#leadership

Now that the passions have settled, can we have a normal, objective conversation about what we can expect from Takis? Not oh, he's the worst or he's the best rhetoric of the past week, but let's see what he actually brings to the table and how it'll affect all of us.

Leadership doesn’t want to be transparent because you wouldn’t like what they told you if they were transparent.

Mainly, that they are now not trying to manage a “comeback” as much as they are trying to manage “an orderly decline in Nike’s previously hegemonic industry position.”

Nike isn’t going away. But it is also no longer a growth company, and for several reasons I won’t get into here the company likely reached a plateau a few years ago. The market in which Nike was established and grew effectively no longer exists. Or at least, the old rules that allowed Nike to continuously succeed are no longer the rules.

As a result Nike needs to balance “doing what Nike has historically done” with the reality that the company still needs to significantly downsize. If you’re management, there’s no polite, nice, or pep-talk way to communicate that. So they don’t.

Like I said the reasons for Nike’s decline are multi-faceted and in some ways complex. Nonetheless the company IS now just trying to hang on to what it already has. Talk of a “comeback” is sort of what they have to say but make no mistake; leadership is not naive to broader market trends that disfavor any sort of tangible “comeback”.

My partner will sometimes put on some ugly clothes and ask me, “How do I look?” My partner likes those clothes. So I answer with “You look great!”, and leave it at that.

Should I instead be more transparent? Should I instead engage in “more honest communication”? Maybe. But will that improve matters? Or create a new problem neither of us needed?

One could argue Nike is being kind by not being fully transparent. I’m not claiming that would be a GOOD argument. Just an understandable argument. Because if Nike leadership was fully transparent about the current field of play and what it really means, my guess is that it 100% would not make people feel better.

An on point post, the OP is @20q+1ks86w36m.

What if, and hear me out, leadership focused on growing revenue instead of shrinking headcount? Wouldn't that be something? Too bad nobody here would ever try that.

Everyone - and I mean every single person - on my team is job hunting. Not all with the same urgency, but all of them. Leadership doesn't seem to notice or care. I think we'll see a major exodus of talent as soon as the job market improves even slightly. I bet they notice then.

I wonder if there's anything the leadership thinks is truly essential.

They want the easy magical solution that uses the cool new flashy thing.

The funny thing? AI can be leveraged by existing or new deterministic automation solutions where applicable. But the leaders making decisions aren't engineers, and have a view that applications can't evolve or add new features. That they have to build something NEW instead to show off and gain notoriety.

And so you get a cycle of projects gaining traction and getting ki-led off.

The competitive nature in which teams have to compete for funding has been a drastic mistake. It is profoundly stupid. I get it, you want teams to have some drive to make better solutions. But it doesn't work out in a company like Optum where non-technical people are even so close to engineering that they're directly managing the engineers. Instead what you get are good products and teams getting ki-led off in favor of unproven moonshot projects that exist solely to extract money from the business with no vision for the future.

Well said, @ag+1kt753mf9.

Xbox executives depart while Compulsion Games shuts down

Corporate leadership changes rarely come without internal shakeups, reorganizations, and layoffs, and Xbox appears to be going through that right now.

https://mashable.com/tech/microsoft-xbox-game-studios-layoffs-compulsion-shut-down

I'm honestly curious what better company you think exists where you'd have job security and leadership that "loves" employees. Please, share with the class.

The past 5 years have been such a mess for this company. Clients, Staff, and investors have all suffered through what Kelly, Bill-n-Bo (at the time), and the boards though would be a huge payday for them. SunTrust and BB&T were culturally and mission entirely different. Both organizations lost so many good bankers who went on to the new rising stars in banking, Seacoast, Pinnacle, M&T, TD, 5/3rd, Huntington. Clients left too, when they lost their trusted banker (can't name those here). Those people and clients will never return. I hope the organization is now turning the corner for everyone's sake. But...be sure, more changes are coming for clients and staff.

This is the perfect moment to think about exiting. Leadership has shown their true colors. We know they don't value people, but only care about their own bank accounts. Our reputation is completely shot and new talent won't touch us. Time for us to start looking out for ourselves.

Just a short note to wish everyone good luck at this stressful time.
Losing your job is scary but here are some things worth remembering if you get the chop.

