#leadership

Seeing sudden manager calibrations and stack-ranking across ESG. Word is that notifications are hitting the first Wednesday of October to kick off Q4. Anyone else seeing this behavior or heard anything concrete from leadership?

Just look how critical LeBron has been of Nike‘s innovation. Mbappé didn’t wait around. He peaced out. Others are going to do the same. We are now the next Under Armour. A future case study for decades to come on the collapse and failure of this company.

I used to be on board with no matter what tough times comes Nike‘s way that we will find a path to compete and overcome. That’s not the case anymore. We failed at our own Maxim of figuring out how to evolve immediately. We don’t know how to innovate. We don’t know how to inspire anymore. Everything they do is based on hope. Hope is not a plan or a strategy.

It’s unfortunate that Nike put themselves in this position when the Board of Directors hired JD. It only takes one mistake. Doubling down on that mistake compounds your problem.

Nike made a lot of people rich. Sent a lot of people into a comfortable retirement. Anybody with Nike stock will now have to work for many years to overcome the losses. This will also keep NIKE from attracting great talent, cause great talent to leave Nike, and continue the overall collapse of the brand.

I hate it because I’ve been a Nike fan all of my life. It has just become the inevitable fate. One that nobody wants to take responsibility for despite the obvious failures. Nike was never a tech company. Nike was a company by athletes for athletes.

Does anybody know what NIKE is anymore? No. That’s the problem and that’s what ki-led this great company.

…and with that, just like Shark Tank…I’m out

Heard he crawled back under a rock

It started with a letter from Elliott. Maybe it ends with a letter from the people still in the Tower.
From: The People Still in the Tower
Next stop: stability.

Removing two EMT members is not a cultural reset. What leadership does next determines whether this is actually one.

For years, employees have absorbed the consequences of strategy whiplash, expensive mistakes, consultant spending, restructurings, repeated cuts and leadership decisions they were directed to execute—even when the people closest to the work knew better.

The people making those decisions were compensated extraordinarily well. The people underneath them often paid the real price: jobs, careers, financial security, morale and trust.

That can’t simply be filed under “new leadership, moving forward.”

Leadership owns what leadership allowed.

The fiber chapter is over. The boardroom battles and proxy fights are behind us. The constant strategy pivots need to end. Crown Castle now has an opportunity to get back to basics: operate exceptionally well, generate sustainable organic growth, invest intelligently, execute consistently and rebuild the workforce that actually makes the company run.

And that means investing in people—not another round of cuts disguised as transformation.

Commit to a meaningful layoff freeze and give employees room to work without constantly wondering who’s next. Stop replacing institutional knowledge with consultants. Before launching another giant technology transformation, fix what is actually broken. Rebuild the expertise that repeated reductions stripped out. Invest heavily in cross-training and upskilling. Create career paths employees can actually see. Make mental wellness and psychological safety more than HR language.

And perhaps most importantly: stop treating people who identify problems as the problem.

Listen to them. Protect them. Thank them. Fix what they identified.

TA and KH are now part of the leadership team carrying this company forward. By many accounts, they are capable leaders. Now comes the harder part: demonstrate that the next chapter will be different. Acknowledge what employees have endured, establish clear expectations for how people will be treated, and rebuild trust through actions rather than another mission statement.

Crown Castle is an enormous enterprise supported by a remarkably small workforce. Its people should feel like an extraordinary asset—not an expense line perpetually waiting for another reduction.

Employees have survived the fiber bet, activist battles, reorganizations, leadership turnover, strategy reversals and repeated workforce reductions.

They’ve done their part.

Now it’s leadership’s turn.

Stability. Accountability. Respect. Career development. Operational discipline. Sustainable growth. No more whiplash.

And if the remaining EMT can’t commit to that, then on this casual ride we’ve apparently been taking for years, can someone please announce the new riders and the next stop?

—— And yes, AI helped mask the writers. We’re not d-mb, we’re survivalists. We’ve learned a few things around here.

