#leadership

New Role made up for Chief Digi officer Russell Jokes, where to they make these up, and a remarketing colour for the logo.

Another millionaire on the board, and millions wasted following on from Mary. Nobody knows who DXC are.

This "leadership" keeps cutting people and stacking the leftovers on whoever stays. They already started again, and I am determined not to take on another unwanted task. We all kept absorbing the hit and pretending it was normal, but that ends for me today. If pushing back puts a target on my back, so be it.

Today’s S&T townhall was a masterclass in corporate spin. They bragged about “wins” and “momentum,” but flat-out refused to address the mess happening behind the scenes. Not a single word about the plants being shut down. No mention of the layoffs already underway. No acknowledgment of the teams stretched thin or the projects that failed.

Leadership acted like everything is perfect while people’s jobs are on the line. They know employees are anxious. They know closures are happening. They know cost-cutting is hitting hard. And yet they chose to pretend none of it exists.

This wasn’t a townhall — it was a PR show.
If PepsiCo wants any credibility left, they need to stop hiding behind glossy slides and start telling the truth.

SBC Legacy Executives chased off all the talent and threats to upend their massive incompetence.

Next cascade should focus on redoing cascade 1. Since cascade 2, we’ve seen the same incompetent leadership coming through. How about doing cascade 1 correctly before shaving associates first? As they say, it all starts with leadership and we have it seen one in a while. Btw… doing listening posts is not enough.

What if we had Olympic Games for Managers and above? Categories would include:
1- Reporting your dubious achievements through rose tinted glasses
2- Schmoozing your peers and superiors while neglecting your own department
3- Running your team ragged while having little to no impact
4- Promoting as many unqualified people as possible
5- Running around like a chicken with its head cut off
6- Failing up

Do you know any potential gold medalists?

GN&T did their usual shuffle of ADs and SDs after the RIF. For those that are unfamiliar, once a year or once every few years, they shuffle ADs and SDs from one department that they’re unqualified to lead to another where they’re typically even less qualified. It’s one of the many brilliant strategies that have allowed the competition to catch up or even surpass VZ

Currently at the Irvine plant. Demand has been extremely low for months. A round of RIFs already happened a few weeks ago, followed by an extended manufacturing shutdown where most operators have been forced onto unpaid leave after exhausting PTO. Leadership has openly stated their current strategy is essentially to “wait and hope things improve.” Production numbers continue trending downward, and it feels like another wave of layoffs is imminent. Morale is very low and confidence in management is basically nonexistent right now. Just had to let that out lol

I love how leadership claims forced stack ranking isn’t happening. It is. 100%. India is not part of it. So if your team has 15 US and 5 India the rankings are only for the 15 US. That means one or two of you will get less than meets even if you do meet the job. And even if the Indian team is far worse. We got it in writing which is only because our manager is new and didn’t realize she shouldn’t email that kind of thing. Keep the paper trail coming! Document everything people.

Those of you saying that without a leadership change this won’t be a big deal. Steve Llewellyn‘s retirement was announced Friday. John Dean is coming to Frito US from Beverages.

That’s probably the first domino. Since it’s PEPNA, that’s the US and Canada. Prob some realignment and HQ roles being shifted to GBS

The moment i receive the letter, i will file all the paid leave. (PTO and Caregiver)

Comeback and say NO.

Our leadership has IQ of the current weather right now in New England.

There’s no real chance of recovery on the path we’re on, especially with the people steering the wheel. At this point it barely matters whether the next cuts land in December or later. They’re coming. It would just be nice if, for once, the people responsible actually took the blame. It’s absurd to pretend anyone but leadership is accountable for the state of affairs.

Don’t be. Or at least, don’t take them to heart. They aren’t genuine assessments. They’re just a convenient cover for cuts and reorgs. A bad review might increase the odds of being let go, but it says nothing about your real performance, and definitely nothing about your actual value. Leadership is focused on finding the easiest and cheapest ways to push people out, whether it’s through reviews or some other pretext. The whole thing is just theatrics.