It’s not personal, it’s not a judgement on your ability, work ethic or personality.
It’s the incompetent actions of a failing leadership.
You will feel a whole load of emotions, especially if you’ve been at fis for sometime.
Do not make rash decisions in the first few days.
Do try to be polite and professional despite the fact that they are treating you like sh!t. immediate managers handle these things in different ways. Some just read the script, others read the script as they must and then call you separately. Most of the time they have very little if any choice in who gets cut. On rare occasions the tw&t will expect you to spend your last days handing over everything you do to someone else. IF you can say no without losing any payout I’d say no. IF you would lose a payout by refusing, smile, say yes and maybe ‘get sick with stress’ 😊

Lastly remember it’s fis’ loss when you leave, not yours!

In the name of all that is holy, why is IT Leadership allocating scarce resources (headcount and salary & benefits) to fund this ITBM team? As you might guess this team is part of Strategy & Services department. The people in these positions do not have any real IT experience so you have to hold their hand on every discussion of anything IT related. Look at the salary range of these positions.....REALLY? FOR REAL?

IT Business Management Finance Leader: The expected compensation range for this position is $221,591 - $270,834, which includes base pay plus variable incentive pay, if eligible.

IT Finance Business Analyst:
The expected compensation range for this position is $124,127 - $151,710, which includes base pay plus variable incentive pay, if eligible.

https://www.reddit.com/r/accenture/comments/1ua0hce/accentures_well_deserved_downfall/

Accenture's well deserved downfall
Accenture’s stock just dropped about 18% in a single day, wiping out a good chunk of many employees’ ESOPs, including mine. Honestly, having worked there for 3 years, I'm not surprised.

The biggest issue I saw was the culture and incentives. MDs and client leads were rewarded for selling deals, not for delivering them. Secure the deal, hit the sales target, collect the bonus, then hand the mess over to the delivery team and move on. It didn’t seem to matter whether the right skills, resources, or realistic timelines existed. The answer was usually “Deal with it.”

When a system rewards revenue at all costs, you end up promoting people who care more about money than people. Delivery quality suffers, teams burn out, and the best talent leaves.

What makes it worse is that Accenture spent billions buying back its own shares (around $4.6B in FY2025 alone) while many employees sat through years of weak bonuses, delayed promotions, and increasing pressure during the years of worsening inflation. During this time, some of the smartest people I worked with left for Big 4s, boutiques, and industry roles. And when they leave, they don’t just take their skills - they take relationships, credibility, and networks with them.

I just hope some level-headed people on the board or in senior leadership recognize these cracks and do something about them. The company still has plenty of great people and decades of experience. It would be such a shame if such a massive organization falls in the end.

Tomorrow I’m logging into Gainwell, and honestly, I’m not happy before I even open my laptop. I’m just a regular worker, not some big-degree expert, just someone who learned by doing and is hanging on to this job because I have to and definitely not because the company makes me feel safe or valued. My boss is from Florida and she’s loaded - big house, fancy trips all the time, talking about “recharging” like the rest of us aren’t sitting here praying our name doesn’t end up on the next layoff list. When she says “we all have to tighten our belts,” I want to laugh, because if I get cut, I’m worrying about rent and food, and if she sc--ws up, she still has money stacked and options everywhere.

I see what’s going on in upper management. People are getting worked to the bone, jobs are being shipped off to cheaper places, and they slap the word “strategy” on it like that makes it smart instead of cruel. They sit in their meetings while people like me are burning out, stressed, and scared, wondering if today everything falls apart. Tomorrow I’ll still log in and do my job because I don’t have the luxury not to. My rich boss will be just fine no matter what happens at Gainwell. It’s people like me who get crushed when this place decides we’re just numbers on a spreadsheet.

If leadership cut the actual dead weight, it could make us stronger. But that's not what happens. They keep laying off key people from critical roles. The ones who keep things running and the ones who solve problems. And they keep the ones who don't do anything. This has been going on for years and it's crippling the company. It makes absolutely no sense.

Everyone with actual leadership ability has already left FIDO. The people running things now are only looking out for themselves. They don't care about the company or us. I'd leave today if not for the severance. With my salary and age, I'm almost positive I'll be cut within the next year.

I've been here long enough to remember the old days. When someone with real knowledge gave notice, management would scramble, make a counteroffer, promise to make necessary changes. They'd do whatever it took to keep them.

That doesn't happen anymore. I can't recall the last time someone stayed because they got a better deal from us. People give notice and management just says okay, good luck. That's not smart at all, in my opinion. It'll cost us in the end.

