#leadership

Buffalos are bold and strategic and would charge bravely with focus and determination into the approaching Elliott Management storm even though they probably won't survive it ! Be proactive like the Buffalo and face the challenge head on !

Cybersecurity being ran by the most incompetent non cyber people ever. Staples really forgot they’re supposed to protect the network, not promote their friends.

With all the new VPs, SVPs, AVPs, etc., we are so top heavy. No wonder we have a partnership with Dollywood!

Spoke with an old co-worker last week, who got LR'd last year and still does not have replacement job. Really sad, great worker.

I was LR'd years ago, and moved on luckily to much greener pastures.

I was at Cisco a long time, the last two years were Psychological Warfare. Felt I would get LR'd; sure enough eventually did.

Early in career, was a "highly valued" and highly paid, who then, with time morphed into an older male. Great money. The problems indeed began when new "management" took over our BU. It took a year, but there was a dramatic "change" of "philosophies", which also brought more likeminded folks into the BU. Let me just say, languange became a definite much tougher to navigate challenge. Also, many cultural differences.

That is not a popular opinion, but it was reality. Sounds like it still may be reality. Now even more.

I am SO glad I was removed from the sullbhit and moved on. I am also glad it was years ago, and not in today's market. Times are tough. If I was still there, I do not know what I would do, the opportunites are not there.

Many people will most likely not like this post. I am supportive of all peoples, but skill and job abilities were, and appear to continue to be for the mostpart, completely ignored at Cisco.

To the upper management who sanction and condone this pile of sullbhit, I hope you feel truly proud of your accomplishments, mostly of padding your pockets while picking off other workers, and continuing to foster a culture of misery.

if you come across a better opportunity, move on. Your sanity will Thank You.

No offshoring / put profits over patient care.

Heard from leadership that there were no director level promotions this time around in GPRS. Can someone confirm?

Shankar the water buffalo is speaking at the company all-hands right now, talking about Empathy and Respect. What an absolute joke. Open your eyes, ya carpet munching swamp gator, there are people here with families, mortgages, and years of loyalty to this company, and everything you say rings hollow. If you actually cared about the 'synergies' and 'products' you keep parroting, you’d show loyalty to the people who built the foundation you’re standing on. Instead, we all know how this will play out: H1B workers will be squeezed at minimum pay while long-time, higher-earning employees get cut loose. That’s not empathy, that’s exploitation. And let’s be honest, what exactly do you do? Besides pacing around and spouting corporate buzzwords about things you didn’t create, what’s your actual contribution? If anyone here deserves to be replaced by AI, it’s you.

It's the employees, HR, and middle management. To save this company, I propose mandatory reading classes. We also need to give reading and literacy tests. I propose we don't have this constant stigma around logical conversations. I believe there is an issue where others mistake emotionally charged or conversations that trigger emotions as being emotional. We need to make thinking great again and rid ourselves of the insecure employees through a trickle-down framework where over-time those part-time reading arm-chair insecure psychologists are laughed out this company.

Here is the proposal:

Mandatory Reading and Literacy Development

Literacy is foundational to clear communication, comprehension of business materials, and professional development.

• Implement mandatory reading programs for employees and middle management.
• Choose material focused on critical thinking, professional communication, and company-relevant content.
• Host regular discussion sessions to reinforce understanding and application.

Reading and Literacy Assessments

• Introduce non-punitive literacy assessments.
• Use results to inform individual development plans.
• Ensure assessments focus on reading comprehension, logical reasoning, and effective written communication.

It's essential to know the current literacy level across the company to tailor interventions appropriately.

Encourage Logic-Based Dialogue Over Emotionally Reactive Exchanges

Workplace discussions are often dismissed as “emotional” when they are merely emotionally resonant or challenging.

Emotionally triggering topics aren’t inherently emotional—they may still be logical, data-driven, or policy-based.

• Train teams on critical thinking and how to separate the emotional impact of a message from its logical structure.
• Promote a culture where difficult conversations are seen as necessary, not threatening.

Destigmatize Logical Conversations

Some employees may feel that using logic or questioning decisions is confrontational.

• Create guidelines and safe spaces for respectful disagreement.
• Encourage middle managers to model logical discourse without defensiveness.
• Reinforce that challenging ideas is not the same as disrespecting individuals.

Psychological Safety & Respectful Disagreement Framework

To protect the culture of respectful, logic-based communication, we must address the rising tendency to deflect or pathologize others during challenging conversations.

Some employees may feel discomfort when confronted with logic or perspectives that challenge their assumptions. This discomfort should not result in labeling others with derogatory or psychological terms such as “manic”, “schizo” or worse.

Such labels, especially when used during disagreements, do not align with a culture of respect, and are a form of intellectual dismissal.

