#leadership

Crummy colleges like Strayer University or 3rd world college mills. DEI candidates majoring in "organizational leadership" (wtf kind of degree is that). Leaders not qualified to do entry level work in their organizations because they lack certifications. sum result is a bunch of employees who are pretenders when it comes to working.

Point being Verizon needs to ask itself if it wants intelligent leadership, or a bunch of crash test dummies collecting paychecks

I have very mixed feelings about leaving. Part of me wishes I could have stayed and continued my healthcare career with the company. But another part of me recognizes that, based on my experience, management and the environment created by its leadership ultimately made staying no longer sustainable for me.

Over time, I witnessed significant changes in the workplace. Policies and procedures were not always clearly documented or communicated, yet employees were still held to expectations that were not always clearly outlined. In my experience, there was also too much favoritism, and what once felt like a close-knit environment gradually became one where people seemed to be looking out for themselves and, in some cases, trying to remain in management's good graces.

I also observed situations where employees appeared to distance themselves from or place blame on others rather than feeling supported by leadership. When employees expressed concerns, questioned processes, or voiced dissatisfaction, my experience was that management was often dismissive rather than receptive. I also felt that leadership became increasingly micromanaging and, at times, unsupportive of its own employees.

For me, that was the turning point.
Ultimately, I decided that leaving was the healthier decision. First and foremost, I need to take this opportunity to focus on my well-being. From there, I look forward to finding an organization where I can feel fulfilled, contribute my experience, and build positive relationships not only with coworkers but also with leadership.

I'm saddened to leave behind the many wonderful people I have met along the way. At the same time, seeing other good employees make the decision to leave as well, and hearing some of them express concerns similar to those I experienced, it reinforced my feeling that it was simply time for me to move on.

To everyone staying past 09/04, I genuinely wish you nothing but success. And to everyone leaving today, I wish you the very best in whatever comes next. May you find the opportunity, environment, and leadership you deserve.

Stay blessed, everyone.

Class of 09/04 — officially out. 🫡

Only at IBM would such horrible and incompetent sales growth results be awarded with $38,000,000 pay plans and hundreds of thousands of IBM shares be given for free as grants.

Meanwhile at NVIDIA:
Revenue: About $44,546,759 per hour.
Net Profit : About $27,633,333 per hour.
Per Second: This equates to roughly $10,484 in revenue and about $6,500 in net profit every single second.

Put your money in a Goldman Sachs CD and get 4.35% vs the pathetic IBM results here.

2025: +7.62% ($67.54 billion total revenue)
2024: +1.44% ($62.75 billion total revenue)
2023: +2.20% ($61.86 billion total revenue)
2022: +5.54% ($60.53 billion total revenue)
2021: +3.94% ($57.35 billion total revenue)
2020: -4.39% ($55.18 billion total revenue)
2019: -27.49% ($57.71 billion total revenue — heavily impacted by portfolio reshaping and divestitures)
2018: +0.57% ($79.59 billion total revenue)
2017: -0.98% ($79.14 billion total revenue)
2016: -2.23% ($79.92 billion total revenue) [1] (https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/ibm/revenue/)

This week has been the perfect example that we do not matter. One coworker passed this week and all of fraud has continued on with managers acting like everything is normal. Shame on you leaders we are humans.

This probably goes far back in time, but who do you consider the last good leader at IBM? This is probably somewhat subjective since there are multiple elements and differing opinions on what makes a good leader.

Earlier today Joe Russo (EVP & Pres- Global Network &Tech) announced 3 SVPs will be taking retirement. Effective Sept 14th, 2026 new leadership stepping in. More change coming ….

Vivek is out and new guy coming in..so we can expect a lot changes

Accenture and the Nike directors that lead them su-k.

CTO and SVP of IT is gone! anyone knows what happened? I thought he was a great, smart leader.

Calling Fidelity managers “leaders” is the biggest insult to the term leader. There is a difference between a leader and a manager and i could probably count on one hand how many of the ~90k employees I would count as a true leader.

Give the term back to the universities that believe someone could lead.

To be honest, I don’t give a flying fu-k about picking a corpo side. But for those of you who were around under Greg Foran’s leadership, I’m genuinely curious about your take.
He recently brought over former Walmart execs Nate Faust and Mark Ibbotson. Are these guys just corporate bootlickers, or are they actual leaders who know what they're doing? How did they shape the culture, what was it really like working under them, and what kind of bullsh-t or improvements should we expect?

It seems they are already outsourcing our engineering jobs within the next couple of years but I suspect that was in the works before Greg came along. Moral is at all time low and culture is becoming non-existent.

We had an urgent meeting announcing Don Langer left his position today. We weren't told why he left, but he's been with UHC/Optum/UHG for 30+ years and 15 years as our CEO I think.

What do we know?

