#culture

Best part of the call “is this recorded?” 😜

0/10 would not recommend!!!! I wrote they are exploitive and my thoughts on making us all wait for this VSP. Mission Simplify is a fu--ing joke

It’s going to be a very long stressful difficult week! Hopefully we all hear the news soon and it’s everything we hope it is whatever it is we want. Good Luck everyone

This company would be nothing without them.

All new leadership coming from the outside.. And all from the same group who is moving from Company to Company

Don’t know where we’re going, so we won’t know when we get there

Even though I could be bitter and angry because I was let go, I'm not. I guess it's business after all and if that's how they want to run the company then whatever.

I am however quite shocked to be honest around the whole exit experience. I mean I knew from before that Dell doesn't really care, but the very fact that I've multiple times had to fight HR on things that were agreed on and they tried to gaslight me into thinking that I am wrong (although documents and agreements clearly says otherwise) just leaves such a bitter taste in my mouth.

Icing on the cake was when I handed in the equipment. Years ago whenever somebody left the company for whatever reason there used to be coffee, cake, somebody thanking the person and some parting gift. Now? Just handed over the equipment at the reception, not even a goodbye. Well over a decade at the company? No one cares.

I was listening to a podcast and the discussion was with a management consultant. I think they summed up the issue with Phillips 66 and this management team:

“…the macro implications of a society that is maximizing profit is that it's going to be minimizing other goods that aren't easy to quantify.”

Under Greg, there was a balance to things—a purpose. He cared about people and the legacy of the company. Yes, he was not perfect, but you knew he cared about the company, the industry, and the people.

I believe that is gone. We are just focused singularly on making more money, trying to beat the competition, and just catering g to shareholder interests. It is interesting that, despite that focus, we are falling further behind, while also giving up the soul of the company and are experiencing an erosion of culture.

In our search for profit, Phillips has abandoned its commitment to people, developing people and taking chances on people with promise. Instead, we give people a job description and tell them it is on them to prove they have the skills for the next role. We talk only in terms of shareholder interests, returns on equity/investment, and tell people we must always be focused on beating MPC, VLO and a group of companies that the management team and board are focused on.

Am I wrong? Would like other perspectives. Is Phillips still committed to people and the interests of the communities and customers we serve?

Come to think of it, I have been with the company for 10 years and almost never hear about customers. Why is that?

“You saw our preliminary results… The first step is just to own it.” We already do. Every single one of us on the ground owns our number, every quarter, no matter how the goalposts moved that quarter. So let’s talk about ownership both ways: what exactly do you own here? Not the words “own it” in a Monday message : the actual outcome. What’s the consequence for you when the results miss? Who’s putting you on a PIP?
Nobody around you says this out loud, so I will: we had real leaders who could have told you this a year ago, and they didn’t leave for a better offer .... they got pushed out because they tried to correct you. You don’t get to say “no deflection, no excuses” while the people most likely to challenge the plan are the ones no longer in the building, because they challenged it.
Maybe IBM’s software problem isn’t the market, isn’t the customers, isn’t even the products. Maybe it’s you. Look at the CROs and software leaders actually winning out there right now. do you really think they run their orgs the way you run this one? Reshuffling structure every six months, pushing out anyone who isn’t aligned, surrounding yourself with people too scared to push back? That’s not how growth companies behave. That’s how companies behave right before they lose the people who could have saved them.
And look at how these decisions actually get made: under panic, not conviction. Every reorg lands like an emergency reaction to a bad quarter, not a plan anyone thought through. And somehow, in that panic, we’re the ones treated like zero, like we can’t understand a reorg, like we’re not agile enough, like we’re the ones resisting transformation. We are exactly those things. We adapt every single time you ask us to, on a shorter timeline than any of you have to answer for. What we’re fed up with is taking transformation advice from the worst-performing leadership in the room, delivered in a panic, and then being blamed when the panic doesn’t produce results.
And on that note: when you write “we are putting more attention on software consumption,” who exactly is “we”? You and McKinsey in a slide deck, or you and the people actually sitting in front of customers who could tell you months ago that this was coming? Because from where I sit, “we” hasn’t included us in a long time : it’s included consultants who get paid regardless of whether the plan works, and employees who inherit the plan with no say in it.
“Every Second Counts” is a good line for a kitchen sign. It’s a bad operating model for enterprise software. Nobody sells real value in one or two quarters. Value takes time to build because it’s built on trust, and trust takes longer to earn back than it takes to lose. Nobody deploys software in one or two quarters either, because deployment runs on the customer’s timeline and their business needs, not ours. If every second really counts, the first thing that should buy us is more discipline before changing structures, incentives, and coverage models mid-year : not less.
Here’s my Monday growth message back to you: a leader is accountable to the people below him, not just to the market above him. That means listening to employees and customers before restructuring around them, not after. It means being able to say “I was wrong” and “this is going to take longer than I promised,” out loud, without spinning it into a hype line for the next town hall. We show up accountable every day, on our numbers, on our customers, on our word. I’m asking you to show the same thing back .... not another recap of initiatives, but an honest account of what you got wrong and what you’re doing to fix it, including how it affects the people asked to execute it with less time and fewer resources than the plan pretends.
We’re not asking for perfection. We’re asking for the truth, and for someone to actually be willing to hear it.

