#leadership

Elliot, the industry pundits, the arm chair MBAs, senior leaders, down to the frontline. They all see the failures of Ram and Ramon. Countless articles on the consistent missteps, the lack of confidence from employees. Yet, here we are, cutting 1000s of jobs, when 3 were really needed - Ramon, Ram, and Athina. Keep sharing the disfunction and maybe one day the board will wake up.

For years, leadership bred a "we’ve always done it this way" culture. Clueless managers stifled ambitious people, leaving staff sitting around waiting for redundancy.
That arrogance bled into customer service: charging clients top dollar for 8-hour response times and expecting them to fix their own machines, all while buying good companies just to run them into the ground.
Leadership blamed COVID, supply chains, and a "dying" print and IT market everything except themselves. Yet competitors in those exact sectors are thriving at Xerox’s expense.

The only things dying are the share price and the company. It could have been so different.

Yes, the cheerleaders in Slack have clearly been activated.

But are we really talking about career readiness again?

I seem to remember Mr. Apple, JE, standing on stage in Dallas giving the big rah-rah presentation about all the amazing product innovation that was supposedly right around the corner. We were told exciting updates were coming. We were told the future was bright. We were told the products were about to take a giant leap forward.

Fast forward nearly two years, and we're still looking at largely the same products while listening to many of the same promises.

Now, on First Friday, the spotlight gets shifted to VE to talk about research, and VM gets handed the torch to explain how we're studying faculty, observing trends, and gathering insights. That's all fine, but at what point do those insights actually become products, content, and revenue?

And what happened to all those revolutionary product promises?
Is Mr. Apple off the hook now?

Nice try, MH. But employees are noticing the pattern. When results don't materialize, the conversation shifts. Someone else gets put on stage. Someone else gets assigned to carry the message. Someone else is expected to explain why the future is still coming.

Meanwhile, we're told how much data we have, how AI is changing everything, how much research is being conducted, and how deeply we're understanding faculty needs.

That's great. But companies don't get paid for collecting data. They get paid for creating products that customers actually buy.

After nearly 15 years of MH's leadership, it's becoming harder and harder to blame anyone else. At some point, the strategy, the culture, the priorities, and the results all belong to the CEO.

Employees aren't asking for another presentation about research. They're asking where the new products are, where the growth is, where the innovation is, and where the results are.

The uncomfortable reality may be that we're not seeing major new products because the company simply doesn't have the resources to make the investments it once could. If that's the case, then be honest about it.

But please stop acting like another study, another survey, another AI discussion, or another First Friday presentation is going to solve problems that have been building for years

Can someone tell me that over the past decade and a half our stock has not moved alot. So the decisions made by the regional EDs Was absolutely not keeping the best interest of yeilding ROI.
Why have they been retained as decision makers in today’s decade on the payroll.

The Jensen Huang story is a reminder that some leadership failures have nothing to do with technology, strategy, or quarterly earnings. They start with character.

We've seen this movie before. Hewlett‑Packard. Astronomer. Now Nvidia.

When power, money, celebrity, and s-x collide, the ending is usually the same. Leaders convince themselves the rules apply to everyone else. The wedding ring comes off first. Then the judgment. Then the credibility. After that, every decision, every speech, and every claim of integrity gets reexamined through a different lens.

What makes this one different is that Huang wasn't just another CEO. He was one of the most influential voices in AI, governance, and the future of technology. Investors trusted him. Employees followed him. Governments listened to him. Nvidia's board ultimately accepted his resignation following reports of personal relationships that raised serious governance concerns.

The real cost isn't just the stock price. Nvidia reportedly lost hundreds of billions in market value during the crisis and leadership transition.

The bigger question is this: if the people lecturing us about ethics, governance, responsibility, and trust can't govern themselves, who exactly are we supposed to trust?

Titles create authority.

Character creates leadership.

You can rebuild a balance sheet. You can't rebuild credibility.

Verizon CEO Dan Schulman turned down the job several times before leaving retirement

Fortune by Tatiana Sataua, November 11, 2026

CEO Dan Schulman recently joined Fortune’s Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast to discuss what brought him out of retirement, the hard choices required to streamline Verizon's operations, and the encouraging Q3 numbers showing that the turnaround is taking hold.

Asked how he’ll ultimately measure success, Schulman pointed to customer trust and employee pride: “We’re surprising a lot of people right now,” he said, “and it feels good when that happens.”

