#leadership

https://www.jeremylegg.com/

G.K. wrote “Expectations may change. Experiences may evolve”. Such a passive aggressive tone. We get it G.K., you hate your employees. We’ve know that since day one. You’re going to push people to leave, lay people off and make the survivors as uncomfortable as possible.

Have a cookie 🍪

How long will leaders realize they cannot keeping pushing the terrible GES scores under the rug? Why is HR keeping them so close?

You ruined my life Bill. I HATE you.

Did anyone else here this? The board was doing the same for Sampath before Dan sacked him.

If Stinky’s goal was to convince younger employees to stay, publicly taking shots at Gen Z over wanting flexibility wasn’t exactly the way to do it. His comments came across as dismissive, disrespectful and completely out of touch.

Here’s what this pre-computer dinosaur fails to understand. We grew up online, made friends online, had relationships online. We learned online, collaborated online, and even went to school and got degrees online. We don’t need a five-day RTO mandate to know how to be connected and productive.

Nobody is asking to never come into an office. People are asking for flexibility. Instead of trying to understand that, leadership keeps acting like it’s a work ethic problem.

Then they wonder why younger employees don’t stick around.

Maybe stop blaming the workforce and start asking why the workforce isn’t buying what your so called “leadership” is selling.

Impacted Band 5 leaders were notified today. Anyone heard any particular department being hit?

This regime tried nothing and is all out of ideas. MFN would have stayed in Washington and fought for not only us, but also everyone on ACA so they woulld have affordable healthcare.

F5 just appointed a new CPO who was in charge at Wayfair, a company who said employees are like paperclips and has had dozens of layoffs, US office closures in just a couple years.
I wonder what F5 is prepping for...

Q2 sales will lack both plan and the latest exec forecasts. Substantially. SVP of sales and several Director / Sr. Directors in sales will finally be fired in August. Not for missing the target, but for missing their own forecasts now several quarters in a row.

ARR in the current quarter will shrink vs end of previous quarter (for the first time). That will be the catalyst for the bigger changes:

KKR will continute to re-shuffle the board to drive more accountability.

CEO still believes that "product is fine, everything else is the problem". He'll be fired, too. Timing just depends on interim and long-term succession plan. Nobody will miss him as he's been over-promising on outside investment / recapitalization / acquisition and under-delivering.

Once that happens, the power center of gravity will shift away from product groups. Don't need as many PMs and engineers if the goal is no longer just growth (which has been embarassingly lacking). PE firms are happy with high profitability / low growth or lower profitability with higher growth (rule of 40). Any combination works for them long term and the company will be reconfigured to set and maintain the direction.

All of this will be disruptive, causing more internal power fights. Good people will leave for better opportunities (which exist for them) why others will be RIF'ed in certain areas. That will leave the company with lower cost, but also understaffed in important areas. That imbalance will prolong recovery time.

In short - long term (18 months+), Omnissa will be fine.
Short term (12-18 months), it's going to get ugly. Opportunities for smart people to navigate the disruption.

You read it here first.

Something that executives probably are not telling you is their concern as to the unexpected costs by AI providers (vendors) for AI tokens.

AI is today actually more costly than human beings workforce performing the same tasks.

Now I know they have been telling you that their goal for AI is not to replace anyone but rather to assist them in their daily work to focus on higher learnt daily tasks. Well, that is simply an outright lie (or fabrication if I am to be more civil in my wording).

They most definitely want to replace you!

Unfortunately for them, they probably had to ramp up letting persons go before AI had “learned” everything simply because AI is costing large corporations way more monies than they anticipated. So, to keep stock prices up and shareholders happy, they have had to earlier than anticipated had to layoffs folks to offset tje high AI costs.

Notice nothing has been said yet about the true customers (aka the members) as to how things will affect them. That is because members are not even in the equation (the thinking mindset) of the executives, as to their decision making.

The function I work in had a global team call today. It was framed as an update about the reorganization. Leadership did not have ANY new information. They literally said what was previously announced in an email, then did 20 minutes of Q&A that mostly consisted of responses like “We are early in the process. We don’t know that quite yet, but we’ll tell you when we have more information”. Waste of time.