Senior management protects their turf, you do something to better the company like win a technology challenge and are told that you should have saved it for your own group and not shared it company wide. For that specific reason I have been canceled. No longer an e performer even though no one knows nearly how to do their job and comes running to me. I was told that I should be honored that many take my slides for their own presentations and not giving me credit.

I went to a competitor who now loves my work and also understands their competitive edge over fidelity

Look at Nike’s stock price over the past 50 years. There have been ups and downs, but nothing compares to the decline since 2020. The five-year downward trend is crazy.

It’s hard not to see this as the point where Nike went off the rails. Leadership, business strategy, and company culture all changed for the worse. I wonder how business analysts will explain what happened years from now.

Everyone should tune into 2Q earnings on Wednesday and witness “leadership’s” spin on their reality vs ours and our customers. What’s the anticipated playbook? If like other earnings or townhalls it will go something like this:
1) Credit Hoarding and Blame Deflection: Stankey will take personal credit for all successes, but scapegoat realities or market factors for any poor metrics, failures, or missed targets.
2) Spinning Data: He’ll present metrics selectively to inflate achievements while minimizing or altogether hiding negative data/results.
3) Focusing on Optics Over Substance: He’ll prioritize vanity metrics like PR splashes or superficial growth instead of addressing structural issues or the long-term sustainability of the corporation.
4) Gaslighting Employees: He’ll publicly contradict internal realities; he will claim the company is thriving while employees experience understaffing, canceled projects, and record level layoffs and burnout.
5) Silencing Dissent: He’ll negligently ignore bad news, punish employees (no matter their level) who report operational failures or low morale, and exclude critical voices from high-level conversations.
6) Lack of Empathy for Stakeholders: He’ll dismiss the toll that poor organizational performance (e.g., RTO and targeted layoffs, restructuring) takes on the workforce and quarterly results.

This place is in shambles because the people running it don't know what they're doing. Most of them got to where they are through nepotism, and it's obvious.

I'm genuinely curious. If you hate your job so much, shouldn't you be trying to get out? I'm happy where I am, and I come here because I fear losing my job, not because I hate the company. The overwhelming hate I encounter here all the time is always shocking to me.

Leave belk off resume…unless you have a huge gap in years….other big box retailers (mostly all clothing retail) will not even interview a person with belk on their resume. Belk is considered the red head stepchild of the retail world.

Has anyone else noticed or heard about ongoing ethics and leadership culture issues in Nike’s Sports Marketing group?
There’s been significant turnover at the senior levels over the past couple of years. Some current and former employees are saying the ethical standards and decision-making in the group still need real improvement, even with new leadership in place.
Wondering if others have seen similar issues or if things are actually getting better.
Appreciate any honest takes.

Hello, how is the culture at these locations? How does pay compare for the local cost of living? Any of these sites union? Have seen fairly frequent job postings both internal and external the last few years with positions I could qualify for. Would like some insight to these locations if possible, thank you

With all the gloom, I'm wondering if there's anyone who actually still enjoys working at this place. Not just tolerates it, but actually likes it.

If you had to describe Citi in just a couple of words, what would they be? I've got a feeling I know what the majority will be.

It's awful seeing coworkers lose their jobs, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. At the same time, this place has had serious issues for years that leadership never bothered to fix. Looking back, almost everyone who's left has ended up happier somewhere else. I'm starting to think the people who walked out last week may have gotten the better deal.

Hey Jeff, can I make a t-shirt request? Can you make me a t-shirt that says:

"I worked at Dell for 20 years and all I got was this stuupid t-shirt."

Thanks

I was laid off roughly a year ago and it felt like the end of the world at the time. Now I'm in a better job with better pay and significantly better culture. Hang in there.

IBM has a major gap in its product portfolio. We don’t make and sell devices that have GPUs. This is what enterprises are clamoring for AI training and inferencing at scale, which is way more powerful than the accelerators we have on IBMZ and Power. And IBM Cloud can’t compete against the hyperscalers, which are expensive, however ideal for running AI use cases at scale. We have a strong AI product portfolio, although so do a lot of companies. We’ve acquired a lot of companies that complement our core products and have a massive ecosystem. But most days, I wonder -
What does IBM even stand for? Where do we even belong in this rapidly evolving world?

I don’t believe IBM will fail. However we all, especially our Senior Leaders, need to really think about what we actually stand for. Not this BS hybrid cloud leader statement. It’s about crafting a real vision that inspires the world. It’s about culture change to invigorate low morale at the ranks. It’s about picking up this company and giving it a really good shake. If we don’t do something drastic, then the free fall will continue.

The local dimwits seeing their replacements arrive with all expenses paid relocation pack and a dwindling stock, are still wonder why they didn't offer themselves as tributes when they got the chance.

