Discovery Reviews

Discovery Graduates rate themselves on caring and developing their people and growing their talent but sadly I did not see that. It is an environment where all the power is held at the top and there is clear biases behaviour. It is a small business that has the potential to grow but the approach they take is very radical and reactive. They talk a lot about their values and investing in people and how important feedback is but do not practice what they preach. It is hard to believe what they say and put your trust on them.

Discovery can only be explained as the ultimate caricature of an owner-run business. It’s not a financially successful, growing company with a positive culture, strong customer focus and great development for its people. It is purely a vehicle for the ‘CEO’ to act out his fantasies – lording it up over employees, surrounding himself with young women, arousing himself by ‘making big decisions’, telling everyone he’s the ‘CEO’ and ‘runs the place’, talking about ‘strategy’, giving self-congratulatory speeches in front of a captive audience, writing submissions for awards for himself, talking endlessly about his ‘business insight’ and ‘commercial thinking’, jabbering about ‘The Discovery Way’ (no one knows what it is?) etc. Ask yourself, are you a ‘CEO’ if there are no other executives, no board, and only one other ‘Director’ who is your wife? This simple demonstration of ego and lack of wit sums up the ‘CEO’ and Discovery. Who do you think you are kidding? There is nothing more awkward than being in the office to watch the ‘CEO’ walk past his wife in the morning and deliver - with a big creepy grin - coffee to the so-called 'Café Nero Club' (his favorite female employees). All of the previous negative reviews are accurate and to some degree probably underrepresent both the rumored financial problems the company has and its toxic culture – all of which are directly attributable to the ‘CEO’. Needless to say, the positive reviews are from the small coterie of sycophants that still work within the company and should not be taken seriously. I cannot describe in enough detail all of the many ridiculous situations that arose in my nine months with Discovery, but what kind of company runs out of toilet paper? Repeatedly. Such an own goal when you have clients in the building. Professional hires do not last long in this environment and new grads I’m assuming are just toughing it out to get some experience on their CVs before they can move on. One day the ‘CEO’ will pay someone to write a book about himself, and I would like to suggest the title: ‘Surviving 20 years in business but somehow not succeeding’.