Culture at ISI

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Anonymous

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How is the Culture, heard stories, but never can tell if they're true, supposedly it was pretty bad culture a few years ago. Is it true?


How is the Company's culture as it has become larger?
 






In some ways it's worse. They preach about how you need specialty people to develop companies through growth. In other words, you need this guy to get to $100M in sales. Then, you need this guy to get you to $500M and so on. Problem is, they still have the same group of people running the show instead of bringing in actual heavy hitters for the $1B sales business.
Culturally, they are a bunch of know it all bullies, who use unethical tactics to bring about results (results meaning anything they have for goal, not just sales). The high turnover should be the ultimate clue as to how they are as a culture. They are unequipped to handle the changing face of thier business and not willing to adjust to change.

On a local level, it's even worse. Managers are over worked and it leads to scare tactics and "Gotcha!" sales management. Look at the number of open territories. Law of diminishing return.
 


















I have never been scared by a sales manager or boss in my entire working career. So saying managers lead with fear, scare tactics, etc make no sense to me. What is it that makes the management so bad...are they constantly doing ride alongs? Still a solo Field Sales jobs right?

I was contacted about an expansion territory. Trying to find out what he scoop is here. Territory much larger than the typical CSR gig. Not clear on what happens "when" I start gaining share in this large territory what the plan is.

No interview yet, but expecting one soon. Any tips on what to ask here.
 












They do CONSTANT ride-alongs, like 1-2 per week depending on what is going on in your territory. When you are not being berated about sub-par performance, they are forcing you into role plays in between bites of your 5 minute lunch break which is considered
"their time" and not yours. When you are not role playing or being shit on during a ride along, you will probably be on a conference call. Most at 6:00am no less. The ones that are not hosted before sun-up are generally hosted at 5:30 or 6pm and mainly consist of threats and name calling "loser, bad fit for this team and questioning of the "belief system" are the main terms thrown around. Expansion territory is code for, "we will give you the worst accounts that no one else could get a foot hold in and let some poor other kicked puppy take some of the gravy accounts for a change." This place sucks, they are by and large horrible people and will without a doubt de-rail your career and most likely your life. This may sound like hating, but I am trying to do you a favor. It is not worth the money or the toll on your soul that it will surely take.
 






Depending on where in the country you are, the culture can be better or worse, depending on who your local leadership is. The bottom line is that the managers have only 3 to 4 direct reports so they do not have enough to do. That results in them riding your ass all the time about the same stuff, which is what their manager is riding them about, and so on. The only people who have TOO MUCH to do are the reps- it can be really hard if you have a family and actually want to live a life outside of work. Though reps used to make a ton of money, they are now cutting territories way down and calling it expansion but really it's cutting everyone's paychecks in half. People are less inclined to put up with large amounts of bullshit since their pay is being cut.
 






Most if not all of the rumors you hear about ISI are true. ISI has worked very hard to earn the reputation that it deserves. It has always been challenging place to work, but over the last 2+ years it has become miserable. I was a CSR for over 5 (which made me a fossil) years and the ride had to come to an end before all the things that are truly important in my life were damaged beyond repair. In my 5 years I had 8 different CSM's, all of which were demoted, fired or quit. Obviously making the choice for me to go into management there an easy one. If you choose to not express that you would like to be a manager, start the stopwatch. CSM's are directly evaluated on the number of people under them they "develop" and promote. Ultimately making you now, useless to that CSM. Every new CSM wants a team full of people willing to sacrifice everything to move up a level. Which does wonders for your relationships in your accounts? You are not the first rep they've seen nor will you be their last. Your job will be used as leverage the moment you start trending below your quota whether you achieve quota or not. Three day ride alongs that begin at 6am and end well after 6pm are routine and will all claim they are not micromanagers. I can best describe the ride along as a three day interrogation in which the terms, "belief system", "Un-coachable", and my personal favorite, "professional maturity" will be used describe why you are not succeeding by Intuitive's standards. All these terms were used to describe reps of the year for those who think it was just me. This ride along will ultimately be followed up with a field ride report letter that your CSD and AVP are copied in on and it is filled with paragraph after paragraph of negative criticism on how you run your territory, or whatever your CSM feels will make them look like they are desperately trying to save your career and make you a better CSR... even if they have never done your job. If you are able to meet or exceed your increasingly unrealistic quota, you will receive no sincere thank you from anyone. You will, however, be rewarded with a 20-30% increase in your next quota and the thankless process will start all over again. This pressure forces everyone to sandbag cases to make sure that they do not go over quota by too much and it also forces cases to be made up just to make quota. Simple as that. That is how you survive. The only one who truly cares about your survival is you. While there are extremely talented sales professionals within Intuitive, the majority are never there long. They are replaced by people who are only out to climb the corporate ladder as quickly as possible. People that follow orders without question from someone one level higher no matter how ridiculous and blatantly useless the request is. So to all of you who are looking to get in, take it from someone who survived longer than most, it isn't worth it. I promise. Anyone with more than 4 years experience at ISI who feels different, I would love to hear from you!! To my fellow CSR's who are still going to bed each night with a pit in their stomachs, wondering how they are supposed to train 3 GYN's per quarter when the only GYN's left in your territory you wouldn't let touch you with a Qtip let alone a knife, there is life outside of ISI! It is sweet I assure you. So let ISI implode on its own, get out while you still have a spouse that loves you, kids that know you and a soul you haven't sold.