HON working her magic over at LULU

According to Centene’s public filings, Secretary and General Counsel Christopher Koster sold:

• Aug. 18: 47,603 shares — ~$3.11M
• Aug. 26: 56,500 shares — ~$3.78M

That’s roughly $6.89 million in eight days.

Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CNC/insider-transactions/

And nope, not a duplicate. Second trip to the serving line. This guy is hungry.

Centene’s 2026 proxy also reports roughly $16.4 million in total compensation from 2023–2025.

Does this mean Koster is leaving? No idea. There’s no public filing saying that. Maybe it’s routine diversification. Maybe he wants a yacht. Maybe his financial adviser just discovered the SELL button.

But after layoffs, outsourcing, leadership changes, and Mission Simplify Mission Sellify, the timing is at least worth noticing.

The filings are public. The transactions are real. The motive is unknown.

Chris, if there’s a third plate, NoCenteam will be watching the buffet.

So executives are ruining the lives of colleagues who they have worked alongside for years maybe even pretended to be genuine friends with for pure greed. People whose family life may be ruined, homes lost, unable to pay medical bills etc. Do any execs have personal ethics or morals? Why don't any stand up? They go to church each Sunday with their families but turn the other way. Sad people.

The leadership allowing for the toxic culture to get worse and worse all the time. Do they not realize that legally, it's a ticking time bo-b? When people are bullied, discriminated against, or driven out, it's only a matter of time before someone takes legal action. It's bound to happen.

Still too high in my opinion.

As a long standing employee, I pinpointed the exact time and reason why we started going down hill and the main culprit was Dan Schulmann. Rather than using the post Covid high to become a fully fledged online bank competing with likes of JP Morgan Chase and Citi , he chased mirage acquisitions like Honey and Pinterest. Alex Chriss came and realized the mistake a bit late. Now it's too late. We would most likely be acquired by a bank we could have been.

I left yesterday's town hall feeling hopeful, but that faded when Mike Lyons—confirmed to visit the Winston-Salem Parks Building for meetings and planned floor walks to greet teammates—never made it to my floor, even for the brief interaction we were told to expect.

Is this a meritocracy or a friendship club? It's a rhetorical question, by the way.

Cicely Simpson wrote about this, and it's worth building on.

Every leader gets tested by a moment they didn't choose.

And you can't control the moment, but you can control whether you hand over your composure or hold onto it.

These are the 7 moments that test that composure, and what to say instead of reacting:

1️⃣ Someone talks over you in a meeting
↳ Hold your point, then keep going.
↳ Say this: "I'll come back to you in a moment, let me finish this point first."

2️⃣ Someone questions your decision in front of the room
↳ Show you're willing to explain, just not right then.
↳ Say this: "Happy to walk through the reasoning, let's take it after this meeting so we don't lose time."

3️⃣ Someone takes credit for your work
↳ Put the credit back where it belongs.
↳ Say this: "I want the team to know this started with [name]'s work last quarter."

4️⃣ Someone uses a dismissive tone with you
↳ Ask them to repeat themselves, calmly.
↳ Say this: "I want to make sure I'm hearing this the way you intend it. Can you say that again?"

5️⃣ Someone tries to bait a reaction out of you
↳ Decline to engage.
↳ Say this: "I'm not going to respond to that right now. Let's stay focused on the decision in front of us."

6️⃣ Someone goes over your head
↳ Name what you expected instead.
↳ Say this: "I'd have appreciated hearing this from you first. Let's talk it through directly next time."

7️⃣ Someone undermines you in writing
↳ Move the conversation somewhere it can actually get resolved.
↳ Say this: "I see it differently. Happy to talk it through rather than go back and forth here."

Staying someone your team trusts matters more than winning whatever moment is in front of you.

Every leader has a moment like this waiting for them, this month or next quarter.

And how you handle it becomes the story your team tells about you afterward.

Most leaders react to protect their ego in the moment.

But the ones who don't protect something that matters more, their team's trust in them going forward.

If you take a look at the org chart, 6 EVPs reporting into Chief HR Officer with countless VPs underneath them. Seems very excessive for a corporate function? Corporate Relations doesn’t seem to have anywhere near as much bloat

No other company out there subjects it's employees to this kind of stress. Sure there are layoffs and restructurings but they are one time thing and once they happen, people go about their business and lives. Fannie Mae on the other hand has been laying off for a year and a half now. With no clear communication to anyone. How fu---d up is that. Incompetent buffoons and morally bankrupt leadership throughout. Disgusting.

What a joke. Swore up and down that there would be no changes and he wants stability then immediately lays off hundreds. Time to leave

Kraft-Heinz and Disney just partnered… former PEP leaders…Hershey has two former PEP execs.. thriving…so what do we make of this?! Seems like strong leaders are thriving once they leave here. Will the PepsiCo BOD wake up?!

