#lackofdirection

If you work for one of the smaller gp owned subsidiaries, do you have a president at your company who is an active participant in the company and checks in with dept heads?

I’m at a subsidiary and it feels directionless and other upper management folks are making decisions for our company that don’t seem to make any logical business sense

Are any of you experiencing the same thing ?

Maybe I’m overthinking this, but at some point you have to wonder whether all of the transformation, optimization, prioritization, realignment, simplification, restructuring, strategic focus, operational efficiency and whatever other terminology happens to be in circulation this quarter is actually accomplishing anything, or whether we’ve simply developed a more sophisticated vocabulary for saying, “We’re changing things again.”

Every organization evolves. Priorities change. Markets change. Technology changes. Customers change. Nobody reasonably expects a large company to operate exactly the same way forever.

But there’s a difference between genuine transformation and constantly rearranging the organizational furniture while insisting that everyone admire the new floor plan.

Every new initiative inevitably seems to be the one that will finally simplify everything created by the previous initiative that was also supposed to simplify everything.

First we centralize because decentralization created inefficiencies. Then we decentralize because centralization created bottlenecks. We consolidate roles to eliminate duplication, discover nobody has enough bandwidth, and distribute the responsibilities across three other teams. Layers get eliminated to “flatten the organization,” only for new layers, titles and reporting structures to gradually reappear.

Through all of this, employees are expected to remain agile, engaged, innovative, customer-focused, cost-conscious, strategically aligned and apparently capable of interpreting PowerPoint slides containing six arrows pointing in different directions.

Maybe that’s modern corporate life. Or maybe the machinery of transformation has become a permanent business function unto itself.

The question I keep coming back to is pretty simple: Are we actually building a better organization, or have we just become exceptionally good at continuously reorganizing the existing one?

What makes this harder to dismiss as simply “the way things are in IT” is talking to friends at other technology companies. Their experiences sound completely different. They’re excited about their jobs, optimistic about their companies’ trajectories and enthusiastic about what they’re building and where their organizations are headed.

They talk about growth, innovation, opportunity and the future, rather than another cycle of restructuring, uncertainty and waiting for the next organizational announcement.

And maybe that’s the part worth thinking about.

Perhaps constant disruption isn’t an unavoidable feature of working in technology after all. Maybe there really are companies where transformation means building toward something, rather than repeatedly dismantling, reorganizing and renaming what’s already there.

There’s something to be said for working somewhere with momentum, where leadership appears to have a destination in mind and employees can actually see themselves as part of the journey.

Maybe the ultimate measure of transformation isn’t how many organizations, reporting structures and strategies a company can change. Maybe it’s whether the people who work there can still look at where the company is headed and genuinely say, “I want to be part of that.”

Curious whether others are seeing the same thing.

There's no stability here, and we're expected to figure out new responsibilities with little training or guidance. Between the layoffs, constant management interference, and endless reorganizations, getting anything done is a miracle.

Ramon says it’s your execution.

Countless other articles point back to failed executive leadership

Ramon seems intent on self preservation and gaslighting his employees

One thing that is true is employees overwhelmingly believe executives are not providing a clear direction or have the right plans to improve business.

Now people are hoping they are the lucky ones to be given the severance package.

Ram now wants your feedback.

Ram - the analysts are correct, your people are defeated, and the plans are unclear.

PEPNA is a bad idea. PepsiCo has failed under vertical integration. We are are getting outmaneuvered by companies who can specialize and adapt. We are too big and carry way to many priorities. To many silos, to many internal obstacles.

It’s time to hand the keys over to operators.

Hope it happens soon.

We hear a lot from leadership, but somehow we always end up with more questions than answers. There's plenty of polished language and very little that tells employees where we're actually going.

Does anyone else have no idea what they are doing?

So Dan's been here a Year... can anyone provide top 3 goals/strategies that is being implemented for Culture change?

I sit through All Hands and leave clueless.

Sampath at least repeated each session.

Strayer University must not of taught that to Directors.

Has ANYTHING good come of the changes in April? I sit in meetings all day where nobody knows direction, people can’t start a new role because nobody realized their old role was actually important, or nobody wants to be here.

We cut people, teams, domains, and now what? Tech is just an enabling function. We are not builders, drivers, or cutting edge. We cannot even get enablement right anymore. That’s how far we have fallen.

What’s the latest word? I’m so sick of everything being pushed off and no decisions or progress because seems like everyone all the way up the chain just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Meanwhile teams of people getting paid to sit home and do bare minimum while the company is falling apart.