Momentum is everything.

Watch the people who moved fast. VP to CEO. VP to President in under five years. Then watch what happened to the people who were "doing great work" and stayed at level.

If you're being told how good you are but you can't get out of L09–L11, LG1–LG3, or LG5 — you're keeping a seat warm. Praise is what they give you instead of a promotion, not on the way to one.

And levels move both directions. Look at how many presidents from five years ago aren't presidents now. Special assignment. Retitled to SVP. Moved to the franchise team. Out. Some of them got jumped by people they used to sit above.

Nobody is going to tell you which side of that you're on. The climbers compound. So does standing still.

History repeats. Pay attention.

Listening to Emily Elswick discuss her faith this morning and then walk through an entire slide dedicated to her personal travel and work trips was certainly a choice. Given that our MIP was 70%, I’m not sure this was the moment for a personal highlight reel. Also genuinely curious how she ended up in this role. What experience or qualifications actually supported putting her in this position?

Imagine, if you will, a world where a survey can give a clear view of improvement or decline in how employees view leadership and the overall health of a company.

Imagine that the survey responses are collected by Gallup, who has been in business since 1935 and is widely recognized as one of the most credible analytics and advisory firms in the world. A company that tracks individual survey links or access codes on the backend to prevent duplicate submissions and route data correctly and any identifying data is permanently walled off from the submitter's employer. That company's reputation would be destroyed if they identified who submitted the surveys.

If Gallup didn't know who you were then people could put as many surveys in as they want and stuff the ballot box like mail-in votes. Oops... better stop there. They have to be able to tell the company that an entire organization or department has so little care that they haven't submitted 7 out of 10 possible surveys. How would they know that? Because the employer says here is our email list and the departments they work for, please tell us the percentage of surveys submitted so we will know by their silence if there are leadership issues.

If Gallup exposed the individuals then a nearly 100 year old company's reputation would be ruined.

The work around is for an employer is to ask for optional long form answers that are only shown to managers with more than 10 direct reports.

But who do those managers show it to? I have been personally asked if I submitted certain answers. It has also been suggested that I submitted answers over the years that I would think I had submitted because they sounded like something I would have written.

Oh, did I forget to mention that some of the directors have read the long form answers on All Hands calls? I don't think I'm the only one who had slack and jabber start pinging with people claiming to know who the submitter was.

And Gallup has formatted the survey to isolate questions to each level of management to target which levels are declining and which are in improving.

They also group good and bad responses by organizations. So bad customer service managers don't affect good supply chain managers and vice versa.

If I am a manager at any level, I want you to think we know who you are and that "straight fives will keep you alive" and other BS answers to dupe you into thinking you're saving yourself.

Wake up!! Straight fives saves the leadership that needs to be gone.

And if I am a company sycophant then I am going to go on every forum and tell everybody that "straight fives will keep you alive".

I have given honest detailed surveys for years. I know there is a character count in the long form because others have said in meetings that they had too carefully edit them to get under the limit. And I am still here and they are still here. But all of our managers at the top are gone or moved and the direct manager, who is good, is still there.

That rips apart any of the claims that people are posting right now to the contrary. You don't have to believe it but it's a fact.

Think about it. Do they need a survey to get rid of you? They don't need any reason other than your name came up in the layoff lottery. And because they get a chance to review and provide feedback on the list, if you are kissing your boss's Southern Ring, they will make sure your name is removed from that list. Or will they?

They are afraid you will answer in a way that exposes them for the shams they are.

So remember:
"Straight fives keeps leadership alive"

MVGA

Recently several exec's have explained the importance of being well rounded in many aspects of the company. To do so they mentioned how they would make as many lateral moves in order to learn holistically. Do these same leaders support us if we have the same desire. Will management support us if we have the same desire? How to be well rounded the execs?

Okay Target you still su-k and majority of your team members are overworked and over all the racism however you ki-led it this Target Together. The content from the leaders was the same old same old but the performances were a home run. How did everyone else feel?

