#leadership

Takis says one thing about retaining SMEs and HR does the opposite.

This place is toxic. Signals sent from the MC should actually mean something. They don’t.

Source: C. Simpson

Plenty of leaders point to an open door, a caring one-on-one, and a policy that says people can come to them with anything.

But none of that tells you what happens when someone is genuinely struggling.

What someone experiences when things go wrong tells you more about your support
than anything you say when things are going fine.

A lot of leaders never find this out until it is too late.

So here is what that looks like, so you can spot it in your own team before it costs you someone good:

1️⃣ You say your door is always open.

→ But people only come to you with good news.
→ You have built a culture where problems get hidden until they are too big to fix easily.

2️⃣ You say people can come to you with anything.

→ But the last person who did got told to figure it out themselves.
→ You have taught your team that asking for help costs more than it is worth.

3️⃣ You say work-life balance matters.

→ But you answer emails at 1 am and reply fastest to whoever works the latest.
→ You have shown your team that visibility matters more than boundaries.

The gap between what you say and what your team experiences day to day
is the truest measure of how supported they feel.

Close that gap, and everything changes.

Because a lot of retention problems come down to people feeling alone in the workload, instead of the workload itself.

To genuinely support your team, provide:

✅ Someone who notices before they have to ask.
✅ Permission to say "I'm behind" without it costing them.
✅ Coverage when life happens, instead of just when it is convenient.
✅ A leader who has their back before they need to ask for it.
✅ Feedback that helps them grow and challenge their thinking.
✅ Time protected, as well as time offered.

Get that right, and people stop looking for the exit and start staying on purpose.

New Executive Vice President ,could not even understand him .Video had to have this brother under subtitles .Lowe's future is bright .boogaloo ja bo

Curious to know

A colleague in my group, with Shell 3-4 years, has a knack for ingratiating himself with our Team Lead and other more senior leaders. The guy’s sharp but so are a lot of others who just don’t seem to have that connecting charm.
And it works. He seems to be the fair haired child above the anxiety and worry of layoffs and being side-lined. Already been promoted in grade.
I guess whatever works but is that really what it takes to get ahead at Shell?

Can’t say I’m surprised. LDP quality has gone downhill so much that the businesses are taking development into their own hands

Athina repeatedly says she has PepsiCo’s best interests in mind. But at some point, employees should be able to ask whether the actions and results support that statement.

When she led Strategy & Transformation (legacy before IT was combined) , significant amounts of money were spent on transformation efforts that did not deliver the expected results, with accountability seemingly landing elsewhere. Millions more have been spent on McKinsey and other external consultant this year and last year/ sometimes with very junior consultants advising experienced PepsiCo leaders.

Now Athina appears not to trust her own leadership organization and wants visibility into virtually every contract and decision. Is that really about PepsiCo’s best interests, or has decision-making become too centralized around one leader’s view of what is best?

Having PepsiCo’s best interests in mind does not mean that every decision is automatically the right one. Strong leadership means trusting capable leaders, challenging decisions with facts, acknowledging when investments have not delivered, and holding yourself to the same accountability you expect from everyone else.

Power and good intentions are not substitutes for results.

Perfectly said, @ke+1m28zmvnw.

leaders who cant take feedback should be fired immediately. these are the AD and above who are scared of pulse and send pre-pulse surveys their entire team is afraid to fill out.

these leaders hire other leaders who cant take feedback which makes for a TOXIC culture.

most of these “people” (if you want to call them that), have smiling faces and dont hold bad workers accountable

Please raise your right hand.

I pledge to the greatest CEO in the history of the United States. That loves us so much he can’t even breathe.

That I will go out with my family, my friends, I’ll do it any way — I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m going to try to cheat like he-l like they do. There’s never been bigger cheaters. They don’t care.

I am going to go out and I’m going to get my friends, my family. And we are going to worship Hock on Nov. 3, or we are going to worship Hock before that.

They agree with each other, defend each other, and somehow always seem to land on the same side of every decision. If you're outside that group, getting anyone to seriously consider your idea is a different story. I've seen genuinely useful suggestions get dismissed without much discussion. Then someone from the inner circle says something similar later and suddenly everyone thinks it's a great idea.

