#leadership

Manager just forwarded us the email from leadership

Fiserv tax incentives for the BH office

Why would my VP require all of the Leaders under them attend the earnings call on 10/27/26? Is there something bad that is going to be announced and wants the Leaders to hear it firsthand at 7:30 in the morning, so it ruins the rest of the day???

First, transformative initiative is a wild a-s way to refer to layoffs.

Second, why aren’t they trimming the fat at the top? Do shareholders really want the value of their holdings being consumed by two executive pay and benefits packages? Losing one of them would probably save more than the entire “transformative initiative” and easily save hundreds of jobs.

AVP of Ops is moving to AVP of People. How bad is it in the Adnone world people leave to be in HR. New person will come in thinking they can make a difference only to be told they can't hire, do more work less, but get UTE to 99% and NPS over 50. Eventually turning into a shell of their previously hi- potential career

I'm so sick on this AI Slop they keep pushing. They expect us to do in 1 month what previously took 6, while they can't even keep their servers online. I actually LIKE AI, and I use it daily, but they want to replace functional workflows and GOOD harnesses with hallucinated slop so they can throw around words like "agentic". How about we replace these SVPs with agents, we might actually be able to get stuff done. Maybe then leadership might actually be able to provide direction for once

Hey John, if you read this, how about considering some accountability for your actions and decisions and leadership? You were right there losing $30B because of DirecTV. You led the $40B lots of Warner, which then appears to have recovered it's losses when it was then sold again. You might not have been the primary person, but you were in leadership were you could have affected the loss of $4B payout for not closing the T-Mobile deal and the billions lost in Mexico. Instead of saying the analysts don't understand, we don't have the right culture, customers haven't caught on yet, the other guys from ten years ago are an at fault, how about acknowledging what you did and how the company would look very different without all those losses.

Three things from OpenText World.

1. The people running product and tech have no engineering background.

Shannon Bell is the new Chief Product & Technology Officer. Her resume is product management at Amdocs, IT at Rogers, then CIO at OpenText. No engineering org, no R&D org, ever. The guy before her, Savinay Berry, actually ran product and engineering at Vonage.

Same story with the new hires. Anupam Khazanchi, the new CIO, came from Rogers IT. Lise Lefaive got bumped to SVP from running a PMO. IT delivery people, not software people.

Compare that to anyone else. SAP's CTO has a PhD in computer science. ServiceNow's Chief Product Officer did 24 years of product development at Oracle. Workday's product and tech president started as a developer.

Every engineer, intern, or internal transfer at OpenText has to prove the skills in an interview before they get the job. Apparently that rule stops at the executive floor. Terrible.

1. They're cutting R&D while promising more AI.

Keynote: agentic AI, a Global Command Center, an AI-first platform. 10-K: R&D spend down 14% in a year ($756M to $648M), last quarter down 20%, EBITDA margin up to 36%.

Two cost programs at the same time. "OpenText Trusts OpenText" wants $1.5B in savings. The Business Optimization Plan is cutting around 2,000 roles, about 1,280 of them this year. Next year's "growth investment" is $100–200M and the only specific line item is sales hiring. Zero number for engineers.

You can't keep cutting the people who build the product and still promise a new platform.

Shannon Bell made her name as CIO by cutting costs with the "OpenText Trusts OpenText" program. That was the right job then. It's the wrong job now. As CPTO her job is to fight for R&D budget, not keep bragging about savings. If she's still on stage talking about $1.5B in cuts instead of what she's spending on engineers, she hasn't made the switch. She's running the product org the way she ran IT: as a cost center.

1. The future is dimmer than the keynote.

Execs with no engineering background, a shrinking R&D budget, and a growth plan that's basically hiring salespeople. That's not an AI strategy. That's a cost-cutting plan with an AI sticker on it. Until someone senior owns R&D investment with an actual number, the AI targets are just slides.

Last year OpenText cut 1,091 R&D heads and 19 in sales and marketing. The plan isn't finished. More layoffs are coming.

So who's responsible for engineering investment, and how much is it?

