Mattel overhauls conference-room culture with new employee guidelines - WSJ

(Reuters) - Toymaker Mattel Inc has issued new guidelines to employees as part of an effort by Chief Executive Bryan Stockton to overhaul a culture of conference rooms so the company can get back to thinking about toys, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The overhaul includes instructions such as no meeting to be held without a specific purpose, no more than 10 people should participate in a meeting and that there should be no more than three meetings to make any decision, the Journal reported.

"We may have been a little bashful to push on the creative side," Stockton told the Journal in an interview. "We need to push ourselves a little further, let ourselves be a little freer, a little less formulaic."

Stockton has recently brought in consultants from Bain & Co to help further slim down the company, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The company is also planning to cut $250 million to $300 million in costs, including removing some redundant layers of management, to free up money for developing new products and marketing, the newspaper said.

Representatives at Mattel were not immediately available for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.

Mattel, which was deposed by Denmark's privately held Lego Group as the world's largest toymaker by sales earlier this year, has been facing a three-year slump in sales of its Barbie dolls while its other dolls such as Monster High and American Girl have failed to make up for Barbie's fading charm.

(Reporting by Luke Koshi in BENGALURU)