Wow that felt good!
 






The above post may be the most realistic description of a company/job on this site.

I was at Intuitive for 4 years, and couldn't agree more.

Funny thing is, the managers who state or ask all that BS, "uncoachable" "has your belief system changed?" and write damning emails about how you do your job, but have never done the job themselves, are the same people who thought you were such a terrific rep the quarter before when you blew out your number. They just sell out to hold on to their compensation that they know they don't deserve and couldn't make any where else.

This is not a place successful people who care about their families and careers should go to, there are many better companies and positions that treat their sales professionals with respect and to sincere leadership.
 






I checked directly wi the company HR For the record the turnover is in the mid teens. Prior to 2005 it was much higher. As down on the culture as many here are, the fact is they are doubling in size every year. This year 175 salespeople will want to be part of this company and have a different opinion.
 






Dear Robo1, aka Post #9,

You just described my job to the tee! Are you sure you don't have a recorder in my car? You hit the nail on the head with this! I'm curious, Are you still in device sales?
 






ooo now its in the teens, thats probably incorrect btw.

You are right, many people will want to work for Intuitive this year, and after 3-6 months they will want to leave and trade the 45k raise they were hoping for back to get out.


The people who want to work for Intuitive are the people who don't know the inside of this company.
 






No I didn't have recorders in your car but I have spoken to lots and lots of CSR's over my years and still keep in touch with quite a few people, current and former. I always found it comforting knowing that I wasn't the only one on the CSR roller coaster! When you finally make the decision that enough is enough, you will be wonderfully suprised how you are recieved by recruiters and hiring managers everywhere else. You won't have to do much explaining at all about why you are no longer at ISI... they ALL know why you are not there anymore. It also doesn't matter if you decide to interview elsewhere while your still working or not, many people you will talk to you actually are more impressed if you left without the comfort of another job lined up because you couldn't compromise your integrity or loved ones anymore!
In response to another above post... Yes, ISI is hiring and training loads and loads of new CSR's for very good reason. I'll explain. When I got hired, I trained with roughly 30 people. when i left there were 4 out of that class left. It became sort of a game to check the ssp reports every week to see if any names were missing, because there always is. There will always be a surplus of people willing (at first) to sell thier soul for a little more money and to climb the corportate ladder... ISI knows this and that's why you see younger and younger sales reps now because they just don't have enough experience to know any better yet and still have hopes and dreams!...lol. The shotgun strategy now for training is to train as many people as possible to help fill the rapidly vacated territories all across the country, have a few extras, and plan on 75% of each class not making it much past a year. They NEED the bodies! That's all! ISI is also now trying to limit CSR's accounts to 3 at the most and 200 cases... this limitation, while being slightly more managable, is going to limit any chance of making truly decent money. Once this policy goes into full effect, mark my words, there will be droves of current CSR's headed for the door. To be filled of course by a new overwhelmed, under paid, wet behind the ears dreamer. This again does wonders for the confidence of your surgical teams and staff...
 