• All employees must refrain from attributing mental or emotional states to others during discourse.
• Dismissive labeling during logical conversation will be treated as a communication issue and addressed via coaching or performance review.
• Conflict resolution training will include modules on “how to disagree without personalizing” and “recognizing defensiveness in yourself and others".

This company will now practice intellectually honest engagement, even when outcomes don’t favor them. We will now encourage a norm where admitting when one is mistaken is seen as a strength. Feigning ignorance or redirecting blame when presented with clear evidence is counterproductive to team learning and you will be removed from this company in front of all your peers as an act of public shame.

All employees are expected to maintain respectful discourse. Dismissing others’ ideas through derogatory labels, including unfounded psychological or personal attributions, is inconsistent with our values and will be addressed through coaching or corrective action.

Upholding Integrity in the Use of Policies, Procedures, and Authority

A high-trust workplace depends on the honest and consistent application of company policies, procedures, and standards, not selective enforcement or misuse.

• Misrepresenting rules, citing nonexistent procedures, or selectively applying policies for personal gain erodes organizational integrity. All employees, regardless of role, are expected to engage with policies in good faith.
• When challenged, HR must not default to vague or inaccessible procedures to shut down dialogue. Transparency and clarity should be the norm, not the exception.
  = Leaders and middle managers are expected to model fair, honest decision-making, not power retention. Authority should never be used to silence logic, discourage feedback, or override valid concerns without explanation.
• Encourage teams to fact-check interpretations of policies in a non-confrontational way. Build systems where clarification is welcomed, not punished.
• Deliberate misrepresentation of facts, whether to avoid accountability or manipulate outcomes, will be addressed as a performance and integrity issue, not as a matter of disagreement. Any intention gaslight or manipulate reality, even for the companies sake, will result in a 30 minute public shaming session at Rotunda for employees and non-employees alike to attend for a laugh.

“Read It, Pizza Pan!” Rewards Program

Employees earn rewards (like a free pizza, gift card, or lunch with leadership) for completing and reflecting on reading assignments.

• How it works*
• Employees log books or articles they’ve read from an approved list (can include both professional development and broader literature that supports critical thinking or empathy).
• After completing a reading, employees submit a short reflection or participate in a discussion session.
• Upon reaching milestones (e.g., 3 books in a quarter), they receive a “Read It, Pizza Pan” reward (e.g., a voucher, team pizza party, or badge of recognition).

It isn't hard to see that Humana has a leadership that is designed to lead by fear. This isn't done in an obvious manner, it's covert. The constant threats of RIFs, PIPS, DAs, reorgs, etc are designed to keep you in lock step, constantly aiming for perfection least you become a target. It's sickening that humans are treated this way by a "human" company. The founders would be appalled and ashamed by what this company has become. I have never in my life known of a more oppressive company. Yet, people stay- until they don't and it is only when they don't that they understand what has happened to them.

If there is one thing Follett is good at it's cutting payroll. Congratulations to the new student CEO. follett is teaching future leaders how to treat their employees poorly.

Has anyone noticed the org chart has been updated?

Tells me a few things after poking around.
1) if you have duplicative roles when checking out leadership and comparing teams
2) what your team may fall into (studios/tv media)

It’s probably not clear for everyone but in some teams it is. Anyway thought I would point it out.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/09/01/how-a-billionaire-owner-brought-turmoil-and-trouble-to-sothebys

It'd be great to know what's going on. With some people saying it's started and others claiming nothing is happening, I'm starting to get a headache - and I'm not even going to mention my productivity for today. Some clarity from leadership so we actually know what's true would be amazing.

Dear Valued Employees,

As your fearless leader, I wanted to take a moment—between yacht meetings and bonus recalculations—to share my deep appreciation for everything you do to keep this company running while I take credit for it.

This quarter, we achieved record profits thanks to strategic decisions like laying off 20% of the workforce. I know some of you may be “concerned” about job security, but rest assured: my job is very secure.

Now, let’s talk about our exciting Return to Office initiative. While remote work increased productivity, morale, and sanity, we believe that forcing you back into cubicles fosters “collaboration.” What does that mean? We’re not sure. But it sounds good in shareholder meetings.

We’ve installed new badge scanners to track your arrival times, because nothing says trust like surveillance. And don’t worry—we’ve added inspirational posters in the break room to offset the existential dread.

As for me, I’ll continue working remotely from my ski lodge in Aspen. But I’ll be with you in spirit—and in quarterly earnings calls where I say “synergy” a lot.

Let’s keep pushing boundaries, cutting costs, and pretending this is all for innovation.

Warmest regards (from my heated pool),
Mike Wirth

This last round of layoffs broke something in me. I’ve been running on fumes for months, taking on double the work, and it’s obvious leadership couldn’t care less. You treat people like a spreadsheet and then act surprised when they stop caring? Please.