Town hall..whew what a sh-t show. What's up with the non stop AI push. Not a single person that's qualified to build and ship out a production grade AI application in leadership positions. All show ponys presenting . His Sr. Directors leading AI 😂. They presente generic slides, ZERO value, VB seems like a con artist trying to act technical with his Internet copy AI generated aidlc slop slide. The other one was so annoying that even SC cut him off. One lady does data gathering about team members on a mismaged Excel sheet and calls herself a AI stewart. One lady just sets up calls and coordinates q&a and she's an AI director. LMAO. These people will not get hired in AI leadership roles anywhere except at UHC. Anyone can presented the slop we saw today. Why is zmuda be here in UHC Tech when she has zero knowledge? This whole thing is a sham and will end really bad unless they start getting real technical director with real AI skills and not copy paste slop directors. Shareholders/board would love to fire this entire sh-t show in a heartbeat if they understand what a joke this entire org leadership is. Looking for non existent nails to hit with a few wobbly broken soft headed rubber hammers in that's totally useless. Sh--Charidoesn't realize what a sh---y org he got into, after ruining his previous order he probably thought he can get a fresh start, but guess what his last team was already real engineers and architects, ruined the entire culture there and jumped ships. He'll realize soon enough what a clown show this org is.

Portfolio Sales and Engineering Leadership is at the root of Cisco Market Share Loss. From Portfolio AVPs and SEDs to the ODs, SSEMs, RMs and SEMs, all should be replaced. They want to act like they know what is best. They have driven the market share loss due to their incompetence. Shouldn’t new leadership be put in place.

Because all I have seen are Directors and below let go or impacted. But the ones that planned it out seem to still be here. The org chart looks like a broom now instead of a pyramid.

Time for the trimester update!

Predictions:

• PP may or may not be there, but will at the very least have a pre-recorded message and be wearing a blazer with at no less than 3 gaudy colors.
• The phrase "We hear you, we feel you..." will get overused.

What do you predict?

Just saw layoff codes via IT back in mid August and then multiple the last couple days. So the 30 to 45 day time frame was set into motion again like the last couple big layoffs going back to November 2025 is in play. I know Senior Leadership is meeting in-person this week. So timing for everything makes sense, Sr. Leaders are mapping out lists and numbers based on HR cuts this week. This gives them an overview of the current and future state, also allows for possible substitutions if they want to keep someone. Another red flag was an email saying don't talk outside VZ, this makes it obvious something is coming soon.

Title says it all. Are other unions having this issue or is it just our high paid inept leadership that failed us many years ago. We all know early 2000’s they sc--wed the future members .

Managing Director told us that previously discussed date of 10/8 might change because of “leakers”. They may be pushing back to later in month or November, but want to do it before Thanksgiving to avoid 1/1 Readiness impact. As if losing people won’t make 1/1 harder.

Crazy. Is this the Pentagon, where leakers will punished and beatings will continue until morale improves?

Also there seem to be no answers about strategy and goals for end of year, early next year or beyond, except for vague Lead to One support.

My gut tells me Evanko went in without a plan and doesn’t know WTF to do now. We will just tell everyone our products are now shipping through the open Strait of Hormuz. Cigna won the war!!!

Nice move using AIG’s money to springboard you into your next job. Conflict of interest much?!? But you don’t care as your ethics have always been questionable

BP appoints former Balfour Beatty CEO Ian Tyler as chair

• Manifold was fired in May after less than a year in position
• Board member Amanda Blanc will not seek re-election
• Blanc had overseen Manifold, Tyler appointments

https://www.reuters.com/business/bp-appoints-ian-tyler-chairman-board-2026-09-02/

I could not believe my eyes when I read the email yesterday from the leadership on new strategy. Dividing our markets into core, light and cross border will further weaken PP against Revolut outside US and Germany. And how long after Germans who travel outside and see everyone using Revolut decide to switch over themselves. This will weaken us against our competitors even further. I see share price and market share collapsing now to likes of Apple Pay and Revolut Pay.

Two more RVP’S about to be canned in the next month…. Whos next?

We just had the marketing town hall where Kellyn blathered on and on about how great everything was, how much everyone told her they loved the latest market based BS and how we should do those surveys ASAP.

Then she “interviewed” the new VP of digital who moved from Utah to Dallas. Nice enough guy but he mentioned how awful the traffic is in Dallas. Wouldn’t even notice it most of the time but I thought we worked for a company that provides fantastic connectivity services that allow you to collaborate without having to sit in traffic every day. Kellyn and co. sm--k you over the head with this connection cr-p all the time, so you would think we would I don’t know, live that purpose?

It shouldn’t by now, but the hypocrisy of our leaders just never ceases to amaze me. How they can continually sing the praises of products, services and messages they clearly don’t believe in and keep a straight face is quite a feat.