Well, because they thought they were equals when they treated everybody else with disdain. Funny, isn't it?

Kinetic Business is thriving like never before. The group here now is quite simply the best there is, was and ever will be!

The street loves the “mass layoffs, benefit cuts, zero merit increases, have AI do everything” story. I wonder what the reaction will be a year or two from now?

https://fortune.com/2026/07/14/c-h-robinson-ai-success-secrets-dave-bozeman/

As I was browsing through LinkedIn today I couldn’t help but noticing how many P66 employees have what appear to be just made up positions. These are not necessarily highly paid positions but it does seem certain people are being “taken care of”.
In too many cases it not what you know or what you can do but rather what connections you have.
This is happening while Go-Go and Tractor Man are laying off legitimately good employees.

Heard some senior folks talk about our high performing teams in terms of sports teams. It made me think about genuinely high performing sports teams - the ones who are given time to develop and train, given the best equipment, given support, given trust and empowered to perform and then I thought about XOM, the team on the field is despised by their managers, trying to perform with worse equipment each year, no support and a performance system that pits teammates against each other. I realised the sports team analogy is a pile of bullsh-t.

when are the drones at Larry's sweatshop going to do the same?

As a 40 year Vz employee who was fortunate to enjoy a friendship making career at Verizon I can't help but think HBS is writing a business case for MBA students to examine.

I believe the foundational thesis will be "When meitocracy and execution failure"

To think Ivan achieved CEO status as a formet IBEW Tech and grew up in the most competitive New York Telcom Market in the World, the standard was set.. results are rewarded and winners get rewarded based on results.

Then we transition to a different CEO.. Lowell.. Ivy education, obviously bright in academics but history shows could never build a cohesive strategy and Executive Team and badly mismanaged aquistions, integration (gotta have AOL, Gotta have VODAPhone 40% at extraordinary price), stop funding fiber expansion at significantly lower CapEx that now Vz is playing catch up. You get the point.

Tben tbe huge miss... recommends Hans to become CEO... this is 49% on Lowell and 51% on Board. To hire a Foreign CEO who was removed at Erickson as a failed CFO with zero experience on execution and zero USA market experience is a signicant reason for Vz free fail in stock and market performance. As a resukt Hans biught in an all European C level team to create Marketing programs, Finance, Operational metrics and a huge fail.

Verizon then transitions to a new CEO Dan who is on a running clock with sole focus to eliminate costs vs Customer value in marketplace. Employees are eliminated without regards to performance and skills. Rather on Salary in 90 day increments. Culture is crushed.

What remains is tbe keast experiences C Suite Team in the history of Ma Bell.

Finally, while quarterly results can fluctuate, the one tbing that Verizon has lost and accerated under Hans and Dan is the strategic advantage Verizon had over 100 years... Customer And Employee Integrated culture.

This entire Summary will be the HBS business case for future generations to learn from.

Best example I have seen is the small plastic sculpture that has replaced the previous nice bronze sculptures on wooden bases.

Gunjan has a new video out with that title. That psycho really has no sense of self awareness or shame posting this garbage while destroying the American dream for so many by putting them out of work while sending their jobs to their other side of the world. What load of hogwash.

1) Bill Rogers
2) Ken Thompson and everyone else at Wachovia
3) Kelly King
4) Ken Lewis
5-10) let’s hear who else is bad?

I have been thinking of things I would like to say or do to show my appreciation for people like Cameron or Laurent. They have given us so much. So last night I went and got a whole bunch of taco bell gift cards and I will send one a week to them. This way these two can keep sh-----g on us for the rest of the year. There is not enough toilet paper in the world for the two. Frenchy should go back home and cameron, you may want to consider just resigning, the stockholders have lost more money on your decisions than they will ever recover. I promise if you two do leave, we will have a proper send-off. We could either bring in some pizza or maybe do another one of those virtual happy hours we all loved. Dont worry about the expense. We can use some of the money you saved on raises this year by canning people right before the merit increase. Nice move dou--ebags. Have a great weekend and make sure to ask for extra lettuce when you order your lunch. My hope is I will be the one waiting on you when you come in to order. I'll hook you up with an extra chalupa.

In this week's blog post we dive into the Around The Table's look at Optimism with Brendan Mooney, the CEO of Kainos
https://underthetable2026.blogspot.com/2026/07/episode-5-optimism.html

The acquisition of Comerica by Fifth Third Bank has generated significant local discussion. While the disappearance of a long-standing financial institution is noted, the controversy has escalated due to a perceived slight against a beloved local food item. This has drawn unexpected attention to the cultural impact of the merger. The public's reaction highlights the deep connection between community identity and local businesses. The situation has become a talking point beyond the financial implications of the deal.

Detroit, Michigan

https://www.freep.com/story/news/columnists/neal-rubin/2026/07/16/fifth-third-comerica-bank-purchase-american-coney-island-cincinnai-chili-tim-spence-grace-keros/90908987007/

Quite the pivot for a rudderless ship