So my boss left last Friday, and not gonna lie, I think a lot of people are wondering what happens to the team now. He was basically the person driving most of the strategy and a lot of the ideas, and he was always pushing us to question the process or just find a way around it if it was getting in the way. Which honestly was sometimes really helpful, but I also think it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way and he probably burned a decent number of bridges. I’m still pretty early in my career, but it’s hard not to look at all of this and feel like the bigger issue is that there just isn’t a super clear strategy from the org. I’ve heard way more people frustrated about the lack of collaboration and alignment than I would expect, and now that the person who was basically setting the direction is gone, I think everyone is kind of sitting here wondering who’s actually going to drive things now. Feels like the writing is kind of on the wall....

After yesterday’s presentation I still don’t know what Next 90 is.

I need you guys to set me straight or confirm what I'm seeing. Is audit currently a hellscape of poor management, training, consistency, and direction? I came from another bank knowing the red flags were visible but I literally cannot figure out what's going on from day to day, audit to audit. No one seems to know what's going on. People are generally nice and super smart but I feel like I'm in the twilight zone from audit to audit. I feel like I'm in the middle of the desert by myself most times. Am I just being overly critical here?

Does anyone has the slightest idea what whoever works in the Ai foundry are doing ? Radio Factset says we won't tell you bunch of stupid people.

Frequent cuts, endless political games, and ever-changing job descriptions are just few of the things wrong here. There's also no clear direction from the top. Most of us just show up and try to survive whatever the day throws at us.

Architecture leadership without architecture, direction without clarity, and decisions without grounding, this isn’t strategy, it’s a slow, well-documented collapse

No support. Not even micromanagement. But also no involvement in anything, including office politics. Literally absent. Some might call that the dream, but in reality it just means the team is unmanaged. And when we slip, we'll pay the price. Meanwhile, they'll keep climbing, blissfully unaffected.

Something has shifted over the last few years, and it’s hard to ignore.

I’ve never really felt like I worked for DXC — my focus has always been on doing right by the client and delivering a good outcome. But recently, it feels like we’re neither wanted, respected, nor trusted to do the job we’re here for. Work is withheld or second-guessed at every step, with everything needing detailed oversight. It’s draining, and it doesn’t exactly inspire anyone to go the extra mile.

That lack of trust is one thing, but when it’s paired with years of a 0% pay rise policy, it becomes even harder to stay motivated.

People often say financial reward is only part of a job — and that’s true. But right now, there’s very little else to balance it out. There’s no real sense of job satisfaction, no recognition when something is done well, and often not even a simple “thank you.” It increasingly feels like the expectation is that having a job should be enough in itself.

For me, that balance has tipped. What used to be tolerable — even enjoyable at times — has turned into something I genuinely dislike. The disconnect is such that it’s hard to care whether projects succeed or fail, especially when accountability can so easily be shifted elsewhere — to a missed detail, a PM oversight, or yet another broken process that makes delivery unnecessarily difficult.

It raises a bigger question: how sustainable is this? Because from where I’m sitting, it doesn’t feel like something that can continue for much longer, and I will be happy to see it collapse.

There is no follow through. There is always a new initiative being introduced. Big kickoff meetings, lots of excitement, and then nothing really happens. Within a few weeks, attention shifts to something else. How can anybody take us seriously when things are so dysfunctional?

I've been so annoyed in the last few months, as they keep telling me everything is urgent and nothing can wait. Every single thing. That's not how priorities work. With no clear direction, I'm just spinning my wheels. I'm so tired of everything being a fire drill.

if you look at tgs, all sr dirs and vps are stuck in late 90s or early 2000s. our chances of building a modern and prosperous it org are zero unless we have new folks in these positions. that will never happen, so rest assured, things will continue to go downhill as the rest of the world accelerates change. at some point someone will wake up but it'll be way too late

Such a poor ELT! no vision, no direction, no leadership but just a group of fools that don’t understand market trends but only know how to through fancy slogans to the air.

One week it’s “focus on growth,” the next it’s cost cutting, then it’s something else entirely. No one knows what the priorities are anymore, and it shows in how teams operate. At this point, the layoffs don’t even feel shocking, they feel like the obvious outcome of nonstop chaos.

Too much management, too many trackers, no direction.

I’ve been here long enough to see the pattern clearly, where we start projects with great enthusiasm, teams form, plans get made, and work begins with real momentum. Then a few months in someone in leadership reads an article or hears a new buzzword and everything changes, new priorities appear, old projects suddenly get labeled as not aligned, and the goal posts move so far you can barely see them anymore.

We end up abandoning half finished work and starting fresh on whatever the new thing is supposed to be, and the amount of wasted effort that piles up from that cycle is staggering because hours, weeks, and months of people’s time just get discarded when leadership cannot stick with a direction.