After seeing that happen enough times, you start wondering why you bother speaking up. It's not that there aren't smart people here with good ideas. It's that the right people aren't always the ones being listened to. Eventually people get tired of fighting that battle and just keep their thoughts to themselves. And that's how things continue going in the wrong direction.

The people who get promoted fastest are the ones who know how to impress their bosses. Actual expertise and the ability to lead people don't matter much. Sad but very true.

Leadership seemed convinced that getting rid of expensive senior employees would give the company a fresh start. Then they started bringing in younger workers and to nobody's shock, they didn't magically fix the bigger problems inside the company. Instead, they made it worse because so much institutional knowledge was lost. And now they want to do it again. Id--ts.

This time mainly targeting Executives (VP, Snr D, D, Snr Mgrs).

What would Mr. Z do as CFO when guaranteed to be the CEO next spring?

Anybody else getting distinct whiff of ammonia that indicates rising panic among the T2’s ?
Customer feedback must be brutal.

The long credit-card binge bill of leaner-faster-cheaper-ship at all cost ….
must be finally coming due.

Our HR leader’s 30+ strategy deck makes no sense. Gibberish. No wonder employees are not valued or recognized. There is no strategy.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

For record keeping going forward in history.

And we need them yesterday.

There are plenty of opportunities here if you count favoritism, being used, and watching other people get ahead. Leadership can lie or retaliate and somehow never seems to face any consequences.

Lululemon’s new CEO inherits a mess that looks like the one she left at Nike

https://fortune.com/2026/09/12/lululemon-new-ceo-heidi-oneill-leggings-sales-decline-nike-mess/

I wasn't aware until recently that severance is not law-mandated. What's to stop this leadership from offering it? It's not something that would surprise me at this point.

The funny thing is that the one thing we all seem to agree on is that we'd rather not be here. That's probably not the kind of teamwork leadership was hoping for.

It feels like there are more people managing meetings and reports than actually getting things done. Newer employees are especially sc--wed because they don't have many real leaders left to learn from.

Executives publicly say Guyana is a once in a life opportunity and then beat up teams internally and compare everything against Guyana. It makes zero sense.

https://www.ogj.com/general-interest/companies/news/55404137/barclays-conference-chevron-sees-venezuela-as-a-factory-development-exxon-says-operators-matter-more-than-ever

I'm hearing there could be reduction/consolidation for Sr. Directors/Directors this week. Music will stop. How many seats will remain? Consolidate more areas? Any intelligence?

With another reorg reportedly on the horizon (an annual fall ritual at this point), I wanted to share a few observations from peers and colleagues as events unfold. For those hoping this will lead to a major cultural reset at Comcast, the outcome may be more limited. The new CEO appears to be seeking input from the same executives and senior leaders who helped create the current problems. If those leaders remain after the reorg, they are likely to continue causing damage. That may not be what people want to hear, but it seems like the most likely outcome. Comcast is risk-averse, and while many companies use new executive leadership as a chance to clean house, that does not appear likely here.

Outside consultants may help with the mechanics of restructuring, but meaningful change will require leadership to hear directly from employees. Feedback from executives who have been here for years should be weighed carefully, especially if they contributed to the culture that now needs fixing. The new CEO needs to recognize that toxic and ineffective leadership has persisted because there have been few real consequences for the people responsible. Until that changes, Comcast will keep treating symptoms instead of addressing the root causes.

A piece of advice to those looking for another job: find yourself a boss that is proficient in the job you’ll be doing. This is based on my experience in N&T where we would get a boss after every reshuffle that had not much experience in the department they were taking over. They may have been a hard worker that did well in their previous position but that’s not enough to take on a completely different function. Amateur hour just doesn’t cut it and it creates a very awkward situation where you have to correct your boss or watch them make stupid decisions because they don’t know any better.

A boss that’s proficient in the job you’ll be doing can also provide guidance and help make correct decisions when there are multiple ways to skin the cat. I could never get a clear answer from my boss when I would present two valid options with the pros and cons of each. I would get a non-answer like “We have to do what’s right!” Like duh! Thanks for that enlightening answer!