33 Directors + 3 VPs + 2 SVPs = A tone-deaf waste of time and money.

The math is hard to ignore - between flights, lodging, meals, and lost working hours, this easily represents close to a half-million dollar investment. For that expense, I'd expect a concrete deliverable: a roadmap, reorg decision, or a prioritized set of initiatives with owners and dates. As far as I can tell, none of that has materialized - nor will it. No memo, no readout, no change in direction.

This seems like a good moment to ask a harder question: why does IT currently support a director population this large relative to its actual scope of delivery? A retreat of this size implies a leadership bench that, on paper, should be shaping strategy, but the day-to-day experience for most of the org is that priorities shift reactively, tickets sit unworked, and nobody below the director layer can point to what these roles are actually accountable for.

If 39 directors and above can be pulled out of the building for a week with no discernible business impact, it's evidence the roles themselves may be over-provisioned.

So Dan's been here a Year... can anyone provide top 3 goals/strategies that is being implemented for Culture change?

I sit through All Hands and leave clueless.

Sampath at least repeated each session.

Strayer University must not of taught that to Directors.

Any managers in the leadership summit today? I can only take so much corporate word salad and patting each other on the back. Trust, communication, listening, making healthcare affordable. Great talk. Thanks.

We’re a complete financial disaster, yet we’re building a new multi-billion dollar campus nobody wants, and this leadership actually thinks the Street isn’t going to react??

The fact that Stink sits in his office talking about and arguing over the number of bowling alley lanes and golf simulators rather than figuring out how to set this company up for financial success is actually fu--ing insane.

These guys have completely lost their minds.

We’re dealing with massive financial pressure, a rapidly changing industry, growing competition and serious threats to the business, and somehow the priority is building a giant corporate playground???

Nobody wants your stupid new HQ. Nobody cares about your bowling alleys. Nobody gives a sh-t about your golf simulators. This was clearly stated in the survey last year. NO OFFICE not new office.

We need leadership focused on making this company financially successful, not designing the fu--ing employee country club.

And the only silver lining is that this guy has already been involved in enough disastrous strategic decisions like TMO, DTV, Time Warner Xandr, etc. etc. etc. that there is absolutely no reason to believe this one will somehow be different.

Undoubtedly, this will prove to be the wrong decision yet again and set this company back decades further than he already has.

At this point, the only question is how much more damage these guys can do before the Street and the board finally says enough is enough. The sound financial decision here is to short the stock before everyone else does.

Nobody wants or cares about your stupid new HQ. Retire and let us go back to the way it was before Covid. Everyone hates you.

At what point does leadership admit the entertainment strategy isn’t working?

CP keeps getting squeezed while resources continue going toward chasing another Barbie movie moment. Barbie was lightning in a bottle. Instead of strengthening the businesses that actually generate consistent revenue, leadership seems determined to recreate something that may not be repeatable.

Then come the layoffs, reorganization and promotions at the top, while everyone else is expected to do more with less.

“Toy to Joy” sounds great in a presentation. Employees are still waiting to see the Joy part.

It’s interesting that leadership continues to allow BH to operate under a hybrid model due to parking concerns, while the rest of the company has moved to full RTO, particularly when flexibility appears to be based on individual manager discretion.

Isn’t parking being an issue essentially the same as someone having a long commute or another employee working very long, nontraditional hours? All of these circumstances can create challenges or inconveniences for employees. If parking concerns are a valid reason for providing hybrid flexibility, it raises the question of why similar flexibility couldn’t be extended across the company rather than being determined by individual circumstances or manager discretion.

Just heard we got a new director and she is from there. Why is all senior management affiliated with this school?

wow the new CEO did a glossy magazine photo shoot, even involving a "groomer"/makeup artist: https://www.fastcompany.com/91587895/walmart-ceo-john-furner-ai-revolution. Things are changing that's for sure

Takis mentioned promotions are there this year but Tech FIG hugely impacted this year no merit or Promotion cycles despite of many concerns raised to Sr Leadership! Looks like FIG co head blocked that and Takis isn’t aware?