Legg’s only “initiative” is to pay Microsoft billions per year. He should be ridiculed for this Outlook outage. This is what happens when you make a political science major CTO.

Not a good look for the "leaders" betting on billions in revenue from cloud migrations, selling tokens and prompt engineering

With the MSFT outlook issue our leadership has the perfect opportunity to manage through (what hopefully is) a minor crisis. Bank has our phone numbers and those work. You'd think they would actually communicate a bank wide message on the issue. Too worried about people working from home. Meanwhile, deals have stopped and customers are frustrated across the country. Champion type stuff...way to go!

CEO of Nvidia was basically forced out and he resigned. Dell is HEAVILY reliant on Nvidia for GPU's and AI, among other things. I am curious how this will play out when a new CEO steps in...

The third mistress is an Nvidia employee.

CA has submitted resume for NVIDIA CEO...developing story

I heard TAS is leaving Pearson. Does anyone know why? Where's he going? I really liked him.

We talk a lot about headcount, restructuring, and efficiency. What we don’t talk about enough is the quiet erosion happening on the ground.

When layoffs become a recurring strategy, the impact goes far beyond the people who are let go. It fundamentally changes the reality for the people who remain.

Right now, there is a massive disconnect between the boardroom and the day to day reality of the workforce. From the top, decisions look like clean adjustments on a spreadsheet. On the ground, it looks like institutional knowledge walking out the door, morale hitting a wall, and high performers burning out while trying to do the jobs of three people.

The hardest truth for leadership to see is that top talent doesn't wait around for the next round of cuts. Your best people - the ones who drive innovation, mentor others, and keep the lights on - are quietly updating their resumes and leaving on their own terms given the opportunity.

When leadership is out of touch with the human cost of these decisions, they aren't just cutting costs. They are cutting the exact foundation they need to rebuild and grow.

Culture isn't built in town halls or mission statements. It’s built in how a company treats its people when times get tough. And right now, the people doing the work are feeling the weight of decisions made by those who are insulated from the fallout and the reality they created.

What is the ROI for this 1 Billion monstrosity in Plano?
A new shrine as an edifice to who?

The culture is so weak at this Firm. They have now targeted Managing Director layoffs to make room for the new incoming class to be promoted from ED to MD in January. Jump ship before they get you. Stop talking about what a great place this is blah blah all about the client experience blah blah….Jed and Ted Pickaxe will continue.

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/bofa-settle-fake-accounts-lawsuit-152441294.html

Do these execs think they are at Wells Fargo?

"Bank of America has reached a deal to resolve claims that it opened thousands of unauthorized accounts, according to a notice filed in federal court Monday.

The bank reached a "settlement in principle" of class-action claims, originally filed in 2023, that allege its employees and agents knowingly opened accounts in the name of unknowing individuals, "motivated by pressure and incentives from management" to grow account numbers, according to a June amended complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.

Plaintiffs allege that employees at BofA began creating fake accounts in 2012 to hit sales goals, based on an incentive program created that year which tied pay for its management and employees to the number of new banking products or services opened or used by consumers.

But consumers who had accounts opened in their names "were often unaware of account openings until reviewing credit reports," the amended complaint said. "

He's very optimistic. The Decisions That Matter Most for Higher Education Right Now
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/decisions-matter-most-higher-education-right-now-kees-bol-9wnhe?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&utm_campaign=share_via

Optum has offered him a high-level leadership position.

I've heard that triple digit leaders numbers of leaders in casualty are gone.

I never looked at this stuff until they decided employees like myself were no longer needed.

The Centene corporate website says that Elizabeth "Betty" Brinn is the founder of Centene. Nope! Not even close to reality.

Elizabeth "Betty" Brinn founded a nonprofit entity called “Family Hospital Physician Associates” (FHPA). After her passing. Brinn's original nonprofit organization was sold to investors and converted into a for-profit operation after Michael Neidorff took over as CEO and the company was renamed Centene Corporation.

They overhired for the model remediation. Then they promoted the managers to directors.

But there is no need for this level of data scientists. Most aren’t even doing model building, but remediation over the past 2 years and haven’t been doing data science work.

Leadership is promising AI projects, but that’s to save time to figure out what to do with this many data scientists.

https://stocks.apple.com/AP1fN5xiYQ8CoMEl9YT7zKg

Companies that have punitively restructured their comp plan, rarely walk it back.