One of the biggest mistakes this “leadership” made was creating a 5x RTO policy for everyone because of the actions of a few.

The understanding has always been that the push toward 5x RTO was driven, at least in part, by concerns about a small number of people who weren’t meeting expectations under the 3x8 policy. Whether that’s true or not, those people are largely gone. The ones paying the price today are everyone who complied and remained.

Instead of holding poor performers accountable, leadership rolled out a blanket policy that treats everyone like they need to be monitored. High performers, average performers, and low performers all get the same treatment. That’s completely a$$ backwards.

Good people managers manage performance. They don’t replace performance management with one size fits all policies that punish the majority because of the minority.

So, the unintended consequence is the new 8 & skate culture.

People who used to go above and beyond now focus on just checking the box. Badge in, sit for eight hours, badge out. Time that once went into extra work is now spent commuting. Discretionary effort has simply been replaced by compliance.

The irony is that the policy intended to improve accountability has actually reduced it. When you stop rewarding results and start emphasizing attendance, don’t be surprised when people optimize for attendance instead of outcomes.

If someone isn’t doing their job, you deal with that person. You don’t build a policy that discourages the very people you should be trying hardest to keep.

Yes it is true there is a meeting on the 16th of july looks like its with the entire department….idk what its about but yes something is happening shows 10am-11am, anyone else shows meeting on there Google Calendar? When i ask my leader they are absolutely clueless never know anything…

Hey everyone. Through all the myriad of changes at AT&T since John Stanks reign of incompetence he is still underperforming terribly. His ego has him delusional and he speaks like he is the smartest person to walk the earth. The company will flourish when he leaves. John you haven’t been doing well !

Anyone else sitting through leadership calls wondering why we’re discussing business as usual while avoiding the question that’s on everyone’s mind?

Truist employee here. Anyone at BoA around long enough to have scoop on Mike Lyons before he becomes the new CEO?

Whatever happened to the VLC shadow board? I was energized and excited by the LinkedIn posts and game changing thought leadership. It’s clear that it made a real difference in the company, and I hope Dan and what’s left of his leadership team continue this tradition as we play to win for our customers and communities!

With the former Head of Cloud Migration no longer with the organization, many employees are questioning why the same leadership structure and operating model continue unchanged. This includes leaders such as Hewitt, Orella, Kaul, Lucero, and other program management leaders. These are highly compensated leadership roles, and employees naturally expect clear technical strategy, strong execution, measurable outcomes, and accountability. If these roles are not delivering the expected value, there is an opportunity to redirect those investments toward higher-impact engineering initiatives.

This company should change its name now. Walgreens is gone, it was destroyed by R0z and her wrecking crew - Tracey Clown, HS1OWW who was her CIO/CCP, and several others. It's an embarrassment now, and simply needs to go away. And the Board who let it happen - Jan, Val, Ginger....should be removed from any board roles. Criminals...all of them.

Sounds like the CIO needs some additional funds to furnish his new lake home from Accenture and Infosys so he needs to send more money their way

Honestly-the uncertainty of this company will greatly improve with new leadership who already know our clients, products and technology. I loved ML but I don’t think he had the tools to manage such a complex environment from a technology perspective. I never knew Dvy but was excited and petrified of her AI roll out plan, she was only here 6 months so not much time to make any meaningful changes. I’m glad we can now roll out AI with a little more thoughtful approach internally. I believe we finally have the right C suite in place -they are far from perfect, But having the understanding of internal Fiserv is a huge knowledge bonus! These guys now have the authority to make the necessary changes Fiserv clients have been looking for in breaking down silos within the company. Clients need to know that this is a really a good thing! Moving forward truly as one Fiserv! Finally!

Does any one work in this team - wholesale/ MVNO? I am hearing about crazy things going down there since last RIF. Looks like that business is nose diving and the new leadership is completely clueless and apparently their morale is rock bottom. I always thought that was a quiet business living in its own corner and constantly delivering. Sad to hear if this is true.

First I'll say that I genuinely enjoyed my small team at AT&T with whom I worked the last 20 years of my career there. I have no resentment to the time I spent there, so this isn't a complaining post, just some perspective after some time away. I was in management, doing technical work and app development for sales support.