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” — John C. Maxwell

True leadership is more than holding a position, giving instructions, or setting expectations. It is the ability to establish a clear direction, lead through personal example, and empower others to follow with confidence.

John C. Maxwell’s quote captures the essence of effective leadership in three powerful principles.

## 1. Know the Way — Lead with Vision

Great leaders understand where they are going and why the destination matters. They have a clear vision, understand the challenges ahead, and help others see the possibilities beyond the present.

Knowing the way requires wisdom, preparation, strategic thinking, and the courage to make difficult decisions. Leaders must be able to distinguish between what is urgent and what is important, anticipate obstacles, and align people around a shared purpose.

A leader without direction creates confusion. A leader with vision creates clarity, confidence, and purpose.

Key lesson: Before you ask others to follow you, know where you are leading them and why.

## 2. Go the Way — Lead by Example

Leadership credibility is earned through actions, not titles. People pay attention to what leaders do, especially when circumstances become difficult.

Going the way means demonstrating the values, discipline, accountability, and commitment you expect from others. It means being willing to make sacrifices, accept responsibility for mistakes, and remain consistent even when no one is watching.

You cannot demand integrity while compromising your own. You cannot expect accountability while avoiding responsibility. And you cannot inspire excellence if you are unwilling to pursue it yourself.

When leaders practice what they preach, they build trust. When they lead by example, they turn expectations into shared standards and words into meaningful action.

Key lesson: Never ask others to do what you are unwilling to demonstrate yourself.

## 3. Show the Way — Develop and Empower Others

Leadership is not simply about knowing the direction and walking the path. It is also about helping others understand the journey and equipping them to succeed.

Showing the way means communicating clearly, sharing knowledge, coaching others, removing obstacles, and creating opportunities for people to grow. It requires patience, empathy, and a willingness to invest in the development of others.

The strongest leaders do not create dependency on themselves. They build capable, confident people who can make decisions, solve problems, and eventually lead others.

A leader's greatest achievement is not merely reaching the destination but helping others develop the ability and confidence to reach it themselves.

Key lesson: Measure your leadership not only by what you accomplish, but also by how many people you help succeed.

## Bringing the three principles together

These three pillars work best when they are practiced together.

• Know the way provides direction.
• Go the way builds credibility.
• Show the way creates growth and lasting impact.

Vision without action remains an idea. Action without vision can lead people in the wrong direction. And vision and action without developing others can limit an organization's long-term success.

Great leadership brings all three together: a clear destination, a leader who models the journey, and a team that is equipped to move forward together.

## Conclusion: Leadership Is a Responsibility, Not Just a Position

Ultimately, leadership is not defined by how many people report to you, the authority you possess, or the title on your business card. It is defined by the direction you provide, the example you set, and the difference you make in the lives of others.

The best leaders create clarity when there is uncertainty, demonstrate courage when there are challenges, and develop people when there are opportunities to grow.

Know the way so you can provide direction. Go the way so you can earn trust. Show the way so others can succeed.

That is the foundation of leadership that inspires people, strengthens teams, and creates a legacy that lasts beyond the leader.

why? why is he here? why does his org bend their knee to his lack of leadership and horrible vision? why do his people cower in his presence?

so many great people in his org, so many trash people in his org - all left looking the same due to his inability to know what a good idea smells like

Read all about it google it today!

Remember Kodak and Blockbuster? They had visionary leaders also famously resisted transformation to protect legacy film and video profits. AT&T’s strategic missteps in media and debt reduced its influence without ending its existence in a gasp to hang on to wireless and fiber until a final blow. Today, traditional telecom legacy models face aggressive disruption as SpaceX pushes into cellular service with direct-to-cell Starlink satellite connectivity. It is not a matter of IF but when it happens. Stankey is too stubborn to see and believe people will continue to stick to brand loyalty of AT&T.

John says we need to “stand behind our products and services” and use them ourselves if we expect others to switch to AT&T.

Here’s the problem, John. We literally implemented 5x RTO because apparently we don’t believe our own employees can work effectively from home, even though we sell the very services that make remote work possible.

How the he-l are we supposed to sell people on the benefits of AT&T when our own leadership doesn’t seem to believe in them enough to let its employees use that flexibility themselves?