Then leadership turns around and wonders why execution is a problem, even though you cannot execute anything when the target keeps moving before the work ever has a chance to finish.

When people ask me for career advice now, I tell them to stay away from here. I was excited when I joined. The branding's strong and the reputation's solid. The reality's completely different. The day-to-day work is chaotic, there's no clear direction from the top, and the turnover's staggering. You spend half your time training new people and the other half wondering when your own luck will run out. It's genuinely one of the few professional decisions I look back on with regret. The toll it takes on your personal life isn't worth the paycheck. You can absolutely do better for yourself. Keep looking.

I started with the company back in 2015 and I've seen four different management structures. The pattern is always the same. You get a manager who is charming in meetings but completely absent when you need support. I recently had a weekly catch-up that started giving me a knot in my stomach. It was never about development or help, just a list of things that needed to be done yesterday. I finally updated my resume this week. It feels like the only way to protect your peace is to leave.

It's really hard to feel settled at Gainwell anymore. Nobody talks about long term plans like they used to. It's all about how we'll make it to the next month. It's exhausting, to be honest.

CPO seems to just share LinkedIn articles on how AI is coming for our jobs instead of setting any actual strategy. This whole company is a mess.

I’m about 9 months into HCSC. I heard mixed reviews about the organization before I joined. My immediate team is friendly and professional, but it seems the company as a whole is dysfunctional. There is no accountability and no one really knows who does what. I heard before that HCSC routinely hires from outside of the health insurance industry because they can’t attract and retain specialized talent. It appears to me to be the case. It seems like there are a lot of people who have been here for many many years and lots of churn with newer talent.

Serious question—- why do people stay for so long? Doesn’t the dysfunction and lack of leadership get to you? It seems to be to a culture of complacency and sticking to a false narrative than actually trying to run an excellent business.

So our three year plan to regain the number one spot is:

• using AI. Yet Service Now, Hercules, Chip and Clip, etc have been unmitigated disasters. Everyone hates them. And it makes are jobs so much harder.
• Hiring in Hubs: the hub employees are some of the worst I’ve seen in the ten years I’ve worked here.
• getting rid of utilizing agents office for the digital experience. But our systems are trash and our older insureds don’t want to bother with it.

I look forward to the next 3 year plan to take back the number 2 spot from Geico once they pass us up.

Anyone else is disappointed by All- Hands..
I have started feeling like that there is actually no real plan.. it’s all smoke and mirrors..

Dan did not talk about any solid plan and Now Alfanso did not talk any real plan or strategy to execute his grand vision.

They cost too much. It's that simple. Companies prioritize immediate savings over quality and short-term gains over long-term health. That’s the core reason we’re in a downward spiral, and it will almost certainly get worse. There's no vision. No grand plan. Just a relentless scramble to cut costs and funnel money to the top for as long as possible.

The constant restructuring has destroyed our operational efficiency. Processes are broken and no one knows who is responsible for what. It's incredibly frustrating trying to accomplish basic tasks that used to be simple.

Until not much is left, I guess. One major restructuring with a clear idea might have had a chance. These endless, aimless cuts are just leading nowhere.

AI??? More like incompetence. They couldn't get their AI platform off the ground as of the end of last year. They eliminated contractors who were working on datacenters related to automation and AI. All I saw was non-stop push back against progress while I was there from middle managers who do nothing but fudge reports. It's just more smoke and mirrors to hide the fact that the executives are out of touch. No one is driving the ship.

speaking only from my own expereince, i find myself conflicted about how easy it feels to change roles at amazon once you are inside the inner circle.
on one hand, that fluidity creates opprotunity and can feel empowering, but it also leaves me wondering whether rigor and claritiy are getting lost at senior levels...
i rarely see an l8 write a single one pager that clearly articulats direction or strategy, and instead watch strategy turn into a collage of documents owned by l6s and l7s defending their own space.

i may be missing context or blind to constraints, but it makes me question what strong leadreship really looks like here and whether i fully understand the system i am part of...

More and more field sales roles being eliminated in storage and networking without any input from actual sales reps. Middle management has changed numerous times without a clear direction everyone basically is freelancing

Here we are end of January and still no clear direction of what’s ahead of us. RoE’s / Dirty Data, “stay tuned”
After GF all hands call last week… I’m feeling we are about to see a HUGE jump in quota this year.

I will say that I was thankful leadership recognized the cluster F of a rollout this was and making us whole for January was the T-Mobile I remember.

and we are still 2 weeks out from Dan's plan? Guessing the leadership team was told by the CEO to figure out how to do it with 15k less people (and maybe even 30k less people if the latest reports are true) and let him know the plan by the end of January so he could take credit for it in early February.