Most of my team, about 80%, was laid off for not moving to Dallas (most of the rest were already there; one or two moved there). We were in various focus cities supporting our local sales teams, but the senior leadership didn't understand that and did not make exceptions. I found another position doing similar work for another company and started 3 weeks after my final day at T. The new company has fewer than 1000 people, for comparison.

So here are some of my takeaways, in case someone with a long career at AT&T might be thinking about making the jump, or who might have it forced on them.

1. Surprising that this is the first one, but honestly it's such a difference that I wanted to call it out: I have not opened Powerpoint once since I left T. At T, powerpoint was basically the language of business. We wasted so many cycles "making a deck" to try to communicate to the ever-changing field of senior leadership that I probably spent the plurality of my time in Powerpoint vs. any other program. I got a new laptop at my new job, and realized as I deleted the pre-placed icon from the desktop that I've never once used Powerpoint. We use Teams, sometimes demos, sometimes a mockup or diagram...but I've never had to "make a deck."

2. It really hit me just how many people at AT&T did literally nothing of value. This is not a dig against most colleagues, but rather just that significant subset who didn't have discernible skills, so got placed into positions to just spin their bureaucratic wheels but otherwise stay out of the way. I recall two dozen names off the top of my head that were just there to make people jump through hoops, document workflow (for no followup reason), design a new process that was jettisoned as soon as they moved somewhere else, or just attend meetings and throw in their two cents without really contributing. Outside of T, there are people of various skill and contribution levels, but nobody whose job is simply to fly under the radar. When I read stories about T employees logging in and leaving their laptops in lockers, or sitting in the cafeteria watching TV, it makes me glad to know that where I'm at now, everybody is giving a fair day's work without making work for others.

3. Leadership at AT&T is toxic. I'm not just talking the Stankey/Stephenson types, who, yes, have ruined the company through unfathomable incompetence. I'm talking the people in the mid-level, director-like positions and above. Almost all (not all) of them at T seemed like they got there based on the Peter Principle or otherwise nodded their head enough. Only in the beginning of my career in the late 1990s did I feel any executive director or above at T (SBC at the time) was there due to being a practitioner of their craft, for being respected, or for being a good manager. And that class began to dwindle as time went on, replaced by hollow, empty suits who could spew buzzwords and claim empty victories by cherry picking their numbers. It's like an ever-shifting field of grifters.

4. The hiring process at ATT is irreparably broken. I was a hiring manager, and trying to get someone competent in the door was inexplicably difficult. HR gatekept candidates and had no concept of the hard and soft skills we needed. We got sent batches of candidates who faked their resumes, faked their interviews (even before AI was big), faked their legal ability to work in the U.S., and so on. There were times that it took 9 months to find an entry level programmer because HR kept whiffing. HR gets a lot of flack everywhere, but at T, I believed they were truly a cesspool of rejects.

Maybe I'll think of more but these hit me just this week. There are things I miss about T, mostly dealing with colleagues, but these are definitely things I do not miss! The day-to-day stress and friction they cause isn't always evident when you're in the middle of it. Only after the ATT shackles are thrown off do you realize how bad of an environment it can be!

For a section 16 officer to be able to negotiate an "out clause" based on the CEO's employment status is totally unheard of. Fiserv Director's will receive several "no votes" on say on pay at proxy time. The Fiserv lawyer and the CHRO who agreed to this must be also be on eggshells.

Some of these leaders only have 4–5 direct reports, yet they carry themselves as if they're God's gift to the program. Instead of leading, it feels like their job consists of asking Gemini to write emails and forwarding them.
What's even more concerning is that some Assistant Directors seem to lack fundamental leadership skills. It appears they earned these positions through politics and bootlicking rather than proven performance, yet they're still trusted to make important decisions.
Even worse, several have never consistently come close to hitting quota, but instead of taking accountability, they blame the frontline teams. Leadership is about owning results, developing people, and setting the example—not shifting responsibility.
If someone can't effectively lead a team of five, it raises serious questions about the standards for leadership.