A return to a fair comp plan only happens when one of three breaking points hits:

1. Regrettable Attrition Hits Top Performers: Right now, Dell is fine with underperforming and mid-tier reps quitting. They want forced attrition. However, when more of the top 10%–15% of enterprise account executives defect to HPE, Lenovo, Cisco, or Super Micro (taking billion-dollar accounts with them), Dell will care.

2. Legacy Business Collapses Faster Than Expected: While AI servers get the headlines, Dell still relies on high-margin storage, servers, and commercial PCs to fund its bottom line. If gutted sales territories and demoralized reps cause traditional enterprise renewals to plummet, finance will be forced to re-incentivize the sales floor.

3. Competitors Steal Market Share on Customer Relationships: When buyers get frustrated by constant rep turnover and chaotic internal processes, they eventually move their budgets to vendors with stable account teams.

These things ARE happening. But I don’t think Dell executives recognize the path they’re on. In 2-3 years, they will learn the error of their ways and attempt to reclaim market share, and customer and employee confidence.

It was a marketing all-hands on-site event in Smithfield, RI.

Vadim sat on stage for a moderated event where he praised marketing for their output and productivity, and highlighted the revenue and success of the organization.

Then he left the room, and a company wide email went out that included Abby and Vadim’s names, explaining the RTO policy. A Q&A commenced with generic corporate jargon. Vadim was nowhere to be found.

Now the pulse survey—the one thing people could use to express frustration, has been twisted and contorted, and much of the data hidden.

NPS is comically low. The meeting about pulse claims RTO is currently a success without highlighting any metrics.

I consider Vadim a coward for leaving that meeting, for a decision he was a part of.

on tuesday after payday. coincidence?

Rumor is that Rami is headed to Nvidia.

Since the 2020 reorg was a failure and the dysfunction and morale is rock bottom again after another failed layoff.....so how to fix it? Let's do another layoff in the future as the only thing that fixes a botched layoff is more layoffs!!!! No way its ELT that needs to be let go!

I keep seeing G2 in this board. Please give me some hints or at least the initials of their name.

Since Extreme might be acquired by Cisco, I need to get used to the Cisco message board!

Whoever thought bringing SAP global template to FLNA should be the ones fired. As well as Mexico buyers. No wonder stock hasn't recovered since Q4 . Ramon even admitted it interviews SAP hurt us . As far as I see every FLNA PLANT is sc--wed up . Vendors put our company on hold for non payment . Cannot order items to keep plants running .

https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/articles/cisco-chief-terminate-meeting-certain-080300861.html

Can you believe it? He doesn't like niche acronyms...so kewl

--

Lastly, this sort of goofy article, while sprinkling in the factually incorrect terms 'Chief' and 'CEO' with G2 and using examples of other quirky CEOs, suggests he's being artificially pumped up for something.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e1RouSgF_kU

More reorgs and restructring ahead

I hope once all the dust settles this week, someone in board axes Ramon, Athina and all the ineffective C-Suite at top.

It’s about time they taste their own medicine and strategy. The icing would be if it happens right before holidays so they also feel the same pain as 1000s who have been axes due to their mistakes at top.

How wild for a VP of PR to make a post on LinkedIn celebrating construction expansion after the company laid off ALL the construction supervisors, some of the managers & some of the frontline. 100+ impacted, yet celebrating construction expansion. Heartless & ironic. These are the very people who helped make growth like this possible. While expansion is certainly worth celebrating, the timing of this post feels particularly insensitive to the many dedicated employees and families who were recently impacted.

Anyone hear about the head of payables convicted of voter fraud?

Laid eyes on the merit increase matrix for 2027, and it's as pathetic as the firm's leadership. Since we're all now meeting expectations because it's impossible to exceed (guess they're saving those ratings for EJ India), increases for meets will range from 0.9% (over 110% of midpoint) to 4% (under 90% of midpoint).

So yay... I'm just barely over midpoint (by $567), so I will get an amazing 2.1% raise for 2027.

But ELT will continue taking home their 8-figure payouts and not caring in the least about the people actually doing the work. I've said for a while now that my loyalty to EDJ is gone but that I wasn't actively looking to move. And stupid me decided to go ahead and buy in to the LP offering.

So either I'm stuck until the LP loan is paid off (18months +/-) or I have to find a way to pay that off so they can liquidate my LP and go to a competitor since it seems every other firm's pay & benefits are better than this dumpster fire.