the practices of before? Let’s take a deeper look.

For starters, several of these organizations had comprehensive and progressive DEI practices. They have now backed away from these practices due to the political changing winds and who is now in the White House. They back away from these even though there is extensive research on the moral reasons to capitalize on the changing demographics. In addition, there has been extensive research and books highlighting the bottom line impact of having a diverse team or diverse team of executives.

Organizations backtracking from their DEI initiatives do not seem to be making the best strategic move when their consumers and workforce are growing increasingly diverse. Today we have an aging baby boomer population and a growing workforce of those 75 and older to a growing younger more diverse, particularly Latino, Asian, and African American workforce.

There is an also increasing approach by some organizations to implement practices from the past. The following are some examples.

1. In 2013 Microsoft did away with Rank and Stack and seemed to be glad that it did. Now in 2025 under the guise of Performance Management, they seemed to be adapting it again. If you listen to their CEO, it is all about raising the bar and performance. Yet some of its critics claim it is in the new version of Rank and Stack. We’ll see how this plays out.

2. Amazon’s founder and former CEO seems to believe that long-term employment leads to mediocrity. Hence, Amazon prefers to force workers out of the organization every three years. This sort of contradicts what I have read that the replacement rate of a worker is 150% of their salary and can go up to 400% depending on the level and experience of the employee. There are articles and videos highlighting Amazon’s push for voluntary turnover enabled by creating a high-pressure and stressful work environment. The exact opposite of what today’s workforce is looking for.

In addition, today’s increasing skills shortage and constant push for new workers seems to be catching up with Amazon. As now an internal memo seems to highlight that there are concerns as to where to get a replacement workforce, especially in large distribution centers once they’ve pushed so many out over time. You might say that Amazon is gaining a negative reputation as a workplace, the opposite of what many strive for today, to be known as a Great Place to Work.

3. Meta is another one that is busy making changes. Recently Zuckerberg told employees that he was raising the bar on performance management (sound familiar). Meta laid off 3600 employees for poor performance after many had previously received positive reviews (hmmm…) in their “year of efficiency”. Since 2020 they have cut 35,000 employees. Something that leads to lowering morale, increased disengagement, and reduced psychological safety.

These actions remind me of the terms of the past and unfortunately still today of downsizing, rightsizing, re-engineering, and outsourcing (in other words something ending in “ing”, which is not good for the workforce). The opposite I have heard is empowerment, engagement, and workplace experience (interestingly something starting with E and has positive connotations for the workforce).

In addition, these organizations along with others are also facing the Return-to-Office (RTO) backlash. The pandemic forced organizations to have large segments (when possible) work from home. Now there is a big push for those in Amazon offices, MS, Apple, Google, and government employees among many others to have their workforce back in the office.

Some executives have used organizational culture as an excuse as to why it’s important to have workers back in the workplace. Yet as I read once on LinkedIn, organizational culture was never about a building.