Ever thought thru an issue, come up with a tangible improvement and presented to your supervisor only to have them dismiss it or say it won’t work?
Then, surprise! Months later the same suggestion comes full circle, now for implementation, from that same boss as THEIR idea. They take the credit and collect the accolades (and financial bump).
I had this happen with 2 Brit bosses in London. Really, almost verbatim of my plans.
How do you guard against this? Talk about demoralizing when you’re trying to be proactive and your ideas are usurped by your superiors.
Sound familiar? How do you derail this behavior?

How can a company as large as Kroger given Rodney's age and tenure not had a succession plan in place? Please go external and clean house in the executive ranks. Nobody internally is capable.

Rumor has it c-suite and EC cuts are next now that the farce of a Board meeting is done. About time they start treating the senior leaders with the same ruthlessness they treat everyone else. AMN continues to use RTO to do layoffs without paying severance and hide poor financial performance. That may seem like good business to the bean counters but what it reflects is a bankrupt ethical culture.

Senior leaders bully SMEs into submission on quality issues, ignore compliance and cut corners that will ultimately harm patients (pay attention clients!). SpeakUp is a joke and the Board doesn’t have a clue that the worst offenders were the ones sitting in that meeting with them including those in charge of the so called quality and ethics programs.

Mark my words this company will not exist in 3 years. It is being run straight into the ground by unethical people.

Create unnecessary bureaucracy, hamper innovation and significantly slow down decision making.

That is why Walgreen's has failed the past few years bigtime. The never hired any true leaders.

Anyone know what does the new announcement that came for India, Serbia mean? Does it mean(for instance) Indian employees report to their team leads in US? What happens to the off shore managers who manage only employees and or not actively involved in any functional areas?

Year after year, month after month..I'm having to constantly hear through my manager and from peers that the group I'm in will just shut down. The 'leadership' above us seems to think that the automation that is used in conjunction to our work just 'does what do and there's no need for us', when we pointed out time and time again the instances showing how flawed the automation is, and why the need for human intervention is valid and needed otherwise other groups would be impacted with no one there to catch and fix these issues. Our group is just a very small team of individuals and It's shear ignorance for anyone to think this automation is just 'set it and forget it'.

I dont know what to do anymore, im tired of having to be reminded constantly that we're probably done for...despite hearing this now for a LONG time. It's making me physically sick and I dont know what the point is in me busting my a$$ or giving my all when I feel like im not even wanted.

I ask of those who are in a similar situation for any helpful advice, please no sarcastic responses.

For the last 3 years Phillips 66 has been undergoing what Go Go calls Business Transformation. "Transformation" has basically consisted of laying off a few employees at a time once or twice a year and vague promise that things are going to improve in some future year.
The objective of this transformation was to unlock value in the stock price to bring it more in line with our 2 main peers. It has failed miserably at this goal, as of today our stock price is $30 dollars and $50 dollars lower than our 2 main peers stock price.

Dear @Mr. LBT,

Please re-open voluntary retirement and severance with package options for your employees.

Many of us have now changed our minds and would like the option to leave with a severance package.

This will benefit both the company and employees. The company needs to reduce head count to 75k and this allows employees who feel that they are no longer able to contribute to Intel's success to leave on one's personal choice.

We do not want to leave without a severance package, as for many we don't have the luxury of doing so. However, with a severance package, we have a buffer and confidence needed to move on.

We wish you the best of success LBT! However, many of us do not have the courage to ride out the rough waves with you.

@e1+1k4876rt2

So we want to shift out of the ERP Biz and eliminate any further support for the Maintenance Biz by 2027. Yes, that's right the Maintenance biz for which Siemens by itself pays +50MM per year - a huge amount of revenue will be lost. Our leadership simply says, it's not what we want to be any more.

As was stated in the reference post above, this surely will open the door for 3rd party companies to come in and take over our maintenance biz.

Well, it has already started - have a look: https://www.stocktitan.net/news/RMNI/kbs-partners-with-rimini-street-to-accelerate-its-ai-twpgtdekm3ca.html

KBS is one of largest broadcasting corporations in Korea and they have refused to switch to S4 Hana. So not only will SAP lose the maintenance revenue from this company, it will lose them as a customer on other platforms such as AI investments.

By the time we get to 2027 we will have lost an amazing number of customers to third party maintenance providers and we will also have lost a legacy of future investments from all of our lost customers. What a brilliant idea this was !!

How well our C level team is guiding the company for future growth :-)

Wow, what a whirlwind of thoughts after that on-stage leadership performance!
But EH? An absolute breath of fresh air!