I've been "out" for awhile now and while I do believe there's value in the brands...and there's a host of great, talented people there...it is, as it stands, a sinking ship and one not worth staying on. It will for sure get worse before it gets better...and "better" might mean just a little bit better not thriving. You have a leadership team at this point that is swamped by arrogance, short-term incentives and a lack of understanding of people, team, engagement and leadership...the things that actually will grow the company long-term.
Too much debt. Sacrificing too much to protect dividend. Macro pressures. Bad leaders. A strategy that probably would work but requires a focus that isn't there. Cutting the wrong people and teams at the wrong time.

This post deserves its own thread. Found at @q4+1kbdjtt9e.

Now that feels like a foggy memory. It was never perfect, and I never expected major career growth. Advancement was already limited when I joined. But things were better organized, more efficient, less harsh, and at least somewhat logical. Doing a good job actually meant something.

Today it’s a drag, with constant chaos, growing obstacles to helping clients, and the axe always spinning overhead. Any motivation, encouragement, or respect has been stripped out of how leadership treats employees. I honestly think they’re counting on most of us being decent people who still try to do our jobs responsibly, because there’s no external incentive left. The only thing keeping anyone dedicated now is personal ethics.

Every message from leadership sounds like a template written by someone who never met a real employee. They keep talking about strategic focus and long-term vision while people pack their desks quietly. Talk about a disconnect.

Can somebody name one thing that improved since the last reorg that cost so many people their jobs?

From 2023 to today, the stock has went from $5 to 1.60. They ain't even insider buying the stock at these lows. What is the board doing?

Thinking about Dan’s fireside chat on Friday I’ve come to the conclusion it boils down to whether people will trust him or not and if they believe him or not.

Let’s be honest he’s not big on details…so it feels like a leap of faith right now and can people move on from 15000 layoffs and that effectively the same people are in charge as a year ago

Think about it. The man is a fraud, the board of ATT is a fraud.
Fastow, Skilling, Lay, Stankey

And the meter is still running........

Poor Raises, Poor Severance, No Upward Mobility, Cafeteria Style Seating for Your Workday, Garbage Stock Price

Job Well Done John Stankey
Recent Warner Brother Sale to Netflix is another glaring Bat Signal, Exclamation Point, Nail in the Coffin at your utter buffoonery in running an Organization.
At a bare bones lowball minimum(aka what you sell assets for Stankey Style) you have cost shareholders $100B in equity value. At an absolute ceiling(what you buy assets for Stankey Style) you have cost shareholders $250B in your career as an Executive at ATT. You get played like a fiddle at the poker table time and time again but of course it is with other people's money and lives. Total failure in the business world.

Right after the layoffs wrapped up, my LinkedIn turned into a wall of inspirational posts, most from managers who said nothing to their own teams. To say the timing is tone-deaf is an understatement. How can you post cr-p like that when so many people under you are suddenly jobless?

We heard this week that there is a hiring freeze on field leaders - DM and up. It seems obviously we’re about to see a big realignment and layoffs. Wondering what everyone is hearing?

In Tampa, It is wild how managers suddenly disappear right before review time. They ghost you for weeks, then magically reappear with some cooked-up rating. This place doesn’t have a performance problem — it has a leadership problem. Especially with Indian managers who support people who speak their own native language. If an outsider comes to your team they are done unless the manager has a foreign degree, there is no respect. Some people sit in the same office space for years simply because they’re scared, comfortable, and stuck — no ambition, no growth, no risk-taking, just repeating the same tasks every day until they become part of the furniture.

I get that losing the WB bid shouldn't technically touch us, but with this leadership I can't shake the feeling they'll react by doubling down on cost cutting and trimming more people than they originally meant to. Maybe it's paranoia, but when big egos take a hit, they usually find someone else to pay for it.