Takis posed the following in the townhall regarding this topic:

Do you enjoy coming to work every day?
Do you enjoy the people you are working with?
Do you feel that you have a future here?
Does the company value subject matter expertise?
Am I getting paid fairly?

The answer to all of these for me is a resounding NO! What about the rest of you?

To be fair to the people I work with… it’s a small handful of peers that are impossible to work with, a few that aren’t contributing nearly enough, and the VP and up leadership chain that is making work life miserable for everyone

Not OP of orginal post but that post maybe me realize:

IMAPS Corporation Award to IBM?

How? That department was completely destroyed and disbanded by the leadership of their last management chain. Their buffoonery bungled, fumbled, and mismanaged, driving the department straight into the ground by people who clearly had no idea what they were doing. In fact the only thing those guys were good at was destroying and ending other projects and programs. How can IBM win this when it literally no longer exists internally at IBM. How exactly does a team that's been wiped off the org chart win an award for work it can no longer even claim credit for?

Watch Charlie Youakim’s latest post on LinkedIn about Sezzle’s growth. This is the sort of leader employees rally behind. Warm, grounded, respected. A unique subscription model to BNPL - a new p2p offering that’s unique.

With Barnerd & Kleber leaving, and some other random directors - are they being pushed out? Or leaving on their own?

And are all renewable companies this poorly ran? This company feels like a joke with lack of accountability, favoritism, nepotism, etc. The "leadership team" seems so amateur. It's very concerning to a rather new employee.

The leadership that allows for something like this to happen is a disgrace.

IBM named a Leader in the 2026 IDC MarketScape for Decision Intelligence Platforms

https://www.ibm.com/new/announcements/ibm-named-a-leader-in-the-2026-idc-marketscape-for-decision-intelligence-platforms

my department leader is scared of pulse. she sends us pre and post pulse surveys no one is brave enough to fill out. she tries to act like a fun, happy leader. she promotes leaders who overdo social engagements.

everyone knows how fake she is.

is it normal behavior for a director level POS to run around telling people they are jealous of a higher ranking person who has an office?

T-Mobile has established its GCC in India, and AT&T has also expanded its offices across multiple locations. Meanwhile, Dan (the customers man )appears to have taken a very different approach, with several leadership positions being eliminated and ongoing workforce reductions across various organizations in India. It increasingly feels like Dan may be considering a significant reduction of employees and its office presence in India. Hope the hiring in US will be in peaks 🤞

14+ years with this company and I don’t recognize the culture I grew a career with.

Great leaders are being squeezed out due to location, being too “disruptive”, and being too much of champion for higher standards from the ground up when the HQ allow bare minimum to be enough. We are left with figure head leaders who have little to no interest in learning about employees under them, the work they do, the hurdles they jump over, and the hurdles they need help with.

Kiss a-s employees are securing jobs and leadership positions who lack innovative thinking but are good at pretending they have it. Senior leadership that can’t define their own KPIs remain in power and shouldn’t be. The business is crumbling because of it.

We cannot build a sustainable future on prestige and shortcuts. By prioritizing executive optics over operational excellence, we are actively eroding our own foundation and it is costing us our competitive edge.

This isn’t the Comcast I know. This isn’t the Comcast I was proud to work for over a decade.

I heard a couple of big names / leaders impacted this week. Any ideas on total impact?

I have been here long enough and I’m done! This place is past fixing. Nobody is even trying to save the sinking ship and the CEO is MIA.

Two Centenes showed up today.

At Deutsche Bank, the investor story was margin recovery: fewer Medicaid members, a major Florida contract exit, Medicare Advantage still working toward break-even, and hundreds of millions in severance, contract-exit, and third-party “optimization” costs excluded from adjusted SG&A.

Then Centene’s Chief Health Officer posted about a fellowship built around challenging assumptions, cross-sector partnership, affordability, access, and improving outcomes for the communities Centene serves.