The corporate anti harassment training talks about a lot of bullsh-t. But no one is protected from the passive aggressive behavior especially from the new leadership and from those in the India team (which is even terrible) . Lot of positions has been eliminated by forcing people out strategically . Somoene who has knowledge in the law should file a complaint and initiate an investigation and fire these b…..rds.

AT&T “leadership” needs to wake up and start making hard decisions about where capital is actually creating value and stop wasting it on nonsense.

Starlink and SpaceX are no longer just interesting companies to watch and laugh about. They represent a serious long term existential threat to traditional telecom like AT&T, and Wall Street is clearly paying attention. The recent 30% decline in AT&T’s stock price reflects the growing concerns about the company’s future and its ability to compete in a changing industry.

AT&T employs roughly 100,000 people, and maintaining a large and widespread office footprint comes with enormous ongoing costs like office leases, utilities, HVAC, water, janitorial services, security, parking, maintenance, supplies, and countless other facilities expenses in the neighborhood of $2B-$4B annually.

A reduction in unnecessary office space and a more flexible virtual first approach could free up tens of billions of dollars used for real competitive investment. That’s capital could be redirected toward the things that will actually determine whether AT&T wins the next decade like network investment, technology, spectrum, AI, innovation, and attracting and retaining top talent.

Instead, we’re continuing to wastefully spend billions on office space each year while also building a new multi billion dollar HQ nobody (besides Stink) wants or needs. At a time when the company is facing its biggest competitive threat in history, is that really the best use of capital?

AT&T doesn’t need to waste more billions proving employees can sit in a building like it’s 1960 in 2026. It needs to spend its available billions proving it can compete in the future, and right now morale is so low because of RTO that nobody here is motivated or cares at all.

If leadership is serious about competing against starlink, then capital should follow strategy. Go after the easy low hanging fruit and reduce the unnecessary facilities and associated costs, rethink archaic RTO requirements, and invest those dollars where they’ll actually generate a real competitive return. Ending the RTO nonsense seems like one of the easiest and most obvious places to start.

Too bad this “leadership” team is full of proven losers who can’t admit they got it wrong, again. One man’s ego and stubbornness will be the demise of a once great American company. Sad!

This board could use a little balance, so here goes.

Yes, restructuring is hard — and if you were impacted, you're talented and any company would be lucky to have you. But for the rest of us: take a breath and zoom out.

We work at a company that's been trusted with the world's most important data for over four decades. The biggest banks, airlines, retailers, and telcos on the planet run on what we build. That doesn't happen by accident.

And credit where it's due — the ELT isn't hiding from hard decisions. They're making the tough calls to keep Teradata lean, focused, and built for the long haul. That's what real leadership looks like, even when it isn't popular.

The sky isn't falling. The mission is intact, the customers are still here, and so is the team. Choose to see the opportunity.

Proud to be here. 🧡

Just advice to decision makers lurking, cut directors that are useless instead of cutting low paid employees getting the job done…. There you go saved you some consultant fees.

Anyone have experience negotiating your exit from a HQ role? Not getting laid off. Leaving on your own terms when you and your leader agree the work has changed enough to not fit. Open roles are scarce for my intended trajectory.

AT&T “leadership” needs to wake up and start making hard decisions about where capital is actually creating value and stop wasting it on nonsense.

Starlink and SpaceX are no longer just interesting companies to watch and laugh about. They represent a serious long term existential threat to traditional telecom like AT&T, and Wall Street is clearly paying attention. The recent 30% decline in AT&T’s stock price reflects the growing concerns about the company’s future and its ability to compete in a changing industry.

AT&T employs roughly 100,000 people, and maintaining a large and widespread office footprint comes with enormous ongoing costs like office leases, utilities, HVAC, water, janitorial services, security, parking, maintenance, supplies, and countless other facilities expenses in the neighborhood of $2B-$4B annually.

A reduction in unnecessary office space and a more flexible virtual first approach could free up tens of billions of dollars used for real competitive investment. That’s capital could be redirected toward the things that will actually determine whether AT&T wins the next decade like network investment, technology, spectrum, AI, innovation, and attracting and retaining top talent.

Instead, we’re continuing to wastefully spend billions on office space each year while also building a new multi billion dollar HQ nobody (besides Stink) wants or needs. At a time when the company is facing its biggest competitive threat in history, is that really the best use of capital?

