robjam.es

Today is my last day at Optus. I started here just shy of 3 months ago, and decided to leave to start an exciting new role within a small organisation in Freight & Logistics (more to come on that later). It was my latest foray back in a large organisation, and I have to admit, I am pretty sure I prefer working with smaller organisations and startups.

But in general, I must say, I have enjoyed my time here and believe that Optus is probably one of the better large organisations I have been with. But now that I don’t work for the organisation any longer I have some positive and negative things that are worth sharing.

First the positive; Optus’s engagement of their staff is really good. There is lots of activity and lots of (non-business) communication that goes on. Every level is catered for, if you want to do charity work or leadership, or just want to be part of a social group. There is lots of activities in that space. Senior leadership and management is quite visionary and passionate for innovation and challenge the competition. But this is stifled by middle management and heavy processes (see below). Finally, great facilities. Optus have spent a fortune on their campus in Maquarie Park, and its a good one. Lots of outdoor space and sunshine, big open workplans, and lots of cafes, parks, sporting acivities and an on-site gym. But I think the staff don’t exploit this enough. How many times have I been in a stuffy meeting room, wishing we could go outside in the sunshine; we have wireless and lots of tables and chairs. We should be using it.

On to the negatives. One word, ACRONYMS!!! They are absolutely deadly here and have an uncanny ability to slow everything down when you are a new starter. I remember the day that I started here, before I got to work, I was super charged, motivated and ready to take on my role head on. By the time the day was out, I was demoralized, beaten and lost total confidence of being able to take on anything meaningful within a short period of time. For the first month, I felt like I was learning a foreign language. If you can imagine how confident you would be in a country where you didn’t speak the tongue, that’s how I felt.

Optus should be a hotbed of innovation. There are smart people with smart ideas that are being pushed back by middle management with alternate agendas and heavy weight processes that take forever to push any kind of progress through at a rate faster than that of molasses expanding! Every initiative has to have revenue benefits attached (which is understandable), but there should be greater opportunity for R&D projects, and small skunkworks teams to innovate and disrupt the industry. The capability and willingness is there, but the culture pulls this back.

I don’t know if anyone from Optus is going to read this, and although I have focused on the negatives, I still think its a great place to work and there is a real opportunity to escape the black hole that they are going down – turning into the other monolithic Telco that they despise.