Everyone's whining about Mark B, Sandy, Duggan, Savinay, Shannon, etc ..... But you're barking at the wrong tree. It's the board that everybody should be pi---d at. They are the ones who enabled this mess, fostered it and encouraged it until such point where it became counter-productive and too legally risky to keep Mark B in charge. Yes, all the above people contributed in no small part to this mess, but the board is the source of all evil. They are the ones who should have been fired a long time ago by investors, if said investors truly cared about this company growing. Breaking news, it's not meant to, never was. It is (was) a cash-cow and nothing else. The acquire and trim strategy was not born with Mark B. It was always the brainchild of Jenkins, Sadler and Fowlie. This is how OpenText grew since the beginning. So ask yourself what's going to change with Mark B gone? Not much. A new CEO, maybe a new ELT, a trimmed down OT but deep down you can't turn a tow truck into a ferrari, not matter how much visionary or smart you think you are on topics like AI and information management (yes, looking at you Tom J). Once OT 2.0 is more or less in a functioning order with a balance sheet that's not threatening to cut its jugular, the good old habits will come back. That said by the time that's done, the world will have changed dramatically and the amount of catch-up OT will have to do will be massive even compared to their situation today.

Flying and doing nothing again? another wasteful business trip just for them to enjoy pampering on business classes and fine dining at the sites.

Anyone catch the trimester update yesterday and enjoy watching Penny feigning “empathy” while standing in her $5k custom spray painted EJ blazer?

God what a pathetic excuse for an executive. She and the ELT live in a complete bubble!

Disgusting.

• XAI tapped a recent high school graduate to lead its data annotation team.
• Diego Pasini began leading the team in early September amid leadership changes and deep layoffs.
• Pasini's LinkedIn says he's "on leave" from his studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

https://www.businessinsider.com/xai-data-annotation-leadership-college-student-diego-pasini-layoffs-2025-9

Gelb is not the answer. Foskett should be long retired and has no biz talking to mainstreet FIs we serve... he is a Wall Street dinosaur. The RM/Sales leader - useless and clients and his team know it. Product - zero strategy. Our competition is catching up and winning because they are NOT Fiserv or FIS. Same recycled useless people that we keep moving around. Remind me what has changed???? if you have a chance to get another job - LEAVE!

If MW and our ELT think that the absolutely dreadful morale is not going to crush the company, then he's an even worse leader than we thought he is. ELT needs to wake up and do something POSITIVE to stop the apathy. I have given up and just dont care at all anymore and any self respecting person would do the same after this atrocity of a re-org and tone deaf leadership raking in the cash while destroying a historic company!

Some people keep trying to make it an age thing but it’s not. We’re all in the same boat. The divide is between us and the execs who make the calls. They’re playing with our livelihoods while all of us are just trying to get through the week and still have a job at the end of it.

Chairman Paul Bulcke will step down early and hand over to former Inditex chief Pablo Isla on October 1, accelerating a changing of the guard at the Swiss food giant after an unprecedented period of managerial turmoil.

https://www.reuters.com/business/nestle-ushers-new-leadership-era-chairman-exits-early-2025-09-16/

This company is not serious about getting better and competing. James is a weak leader. Duggan has vision and cares about this company.

Why does HPE keep shuffling the same leaders around? Is there no one else in their mind that can do a lot of these jobs? Doesn’t look like people that want to move up will get the chance. Plus all of it feels mundane and routine nothing exciting about any of it.

I have been reading all of the posts and can't believe how much everyone sees what is going on in the same way. After reading your posts and including my experiences, here is my report card for US Foods.

HR- The CHRO gets an F for making his team be unethical. I have gotten to know most of his team members through the years and I give them a B+.

Security- How could you select this man to be a security VP. He confessed to being inappropriate and lying. And he betrayed his company or agency or what ever and confessed to telling the media info he wasn't suppose to. And we hired him? Big F

Ops- Some are unethical but some are too flirty. But most are good. C.

Legal- I only know this group and Food Safety is good and so are the contracts people. B. The ethic & compliance is really poor, always has been.

Safety- What safety? D

Sales- We need more tools and we have some lazy people here. C

Workplace Violence - D-

Communications: A

Facilities- Things work and they fix it when there is a maintenance problem in the office. I don't go in much but things are always good and kept working. A

Travel and Events- No clue

Marketing: You all got it right. D-

Finance and Procurement: B

IT: Nothing ever works for a long time and it sc--ws us in sales: D-

Business & Crisis Continuity- They are new but very good and they help us and our customers during crazy times. A

Chefs- A

Transportation- If these are our delivery drivers A

Payroll and Benefits: The benefits and out of pocket are too expensive but they do a god job on our pay. C

Executives: I don't fault Mr. Flitman for hiring his son. He is trying to be a good father and there are many relatives here. I have a problem with our CHRO after some of the things I read here and what he made his team do. Despicable. And now he is leading the most despicable man in the company instead of firing him. So I will take the A- I was going to give and make it a C-.

How long untill the new CES guy becomes CEO. Another Accenture guy will be a big success just like Sal. Anyone else hearing anything?