AT&T doesn’t need to waste more billions proving employees can sit in a building like it’s 1960 in 2026. It needs to spend its available billions proving it can compete in the future, and right now morale is so low because of RTO that nobody here is motivated or cares at all.

If leadership is serious about competing against starlink, then capital should follow strategy. Go after the easy low hanging fruit and reduce the unnecessary facilities and associated costs, rethink archaic RTO requirements, and invest those dollars where they’ll actually generate a real competitive return. Ending the RTO nonsense seems like one of the easiest and most obvious places to start.

Too bad this “leadership” team is full of proven losers who can’t admit they got it wrong, again. One man’s ego and stubbornness will be the demise of a once great American company. Sad!

This announcement from Kelly Beatty yesterday is curious. Evidently, Scot Yarbrough is heading this. Who is he. Brent LaRosa is leaving, he got the usual performative, we wish him well. Anyone else know more?

During our welcoming call, the new leader introduced himself, but obviously he forgot how we landed there, he was the CEO's executive assistant couple of years back. Note aside, If we observe this move, 3 previous executive assistants has been graduated that position with a nee executive position and big fat check.

The continuous organizational mess is masked with messages around "this is not about correction but an opportunity… this is the right path for us, to work closely”. One thing is having aspirations, but the reality is that we are not a AI-native organization, nor we can ship products every 3 weeks. Former BTP is a very large legacy organization, with strong figures that will navigate change with power politics, some are leaving like MA, but we have leaders and middle management that is obsolete and will continue to imped velocity.

Experimentation was another resource to minimize the impact of errors, of careful strategies and execution plans. Whereas experimentation is part of innovation, it is not just the means to justify mistakes for a company with such large scale. We expect leadership that has been there and done it, that are not headless moving forward.
There is an abysm between a Vision at Sapphire VS what needs to be done, the L1,L2,L3, L4 details are what matters the most: application to products, migration, infrastructure, guidance for customers, and how all the work is going to be prioritized and aligned.

HPOM theme surged into the Q&A, the failure of this program with the large amount of negative feedback was ignored and we were invited to "not draw conclusions yet".

Overall the Q&A section was answered poorly, a fresh face with a smile is not enough to lead one of the most transformational changes SAP is pushing forward. “I think… (pun intended)"

are executives empowering us? are they moving the obstacles for us? is it true that getting job done matters more than our roles? What are your thoughts?

"We've undermined the trust you have that your specific expertise and contribution will be valued, that you will grow and advance your career, and that this will be a place where you can actually have an impact."

I doubt you will hear anything like that from Chuck or the new CFO.

Does anyone believe in this guy? He seems like he’s just a slick suit and doesn’t have any actual vision for the industry.

Asha Sharma, the new CEO of Xbox, has been appointed to a Federal Reserve task force focused on jobs and productivity. This group will examine the economic effects of new technologies, including artificial intelligence. Sharma recently announced significant layoffs at Xbox. The appointment has drawn criticism due to the timing and the inclusion of other controversial figures. The task force aims to inform the Federal Reserve's policy decisions.

Washington, D.C.

https://www.engadget.com/2211983/days-after-laying-off-3-200-xbox-ceo-asha-sharma-tapped-to-advise-the-federal-reserve-on-jobs/

KD our fearless minister of people and culture will be hosting an informal meeting with the Houston staff. This will be KD’s last official visit to the United States and she is keen on commiserating and socializing. The top leadership will all go to the World Cup England match in bp’s private suite… Ta ta

Sonos has recently undergone a significant restructuring, leading to the elimination of several senior leadership positions within its design, product, and user experience departments. This move is intended to streamline the company's organizational structure and accelerate product development cycles. CEO Tom Conrad expressed a desire for the company to operate with increased speed and conviction. While the company states experienced leadership remains, some former employees worry about the impact on future innovation. The layoffs are not attributed to artificial intelligence, though AI is increasingly integrated into various business functions.

https://www.storyboard18.com/brand-makers/sonos-layoffs-company-cuts-senior-design-product-and-ux-leaders-103729.htm