Maybe we’d be more enthusiastic about our own products, more likely to use them, and more willing to recommend them to friends and family if we actually experienced the benefits firsthand instead of being forced into an office five days a week.

You want employees to stand behind AT&T? Start by giving us a reason to believe in what we’re selling. You can’t preach the benefits of connectivity and flexibility to customers while refusing to trust your own employees with it. Practice what you preach.

The decision to name Karen Deutsch CMO of UHC definitely affirms the organization doesn't value Employee Experience feedback at all. To call her a bully would be kind to bullies. That aside the moves she will be making are not great. For starters, she needs to reduce costs by 25%+. Some of that will come from closing or not posting open roles. Some of that will come from "accelerating the use of AI". Some of that will come from collapsing teams and functions and reducing redundancies. Some of it will come from reducing marketing spend. The next 8 weeks are going to be messy for all of you. And for those in marketing roles not in UHC, good luck. The versions of plans she has are far reaching and speak to her ego and ambition. Normally you might entertain changing roles and moving to Optum. While Optum doesn't have a Karen problem they do have their own large cost targets and will not be in a position to open or add roles.

Um, when John?

You’ve been making this claim for a decade.

Maybe it’s not the market. Maybe it’s you.

Retire. Please. For the love of God.

I am new to campus. I can’t find anywhere to sit! Every time I sit down in a desk people scowl at me and eventually walk over and say that is so and so’s desk or this neighborhood is for so and so’s group only. I went to my supervisor and they told me to just sit anywhere but wherever I sit I am told I do not belong there. Why doesn’t anyone admit this open seating experiment is a huge failure? My supervisor and manager sit in the same desk every day and clearly “lead by example”

Is it their goal to undermine the company? For what purpose? I honestly don’t get how this could be good for us.

I find it interesting the level of underestimating the overall workforce.

• We are vastly not as stupid as they think we are - we are capable of meeting a metric, appearing to be compliant while doing the bare minimum. We have no interest in helping them make money - keep members - why should we - they don't care about us - why should we care.
• I have been doing the bare minimum - equal to the merit I am anticipating - all I care about is getting a met standards eval - I have no questions, no ideas, no interest and can parrot what you want to hear to get you to leave me alone
• I don't need your health insurance - I am on my spouse plan - a blue plan out of another state who leaves us alone, no cold calls, no forced case management for using my coverage, responsive when we call with a question and get fast resolution. Not like this chit hole.
• I am tick tock ticking to be able to retire - maybe you should look at your workforce and check the average age - I am part of large group
• I have no goals, I am Mastered prepared so don't ask me about my education goals - I don't need a PHD
• I have the ability to fake interest and sound "good" on a moments notice.
• Many others that are not going to retire are actively looking and will quit at a moments notice -

You get the workforce you deserve - treat us like cr-p and we will act accordingly - and the reputation of this place is total trash.

Why are there Directors reporting to Directors? VPs reporting to VPs? A bloated org tree for sure.

The shareholder lawsuit in U.S. District Court in New York City dates to July 2025. Besides Fiserv, the lawsuit names as defendants former CEOs Frank Bisignano and Mike Lyons, along with Bob Hau, the former chief financial officer, and John Gibbons, the former head of Fiserv's financial institutions group.

Bisignano left Fiserv before the lawsuit landed, in May 2025, when he was confirmed by the Senate to lead the Social Security Administration after being nominated to the post by President Donald Trump in late 2024.

A few months after Bisignano's exit in October last year, Lyons overhauled the company's management team and pursued what he called "a critical and necessary reset" for the payments processor. But then this year, Lyons also resigned, in June, to lead Truist Financial.

About 90% of the individual defendants' income was tied to meeting specific targets, according to the plaintiffs. Bisignano made about $700 million in July 2025 from "illicit stock sales at inflated prices," according to the plaintiffs' filing on Tuesday.

Netflix has recently reduced its workforce by approximately 1,000 employees, representing about 6% of its staff. This decision comes as the company navigates a rapidly evolving media landscape. Co-CEO Greg Peters stated that these cuts are necessary to ensure efficient investment and resource allocation. The company aims to be disciplined in its focus and operations to support long-term growth. These layoffs followed significant leadership changes within the content division.