I remember when getting hired here felt like a true start of a real career. You could move into different roles, get regular raises, earn promotions, and actually believe you'd have a future here. People stayed because there was something worth staying for. These days, that kind of loyalty doesn't seem to mean much to leadership.

VP for our org is based in India and has used these layoffs as pretext to totally decimate US employees.

He treats few remaining US employees as contractors and not part of his team.

IDC employees as "us" and US employees as "them" .

The product was incepted by the US employees when the VP never existed and slowly over time most of the US employees have been laid with systemic knowledge transfer.

Now the product has become a Sh-t show.

we have managers, directors, vp’s that do not even know the purpose and what it does, a cpu, gpu, cuda, or even a workload

I've never worked somewhere where so many decisions seem to make absolutely no sense. People will point out obvious problems with their reasoning and leadership just keeps going anyway. The latest VSPs and involuntary layoffs combo are the best example. We're being run by id--ts.

Please tell me while we were sitting in this smelly, stuffy office, they were not out hauling purple flags to the top of a mountain. Why go all the way to California where there are no Truist banks? They really could have done all that at Stone Mountain in Atlanta, or King's Mountain in Charlotte!

This company is a joke.

I’m surprised nobody posted this article.

https://www.fierce-network.com/broadband/verizon-ceo-dan-schulman-describes-himself-pretty-intense-guy

Finance Layoffs??? Why be mad at Finance? Seriously. They can only play the shell game for so long before the truth catches up. If leadership is failing, if the products are failing, if sales is failing, that’s not on Finance. Finance didn’t create this mess. They just finally stopped covering it up.

Firing Finance?
For what , telling the Executive Team the truth?
Finance didn’t make the decision to jack up pricing across the catalog. They only executed what they were instructed to do by the same people who have been making bone‑headed decisions for years.

And if anyone wants proof of how reckless these price hikes are, go look at the actual numbers:

Pride Foundations of Business MindTap:
• 2024: $80
• 2025: $105
• 2026: $160 depending on the option
• As high as $214 if you choose the MindTap with Mike Bikes SmartSims — a repurposed relic that should’ve been retired years ago.

Intro to Psychology MindTap:
• 2024: $80
• 2025: $105
• 2026: $127

Sellnow Comm MindTap:
• 2024: $52
• 2025: $58
• 2026: $105

These aren’t strategic increases.
These are panic‑driven revenue patches designed to cover massive losses the Executive Team doesn’t want employees or Apollo , to see.

And the pattern is obvious:
The biggest price hikes landed exactly where Cengage has the most volume and the most market share. That’s not coincidence. That’s volume‑based revenue manipulation.

Meanwhile, leadership shoved all existing business into the hands of Customer Success , a team already drowning , and then rolled out these price hikes in August, when schools were closed and faculty were on summer break.

Who risks their entire installed base like that?
Who gambles the business that pays the bills?
Who destabilizes the only revenue stream keeping the company alive?

Only an Executive Team that is completely disconnected from Higher Ed and obsessed with forcing numbers to look good for an IPO.

Apollo cannot possibly think this is acceptable.
You don’t increase revenue by punishing existing customers.
You increase revenue by winning business, not by pricing your way into a retention crisis.

Finance didn’t cause this.
Finance didn’t design this.
Finance didn’t push this.

Finance just stopped hiding it.
And now leadership is scrambling because the truth finally broke through the shell game

They (executives) truly believe you can run an oil refinery from the other side of the world using third rate talent.

Apparently the billions in profit were just not quite enough.

We no longer promote employees because they are hard working or knowledgeable in their fields. We only want compliant employees who will parrot whatever the latest acronym of the day.

Rockefeller would have been proud.

Well said, @az+1m29w550n

Uber's CEO announced a surprising strategy for recent layoff savings, stating the company will use the funds to reduce rider prices. This approach differs from typical corporate practice, where savings are usually retained as profit. The CEO also indicated that lower insurance costs will contribute to this pricing strategy. He emphasized that these moves are intended to boost rider engagement and increase trip volume. The company has not yet specified the extent or timing of fare reductions.

San Francisco, California

https://www.thestreet.com/employment/uber-ceo-makes-admission-about-layoffs-ride-fees

Why is song or whatever they now call it becoming dumping ground for id--ts flunk out of VP jobs elsewhere?