If this wasn't so serious and affected so many employees livelihoods, it would be funny. Why are this bunch of clowns still at the controls? I afraid it's now too late to do anything about this. The plane is too close to the mountain to take evasive action.
I'm lucky, I managed to jump ship in 2024 after 36.5 years and don't regret it one bit. I met so many good people at Xerox in that time and can remember when the staff were seen as the most highly prized asset the company had. To hear the CEO now suggesting the lack of success is down to those same employees and that they need to prioritise the company over their own well-being, clearly shows he has no idea of what it meant to be a Xeroid. The bulk of those he has insulted would have previously, (I've no doubt) worked unpaid hours to fix a customer machine or pulled out all stops to make sure equipment is delivered and installed before month/quarter/year-end. They would have been to ones working at weekends, putting their customer and the company before their families. So how have the suddenly become a lot of work-shy slackers? The answer, Steve B, is that they haven't, they have not been lead by a competent SLT for years. To all my ex-colleagues I say, I hope you have as good a Christmas as you can and that 2026 is kind to you. To Steve B I say, you had the golden goose and you and your fellow clowns have fu---d it up. I hope you have trouble sleeping at night.

I ’ve read your posts, and I see a lot of pain, anger, and smart people struggling to land. Yes, the market is tough, and yes, offshore/H1B is a factor, but let's talk about the biggest hurdle: Your Wells Fargo Leadership Narrative.

You were trained and rewarded in a toxic, high-fear environment. Now, you’re inadvertently carrying that "WF ethos" into your interviews, and recruiters are seeing it as a massive risk.

Here is the truth: Your next employer doesn't just need your technical skills; they need assurance you aren't bringing the "poison" of an abusive, command-and-control culture with you.

1. The Red Flags Recruiters See
   When you talk about why Agile failed, or how you led a team, we listen for these immediate flags:

"I monitored their tickets..." 🚩 (Translation: I micro-managed, I didn't trust my people.)

"We couldn't innovate because it was too risky..." 🚩 (Translation: I was risk-averse, I didn't create a safe learning environment.)

"Agile failed because management we-ponized the metrics..." 🚩 (While true, it signals: You don't know how to protect your team from bad leadership.)

"I had to stack rank them..." 🚩 (Translation: You were an enforcer of a toxic system.)

1. Your New Leadership Narrative: From Enforcer to Enabler
   You need to shift your identity from a manager who enforced toxic metrics to a Servant Leader who protected and enabled their team despite the toxicity. You must demonstrate that you were a student of the anti-patterns, not an advocate.

This shift is rooted in Psychological Safety (PS)—the belief that your team can speak up without fear of punishment. When PS is high, Agile works, Innovation works, teams work. When it's low (like at WF), everything fails.

Your Goal: Convince the interviewer that you know how to build a safe and empowered team that drives innovation and takes ownership.

1. The AI Chat Practice Prompt
   Use a tool like this (Gemini, ChatGPT, etc.) to practice your new answers. Paste the following prompt into your chat, and then answer the questions the AI poses. This forces you to recondition your answers and solidify your narrative:

[Copy and paste this into an AI Chat]

"I was a manager who was recently laid off from a large financial institution that suffered a failed Agile transformation due to a deeply toxic, high-fear culture. In my interviews, I am struggling to demonstrate that I have moved past that toxic environment. I need to establish a new leadership narrative based on Psychological Safety (PS) and Servant Leadership. Assume I am in an interview for a leadership role at a healthy organization.

Please ask me the following questions and critique my answers, looking for red flags that show I am still operating from a 'command-and-control' mindset:

How do you get others to trust in your leadership?

How did you approach performance reviews and development in that high-pressure environment?

How do you foster innovation and manage technical risk on your team?"

1. What the AI Will Teach You to Say
   When you practice, your answers should evolve to focus on systems, coaching, and protection, not control. For example:

Instead of: "I monitored their work."

Say: "I shifted my focus from monitoring tasks to coaching autonomy. I established clear, measurable team goals and ensured my team felt safe enough to immediately raise impediments, knowing I would remove them."

Use the AI to refine your story until you sound like a leader who learned from the fire and is now ready to build a healthy culture. Good luck—you are capable of this shift!

Because, after Andy departs....