Robo1 said:
Most if not all of the rumors you hear about ISI are true. ISI has worked very hard to earn the reputation that it deserves. It has always been challenging place to work, but over the last 2+ years it has become miserable. I was a CSR for over 5 (which made me a fossil) years and the ride had to come to an end before all the things that are truly important in my life were damaged beyond repair. In my 5 years I had 8 different CSM's, all of which were demoted, fired or quit. Obviously making the choice for me to go into management there an easy one. If you choose to not express that you would like to be a manager, start the stopwatch. CSM's are directly evaluated on the number of people under them they "develop" and promote. Ultimately making you now, useless to that CSM. Every new CSM wants a team full of people willing to sacrifice everything to move up a level. Which does wonders for your relationships in your accounts? You are not the first rep they've seen nor will you be their last. Your job will be used as leverage the moment you start trending below your quota whether you achieve quota or not. Three day ride alongs that begin at 6am and end well after 6pm are routine and will all claim they are not micromanagers. I can best describe the ride along as a three day interrogation in which the terms, "belief system", "Un-coachable", and my personal favorite, "professional maturity" will be used describe why you are not succeeding by Intuitive's standards. All these terms were used to describe reps of the year for those who think it was just me. This ride along will ultimately be followed up with a field ride report letter that your CSD and AVP are copied in on and it is filled with paragraph after paragraph of negative criticism on how you run your territory, or whatever your CSM feels will make them look like they are desperately trying to save your career and make you a better CSR... even if they have never done your job. If you are able to meet or exceed your increasingly unrealistic quota, you will receive no sincere thank you from anyone. You will, however, be rewarded with a 20-30% increase in your next quota and the thankless process will start all over again. This pressure forces everyone to sandbag cases to make sure that they do not go over quota by too much and it also forces cases to be made up just to make quota. Simple as that. That is how you survive. The only one who truly cares about your survival is you. While there are extremely talented sales professionals within Intuitive, the majority are never there long. They are replaced by people who are only out to climb the corporate ladder as quickly as possible. People that follow orders without question from someone one level higher no matter how ridiculous and blatantly useless the request is. So to all of you who are looking to get in, take it from someone who survived longer than most, it isn't worth it. I promise. Anyone with more than 4 years experience at ISI who feels different, I would love to hear from you!! To my fellow CSR's who are still going to bed each night with a pit in their stomachs, wondering how they are supposed to train 3 GYN's per quarter when the only GYN's left in your territory you wouldn't let touch you with a Qtip let alone a knife, there is life outside of ISI! It is sweet I assure you. So let ISI implode on its own, get out while you still have a spouse that loves you, kids that know you and a soul you haven't sold.

Wow that felt good!
Click to expand...

Damn! That is freakin awesome. This guy/gal sure nailed it!!! Best of luck to whoever you are!!
 






How long before hospital administrators who were scared into buying this over-priced boat anchor or else they would be run out of business figure out that they are losing their ass on every procedure they do and it is running them out of business?

C'mon...hysterectomies with a robot? Really?
 






Give me a break, you all sound like a bunch of whining babies! God forbid a company actually asks you to work hard, do reports, and become a better rep... Oh no! Conference calls? Ride-alongs? Quotas? Boo-freaking-hoo!

It's difficult to question a company who's revenue growth and profit increase is 40-50% per year, year after year. If you don't like it, get the funk out! It is probably fair to say that the vast majority of reps make a lot of money at Intuitive. Is it the 400k+ of years past? Probably not. Is it more money that nearly every other American? YES!

Before you all get your panties in a knot, NO I AM NOT A MANAGER OR ANY KIND OF COMPANY GUY... I'm a realist that is sick of people bitching about the fact they actually have to work hard for the huge amount of money they make! The good news is, you are all my favorite kind of rep, because you are EASY COMPETITION!

You all need to adapt to the changing environment of device sales, and get used to the fact your easy days of doing whatever you want whenever you want and still cashing your huge checks are OVER! -OR- Keep bitching and let hungry reps come in and kick you out of your high-paying jobs while you beg and plead any POS device/pharma company to pick you up at a fraction of what you make now!

GET OVER IT!
 






exactly, I love working with Intuitive because everyone is driven to grow adoption of da Vinci technology for the benefit of the patient! Love seeing Ethicon and Covidien lose market share when they've had 25+ years to drive growth of laparoscopy. If you can't keep up with the pace and demand ISI requires, get out! There's a reason why ISI's revenue/employee far surpasses any of the other med device companies.
 






Anonymous said:
exactly, I love working with Intuitive because everyone is driven to grow adoption of da Vinci technology for the benefit of the patient! Love seeing Ethicon and Covidien lose market share when they've had 25+ years to drive growth of laparoscopy. If you can't keep up with the pace and demand ISI requires, get out! There's a reason why ISI's revenue/employee far surpasses any of the other med device companies.
Click to expand...


Check yourself slick. Ortho & spine reps are still bringing in more than you domo arogato Mr. Roboto homos.
 












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