Los Gatos, California

https://deadline.com/2026/10/netflix-greg-peters-layoffs-growth-1237169073/

Bryan: "Thanks Paul H for all you've done. We searched far and wide for the top talent in the world, and to my surprise I only had to look as far as people I directly know and used to work with to identify the absolute best, Ken T."

PH overlapped Bryan's companies 15yrs, KT 18yrs.

Our values: Put [my] people first. Solve what matters [and what matters is my pal's yacht size]. Best and preferred place to work [for my friends]. Win [$M for my buds] with excellence. Advance [my c-suite bros salaries] together [because our pay doesn't look as ridiculous to the board if we all balloon together].

Time has passed the Copper Cone Heads........
Time has passed the Fiber Fanatics.......
Stankey still running plays from the 1980s.......
ATT is The Sears of Communications......

His job was to raise the stock price. Period.

A year later after tons of layoffs and share buybacks, stock is low.

He failed. Fire him.

How many times will our leaders talk about the superiority of fiber over satellite on today’s earnings call?

Will they even acknowledge SpaceX or Elon?

What other tired phrases do you expect to hear?

Any current LPs planning to put their money into LP this time or pass?

I have serious concerns about where this ship is headed and am thinking of passing on this opportunity as I am not entirely comfortable having my hard earned money go to the decisions that I have no say in, leadership that has lost my trust, and firm decisions that could negatively impact my financial future. I have always been a part of LP but for the first time ever I may pass; thanks but no thanks.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about what are you planning to do?

Isn't CEO supposed to be for like 10 years?

The previous CIO left about 2 months ago. We had All Hands to meet her replacement. We got sent an All About Me questionnaire, supposedly so they could personalize swag and we’d get to know each other better. About a month later (last Fri) the new CIO sent a goodbye email.
No one is has the wheel as we careen towards cliff’s edge.

My manager kept on changing over last few years till I got one who has 0 leadership skill. Just a glorified scrum master who don’t have to even maintain jira board. Zero people management skill and of course 0 tech skills!

Instead of holding sales accountable for incomplete, sloppy, or outright horrible applications, senior leadership expects fulfillment to clean up the mess and handhold sales who treat us with zero respect, not all but most! When things stall or fall apart, fulfillment takes the blame, while sales leadership protects their numbers and skirts accountability. If leadership actually cared about efficiency and the clients , they would fix the process and require sales to submit viable files instead of treating fulfillment like a dumping ground. Sales leadership knows no more than their loan officers and constantly bully and interrogate operations as to why their dirty applications are unacceptable. They do not hold themselves or their people accountable and it’s all our fault. Mike and Freddy need to look big and hard look at head of originations and senior leaders in Fulfillment who all cover for one another. .

Hundreds laid off between yesterday and this morning, mostly managers and directors

Has anyone heard about the Truist Leadership Institute closing? Kelly King won’t be happy to hear this…sorry to anyone here impacted, if this is true.

AT&T could have a warchest but Stankey squandered that, shareholder wealth, and many good employees. Elon's army would probably bid up their stock against AT&T simply out of spite against Stankey.

There’s been a lot of discussion about potential cuts at the director level and above. Has anyone heard anything about whether M1 and M2 positions are expected to be impacted as well?

Many companies are reducing staff in anticipation of AI automation, but this strategy carries significant risks. Gartner predicts that a substantial portion of employees let go due to AI will need to be rehired. This is because the actual productivity gains from AI may not fully replace human capabilities, leading to unexpected costs. Executives must carefully assess AI's true impact before making staffing decisions. Failing to do so could result in a costly cycle of layoffs and rehiring.

October 19, 2026

https://www.okoone.com/spark/leadership-management/ai-driven-job-cuts-could-lead-to-costly-rehiring/

anyone else catch that.
she's such a unqualified mess.

PEPSICO DOESN'T NEED ANOTHER HEADCOUNT REDUCTION. IT NEEDS LEADERS WHO KNOW HOW TO WIN.