It is so frustrating to hear all about summer regionals, the importance of them bringing families together and continuing the culture blah blah blah. Meanwhile back in headquarters the minions are hard at work and all the fun and culture building things that used to exist are gone under PP reign. Too expensive, leave out the remote workers who chose to be remote, who get to work from home and see their kids during the summer, who get to wear sweats all day, no commute but the in office people can’t have any of the family connection, culture building activities they used to have. No bring your kid to work day, no real founder’s day-zip, zero, nothing. Oops, you still get the tricycle races which is more about the GPs participating and showing off than anything else. But make sure you know YOU MATTER.

Everyone in Engineering and tech roles are working 12+ hrs, Manu are working 16 hrs, and no one is giving appreciation even once. Except they want us to work more, this is unethical, and looks like they want us to leave before they do mass layoff

As we approach the midway point in 2026, nervousness is starting to set in for several employees in sales.

The narrative across the company is “We are not hitting our numbers.” Remember the numbers we are not hitting are those numbers set by the senior leaders. Senior leaders have far too often set unrealistic goals. The truth is our senior leaders should have seen the trends and adapted to them earlier but here we are sitting on the edge of our seats.

It’s time to rid the company of those individuals in sales that don’t speak with directly with customers. Running a branch of employees that only come on one or two days a week is not needed.

The days of clicking a button and watching the numbers grow are over.

What were they thinking? I look around at who's still here and who's gone and it's clear the best people are out and the worst people are still in. How did that happen? Either the decision makers only looked at spreadsheets or they're deliberately trying to make this company fail.

The clowns will be back from their circus this week to do nothing else but make stupid decisions and have the organization spin. It was great to not have my clown boss around so my team could get work done with total interruption educating them on how to basically function in business.

The utter incompetence does nothing but makes the organization spin. They need to be fired and promote some real leaders.

Do you think things would be different if in 2019/2020 instead of naming JD CEO they stayed internal going with either EH or ES?

It’s difficult to see employees lose their jobs while executive compensation remains so high. According to public filings, CEO compensation was approximately $18 million. Many affected employees gave years of service to the company, and the contrast between layoffs and executive pay raises legitimate questions about priorities

Why is that everything at IBM needs to orbit around a bunch of useless execs? And they are always having fun with ridiculous videos, such as this current one about watsonx challenge.

That's pretty pathetic. How can you be an effective leader of a massive corporation like Chevron when half the employees no longer respect you. Even DW at XOM has a higher approval rating.

Nearly every performance metric and benchmark set by the Board has declined during his tenure. It's long past time that MW retires and stop running a once great company into the ground.

https://newsroom.intel.com/corporate/ceo-letter-2025-26-intel-corporate-responsibility-report

As always, Intel CEO (or Mr. Ronery) is just full of word-salads, nothing in this letter mentions anything actionable nor shows any results of actions taken in the last 1+ year of his leadership. Just a lot of marketing talk and tries to show a tough stance on whatever "Corporate responsibility" is at Intel.

This guy is a clown along with the clowns he has hired from other companies (qualcomm and co). I'm glad i left this Circus when i had the chance, Intel is a sinking ship and will continue to lose leadership in the long run. Hopefully Intel goes bankrupt and we can put this horrible legacy to bed. Intel no longer leads and the world no longer needs Intel, the Industry has shown it does not need Intel anymore.

The world is better off without Intel.

Go to linkedIn and look up this guy and his article. Then read the comments on his LinkedIn post! LOL

Joseph Butler

Former Inc. 500 CEO| 2x E&Y Entrepeneur of the Year Finalist | Strategic Advisor | Board Member | Veteran Hiring Advocate | GTM Expert | Proverbs 21:13

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Everyone is reading the Fiserv headline as a scare. The stock dipped seven percent before lunch.

I think they have it backwards.

A sitting payments and core technology CEO just got hired to run one of the ten largest banks in the country. And he plans to partner with his old company as a client.
When your former CEO becomes one of your most influential customers, that is not a crisis. That is the loudest endorsement money cannot buy.
I wrote up why the Mike Lyons to Truist move is actually good news for Fiserv, for the market, and for every community bank and credit union watching nervously this morning.

Full breakdown in The Butler Brief.

#Fintech #Payments #Fiserv #Truist #Banking #FinancialServices #CommunityBanks #CreditUnions #CoreBanking #BankTech #Leadership

Is it a bit tone deaf that leadership teams are traveling to Mexico and Canada for “offsites” to attend World Cup games? Nike is a sports company and employees should embrace the World Cup but when increases are 0% to 2% and PSP will be , this might not be a priority when there will probably be more layoffs coming

Look, nobody knows jobs better than me. Nobody. And what Verizon is doing? Total disaster. A complete and total disgrace! They just fired 67 brilliant, incredible American workers from the NRB—the Network Repair Bureau. These are the people who keep the wires working, folks. Real Americans, tough, smart, the best. Gone! Just like that.