Bandy the clown lectures us all about going faster in the last Town Hall. 5 months later we still don’t have a defined sales organization. It is not difficult to split a few accounts between team and then decide how manny sales peeps. Q1 2026 will just be another few months of uncertainty and disruption. Obviously going faster doesn’t apply to Bandy, JUG and whichever Lex monkey does the sales coverage.

Very often I kept warning of competition eating our cake - and leadership was deaf, or they laughed, or they were very arrogant.

Friday - Hatchet man said we cannot relay on network - “no kidding, Sherlock”

It tool the board to kick 13k+ folks to wake up?

🤬

Since we benchmark everything else, why don’t we benchmark our leaders as well? If we had, we likely wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in today.

Stank keeps talking about being a “market-based company,” but the market has already delivered its verdict, and it is absolutely brutal.

Just look at the scoreboard.

AT&T’s market cap today is around $180B.
Netflix, a company AT&T once thought it could compete with through the WarnerMedia empire, is sitting around $430B+. Netflix is worth more than double AT&T. That alone tells you everything about which company the market believes in.

And when you look at how we got here, it’s even worse.

AT&T bought Time Warner for roughly $85B, swallowed billions more in debt, tried to play Hollywood, mismanaged the integration, then spun it off in 2022 into Warner Bros Discovery wiping out over 50 of billion in value.
WBD stock fell as low as $7.50, and even now AT&T stock at roughly $25.46 is trading below WBD’s $25.80.
An $85B asset turned into a fraction of its worth, and now WBD is being shopped to Netflix for double compared to the sale and divestiture price.

Billions burned.

A strategic failure so large business schools literally teach it.
And the company has spent the last five years trying to claw its way back to where it was BEFORE all these “visionary decisions.”

So when Stankey and the leadership team brag about “market-based” strategy, it’s a joke the actual market doesn’t find funny. Wall Street sees right through it. Investors have no confidence. Employees have no confidence. The stock has gone nowhere during his tenure, and the company’s major bets have been disasters.

If AT&T truly wants to operate like a modern, market-led company, then start acting like one beginning with ending his latest “visionary decision” - the outdated RTO obsession that adds cost, crushes morale, pushes out top talent, and delivers zero measurable business benefit. Wait too long and you’ll never recover from that too.

Real market-based companies reduce overhead, increase flexibility, retain talent, and innovate.
AT&T is doing the opposite and the market has priced that in loud and clear.

Leadership can keep talking about culture, presence, and “the plan,” but the numbers don’t lie.
The strategy isn’t working.
And the market knows it.
And so do we.

BK?

Being one minute late to a meeting is “disrespectful,” apparently. But him slurping coffee into the mic like he’s doing a Folgers ASMR? That’s “leadership excellence,” I guess.

He swears email is a letter because, his words, not mine - he’s “old.” And he responds to every single one of those letters with pride… but Slack? Oh no. That’s where he draws the line. Technology has gone too far.

And when the layoffs, sorry, the “carnage” are finally done, he says those of us who remain will be… delighted. Yes, delighted. Because nothing screams delight like survivor’s guilt and three people doing the work of twelve.

If you missed the all-hands, don’t waste your time watching the replay.

He said ALL of this in 33 minutes… a meeting that absolutely could’ve been an email.

A truth from John Stankey.

https://www.businessinsider.com/att-ceo-john-stankey-career-advice-young-people-college-tech-2025-12

I am watching the Big XII championship game right now presented by Edward Jones. In a first quarter commercial break here pops up our beloved Penny Pennington with her dyed hair (when you see her in person she has plenty of gray). She talks about Edward Jones standing beside people helping them achieve their dreams and find their “rich”. She forgot to tell the football fans that she will help you achieve your dreams unless she can offshore your position for cheap Indian labor. If that is the case then you are on your own. Penny is such a blatant liar!

Wow! Now with CW now gone, Aapla will finally sunset to combine into three geos to simple fy the structure for EH!

SUBSEQUENTLY the roles will be elevated to president level.

Tp
President of America's

Cg
President of EMEA

And
President of APAC

MY BIG concern is what role will then Cs take on or are her days numbered? Allbirds needs some more failures!

Be honest.