Neither message is false. That is what makes the split-screen so effective.

One audience gets the carefully curated story of what can be shed, repriced, exited, or adjusted to make the numbers work. The other gets the mission story about what healthcare should become.

At Centene, “challenging assumptions” appears to mean asking everyone except leadership to accept theirs.

Centene gave the Deutsche Bank crowd a perfectly respectable update today: guidance holds, Q3 trends look like Q2, Medicaid margins are positive, and the turnaround is on track. All true.

But it was also a remarkably selective story.

The same update includes Medicaid membership falling about 9% this year; management estimating 25%–40% of expansion members could eventually become ineligible under work requirements; a Florida behavioral-health exit worth roughly $1.5 billion in revenue per quarter; and Medicare Advantage aiming for growth break-even or better in 2027. The remaining Medicaid population gets sicker as less-expensive members fall away, so the whole thing depends on rates arriving on time, medical-trend initiatives working, and states doing what they are supposed to do. They said as much. “Blocking and tackling” is executive-speak for there is no margin for another miss.

Then there is the scorecard. Centene’s adjusted SG&A excludes $355M–$405M in severance and contract-exit costs, plus $85M–$115M in third-party “optimization” costs. That does not make the recovery fake. It does make the victory lap awfully curated. The cost of making the company smaller is real, even when it is parked below the adjusted line.

So no, this is not really a growth story. It is a margin-recovery story built around fewer members, fewer contracts, fewer internal costs, more repricing, and a much narrower definition of success. Wall Street may love it. It may even work. But at some point, somebody should ask what is left after every non-profitable thing has been exited, every role has been optimized, and the members who remain cost more to serve.

At Deutsche Bank, Centene’s C-suite did not explain the turnaround. They curated the acceptable nouns: fewer members became “attrition,” contract exits became “discipline,” and the cost of putting people and vendors through “optimization” became an adjustment.

Remember “Candid conversations with care?” It would appear that was just another platitude.

It is a very polished story. It is not the whole one. Cute is not the same as candid.

When does SF get held accountable

Just look at their track record with audit, it&v, external regulators and voice of team survey results. Operating commette should be working with hr and demanding exit plans for these incompetent senior managers.

Anyone have a read out on the Mark Hura for North America's all hands call this week? Obviously I missed it being RIF'd on Monday.

Tara McRae has departed Puma North America. She was the first woman to lead the division. McRae is now joining Skechers. Her move comes just over a year after she took the helm at Puma. This represents a significant leadership change for both companies.

Somerville, Massachusetts

https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2026/09/15/tara-mcrae-leaves-puma-for-skechers.html

So Meeten B SVP in Fusion (AI) is out in 2 weeks, Jim D GVP (RightNow) is out as well with him.
To the chopping block.

Ford Motor Company as an Internal Learning Organization. Inside the company, Ford uses the classic six pillars of a learning organization (Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared Vision, Team Learning, Systems Thinking, and Open Communication) to adapt to rapid changes in the auto and tech industries. Maybe we should challenge existing mental models and embrace the softer side of recalls and product quality?

I logically guesstimate that at least 30% of Humana’s profit margin today relies on cheaper non-citizen labor (e.g., H-1B Visas, Vendor Contracts that use H-1B Visas, Offshoring) and the hype to investors as to what AI (artificial intelligence) will bring about in the near future.

All it would take is for just two things to occur, perhaps coupled with one or two other coinciding events, to seriously ruin this corporation.

1) If H-1B Visas were to be sent packing and Vendors (heavily employed H-1B Visas) that Humana contracts with were to be highly scrutinized by federal government and brought to a halt.
2) AI (artificial intelligence) to be heavily regulated by the government and brought to a snail’s pace.

Executive leadership most likely will not admit it to you nor will SVPs, VPs, Directors, and Associate Directors as they have to “toe the line” and keep up the facade that “we are some big super power that nothing can stand in our way!” Pride goes before the Fall! Just a matter of time.