With the reported loss of the KFC fountain beverage business and the continuing struggles in Frito-Lay sales, PepsiCo finds itself in an alarming position.

But what concerns me most is not the losses themselves. It is the apparent loss of the leadership mentality that once made PepsiCo one of the greatest competitive organizations in America.

During my 42 years with PepsiCo, I witnessed something extraordinary: our ability to bounce back from almost any setback.

We were taught that losing was never the end of the story. When we lost, we got back up, studied the competition, developed a new strategy, and prepared for our next victory.

We didn't build our reputation by counting our losses. We built it by winning back what we lost.

Unfortunately, I believe that winning mentality has been fading over the last several years, particularly since Indra Nooyi's departure.

I have never witnessed such a concerning shortage of proven leadership talent at the highest levels of PepsiCo.

Let me be clear. I am not talking about the frontline employees. PepsiCo still has extraordinary people working in its plants, warehouses, delivery trucks, sales territories, and distribution centers.

The talent problem is not at the bottom of the organization. It is at the top.

Yet when performance declines, what is the familiar corporate response? Another restructuring. Another headcount reduction. Another round of cost-cutting.

You cannot continue reducing the workforce and expect that alone to rebuild market share.
You cannot cut your way back to greatness.

And while PepsiCo is busy counting desks, Coca-Cola is busy counting the accounts it just took from us. Nobody in Atlanta is holding a town hall about "efficiencies." They are in the stores.

And you certainly cannot rebuild a winning organization by promoting people who know how to explain a loss but have never demonstrated that they know how to deliver a win.

Accounts like KFC are not lost in a budget review. They are lost years earlier, when the people who actually knew the customer were "streamlined" out of the building and replaced with a dashboard.

PepsiCo needs leaders who understand competition, customers, sales, operations, and the marketplace.

Leaders who know how to take market share, not simply report how much was lost.
We need executives who inspire people to fight for the business rather than manage its decline.

The PepsiCo I knew didn't surrender market share without a fight. We didn't wait for the next financial report to tell us we were losing. We went into the marketplace and did something about it.

My message to the PepsiCo Board of Directors is simple:
Stop looking at the workforce as the primary problem. Start examining the leadership decisions being made at the top.
Stop promoting people simply because they can manage numbers. Start promoting people who have demonstrated that they can build businesses, develop people, win customers, and defeat competitors.

PepsiCo doesn't need another generation of executives who are experts at managing decline.
It needs a new generation of leaders who know how to win.

I still believe PepsiCo can come back. I witnessed that fighting spirit for over 40 years!

Where is this little rat of a CEO hiding?

Maura is ousted. Abby acquiescing for Maura and her massive budget being tax revenue forcing us to be cattle going to sla-ghter.
This FT RTO is a joke.
Productivity is going to go down people are late leaving early because we all have obligations with family children pets it was better wfh because we turned on our laptop right on time instead of sitting in traffic looking for parking getting gasoline trains trolley delays.
Maura needs to go we can’t afford this Abby needed to bring us in for tax revenue. Such a pig. Vote Minouge get us out of this he-l hole.

Promoted to President of Medtronic just like Geoff was before he took over. Makes me hopeful… Mike gets it and believes in the Mission. 1,000,000 times better than the id--tic frat boy we have now.

https://samgwray.substack.com/p/ibm-and-rapidus

And IBM has a proven history of quality research with decisions not conducive to achieving scale. Their default position, for over 30 years, has been to prove something is possible and then drop out of manufacturing. This is understandable: when they have tried to compete with foundries, they have often made the wrong decisions. Nobody cared about their developments in copper wiring enough to buy from them; they developed a Common Platform based on an ethos that customers didn’t care about; they were too late to gate-last and ki-led the Common Platform. In their time as a research organization, Global Foundries is the only company that attempted to build an IBM process, and they ended up abandoning the leading edge altogether after a reported billions of dollars of investment. Samsung, though part of the Research Alliance for its entire tenure, never chose to use IBM’s process directly, and opted to take the expertise gained from the partnership to implement their own process. IBM has no demonstrated capacity to take their leading edge research and apply it to a real, large-scale foundry.