And where did their jobs go? India! They sent them to India. Unbelievable.

And you have to look at who is running the show over there. Dan Schulman—what is he doing? What a total lightweight. He comes in, he fires 67 of our great, hardworking American people, and for what? I thought these big corporate geniuses were telling us that "Agentic AI" was going to do everything. They said AI was going to fix the phones, fix the networks, make the coffee—everything!

So I have to ask: Are the people in India smarter than the AI? Or is Dan Schulman just completely clueless? I think we know the answer, folks. It’s a total mess. He can't figure out the AI, so he just ships the jobs overseas. Sad!

But let me tell you something, we’ve seen this story before. Remember Carrier AC? Carrier was going to move all those air conditioning jobs to Mexico, totally abandon Indiana. And what did I do? I stepped in, I made the call, and we saved over a thousand American jobs! The fake news said it couldn't be done, but we did it. We protected those workers, and they stayed right here in the USA where they belong.

And I am going to do the exact same thing for the Verizon workers!

We are not going to let these big corporate executives destroy American families and ship our legacy overseas. We have the best workers right here in America. We’re going to bring those jobs back, we’re going to look at Verizon, and we are going to take care of our people.

America First, folks. Always!

GC isn't workinmg out!

Meg joined BP with a lot of fanfare from media and industry group. The employees appear to admire and hope that she is a change agent who will bring about stability, profitability and a sense of purpose to a fragmented and often troubled company.

Will Meg deliver the goods? The company appears to have the same initiatives as MA did and she stood up the same BL and MA actors..”leaders” when will surgical cuts start appearing when will teams be right sized?

MaryAnne Morin out? DH announced new CMO effective 7/14……..whose next?

Over 70% of AT&T employees are over 50 years old… Let that sink in.

This company is rapidly approaching a point where a huge percentage of its workforce will be eligible for retirement, taking decades of knowledge and experience with them.

Normally that wouldn’t be a problem. You’d replace them with the next generation of talent.

But that’s the problem.

AT&T has made itself deeply unattractive to many professionals under 40. Five-day RTO. Presence reports. Badge tracking. Relocations. Constant uncertainty. Policies that feel like they’re from 40 years ago, not 2026.

The people leaving aren’t the ones with no options. They’re the ones who do have options. The ones with the skills they want to keep around.

And the people choosing where to start or build their careers are increasingly choosing somewhere else. The applications here have never been lower.

Leadership seems convinced employees are interchangeable. They aren’t.

You can replace a body. You can’t replace experience. You can’t replace institutional knowledge. And you can’t force talented people to join a company they don’t want to work for.

That’s the real risk….

Five years from now, what does this workforce look like if retirements accelerate, experienced employees keep leaving, and younger talent keeps looking elsewhere?

The answer should concern everyone, especially you, Stink!

The solution isn’t complicated… end five-day RTO, ki-l the presence reports, and start making this company a place people actually want to work again.

Because right now we’re not just losing today’s talent, we’re losing tomorrow’s too.

This company is #3 out of the big 3 in telecom with no chance of ever becoming #1 again. Things are headed downhill fast and this company is circling the drain. Time to make a change before it’s too late. Your move, Stinky-Legg and Gerbil Jeffy McSelfish!

Our leadership is so inept, they can’t even do layoffs properly!

If they did a large round of layoffs, it would make the news and they would get a temporary boost to the stock price. They could then reassure the remaining workforce that they’re done with layoffs for at least a year so everyone can focus on their work.

These seemingly random mini layoffs will hurt productivity bigly. They may be doing to avoid filing WARN but it’s still a bad strategy.

Just gonna drop this here for your morning reading...

https://underthetable2026.blogspot.com/?m=1

If we replaced the operating committee with AI agents trained on the latest groupthink, what would change.

nada.

These people have no clue.

I’m excited about my new role but I need help updating my LinkedIn profile. You better send me good suggestions if you don’t want to end up being eaten by sharks with lasers. Here’s what I have so far:

Visionary leader with a proven record of getting agreement and buy-in from all stakeholders. Skilled at tough negotiations. Recognized the world over for his outside the box and creative solutions to difficult problems.